Writer of the Quarantine: Kurtis DeLozier

Kurtis DeLozier is an award-winning author and Oklahoma native poet who has been writing since he could read the books of Shel Silverstein. DeLozier’s work has been published by Red Earth Review, Dragon Poet Review, Noisetrade, Art Cult Zine and others. To keep busy during quarantine, he has been taking creative writing commissions. Feel free to contact DeLozier on social media for commissions.

“Love Letter From the Sun”

Swinging low, full moon,
I want to eat you like a snack,
a hot marshmallow melting the night
between two graham crackers.
Swinging low, full moon,
like a token to play tonight’s game.

I took a dive at your specular reflection;
Turned out to be the shallow end.
Damned crescent, changing tides.
Your smile makes me want to run
my fingers through your heart,
your rivers flow into my waning state.

When you’ve had your fill,
I want to die in my sleep,
so we can meet as soon as possible.

“Prince Charming”

You can charm the pants off a stone
you amphibian, you frogged prince.
The lyre of your ribbit rivets my soul.
To kiss the wet lips, the crawling smile
is a trip, a lick to the back of my mind,
tingling against the inside of my pineal gland
like a fly cruising against windows to feel
the faux freedom under its wings.
Your tongue, your sticky, elongated,
flexing tongue, snags this flight of fancy
and brings back the feels, holding me there
on your lotus flower of lily-white lies surrounded
by the garden pool of my yesterday.

“Goin’ South on I-35”

I saw JESUS stretched across
the side of a semi-truck trailer
going west on an overpass,
looking for a metanoia of the highway,
a godsend on the interstate.

Repentance from “abortion is murder”
billboards blurred by multitudes
of pot ads — blessed be the farmers
hauling low crop yield to local markets —
an OSU student heading south for Bedlam,
tribal casinos supporting education,
and human traffickers hail mary
at the upcoming junction.

How many people got what they prayed for
going 80 on the interstate?
How many reached salvation?
Every time I cross the Red River,
the Texas lord shows me a sign:
DW’s Adult Video.

“What My Refrigerator Told Me”

Can and will perform
as deeply aesthetic impressionism
and the rose. For want looms
like an angry drunk driver,
like the morning sea swell aches,
softened by silly lily pad pleas
and paddled with balanced payback.

I’m a healthy advocate of symphonic thinking
and the choice to wear pants.
The approach, head ringing, hand-wringing,
fiery frantic fidgeting, rigid metal monuments
smeared by the flood over languid, dusty white talk,
fiddling ship, bow and breathe easy iron lung.
The American flag strung up and poled
in the shadow wing, kept in the miasma club,
the mad model clothed in ugly gowned shards.

Pounded into the dry fall,
the fidgety circle of repurposed material
wishing the blues were back.
The cat stood at the darkest heart’s night,
ending in a cold sweat, got put in his place
one day, a piece of barn broke off,
the milk turns brown; get the cow
to save the moon.
Are you eating because you’re hungry,
or because you’re bored?

“Reaching for the Forest”

A tree in isolation, rooted,
reaching for the forest.

My father once told me proudly,
“A flower grows where it’s planted.”
“I’m not a flower! I’m a tree!” I objected,
like the maple in our front yard
with winged seeds, shaken from branches,
taken by blustery Oklahoma winds.

From the curb, I face my childhood home,
alone and fixated on the old maple.
Gale force gusts detaching whirlybirds
from her limbs, blowing memories
across the plains, sending them
spiraling down around me,
a tree in isolation, rooted,
reaching for the forest.