Peter Douglas
THE ACTOR
Blackened ceiling, empty paint, boarded,
tall, cathedral windows little sun
needles through -- warm white trumpeting track
light and water of love, piped in -- scene
played out again.
Workless actor sitting,
posing, reminiscing on a mossy
chair, attentive to a spot where she
grabbed his hands and drove them trembling
soft into the drum of thick green paint
they were covering the stage with. Back
to their Bishop’s Garden -- huddled minor
poet of the urban grass -- abandoned
task and lovers lay down under maple
sapling growing out of messy ankle
hedge, and tea-rose, cashmere neck fills him
like November pie. Congealed
green industrial paint sunk tendrils, inky
roots deep in their cuticles --
he will
never wash these flecks and chips of young
passion out, like lines from plays long ghosted,
you keep saying them, love in, love out.
Posed, transfixed on faultless, greenless floor,
he is voiceless, motionless. Reliving
is his lifeline, drifting in the window
chinks of hummingbird and breath and memory.
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Date of Birth:
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12/12/78
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Location:
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Stanford, California & Washington, DC
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Email:
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peterdouglas@stanfordalumni.org
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Publications:
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The GW Review, The Hollins Critic, The Mind’s Eye, Paperplates, Rattapallax, The Red Booth Review, Stirring V3:E3, V3:E5, The Tucumcari Literary Review, The Wisdom Project, Writer’s Journal
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