Daniel Lusk
Daniel Lusk is author of eight poetry collections and other books, most recently Every Slow Thing, poetry (Kelsay Books 2022) and Farthings, eBook (Yavanika Press 2022). Well-known for his teaching and widely published in literary journals, his genre-bending essay, “Bomb” (New Letters) was awarded a Pushcart Prize. Native of the prairie Midwest and a former commentator on books for NPR, Daniel is a Senior Lecturer of English Emeritus at the University of Vermont.
Poetry News
This poem was reprinted in the June 1, 2025 issue of The Ekphrastic Review.
Paleo Truleo
—after a photo in the July 1969 National Geographic
by Malcolm Kirk
Clay man waits for ancestor to come.
Blue clay on his skin, flaking.
Waits a long time.
Clay jar a crude hive on his head.
Holes for breathing.
Whisk of magic leaves in his hand.
He is Quiet, awaiting the whisper
when old one comes.
To tell. To command. To sing.
Inside his mask
is the center of the world.
Where Silence is the heart’s thunder.
He is practicing an uncertain word.
To still the hammer of his pulse
in the jar. To mend his stammer.
He awaits the invention of ink.
Singing to himself. No self.
Cry like a rainy day.
Daniel Lusk
Barrow Street 2017,
Every Slow Thing © 2022
