In the broadest sense, Lawrence Bridge’s The Fresh Fulcrum is a stream-of-consciousness snapshot of a person working outside in nature. Regarding his unique poetic voice, Lawrence explained, “I’m a forager. I seek mischievously and often, in my work, employ the deliberate use of shock while seeking the truth in human behavior. Poetic truth is justice. There is no fake truth at the end of a pencil. We suffer therefore we love and protect one another. This is the burden of self-consciousness. My poems attempt to freeze thoughts and images that change in front of me at high speed. I despair when I cannot write a poem before the moment disappears, but this often results in another poem, strange and rich with the movement of the mind through time.”
The Fresh Fulcrum
I’m privately the only calibrator
within miles of a warren of ultra-
speed rabbits designed to flee
enemies that have not yet evolved.
The remaining beings feed on grass
and I’m signed to rotate the fields
so slowly that no one, bot or body,
notices. It’s like changing the English
language by repeating the word “huh?”
All possible positions have been taken
though no visible signs exist of employment –
no wires and an electromagnetic blackout
throughout. I feel guilty that my work
doesn’t involve people, so it isn’t really work
in the sense that you could pick it up
and bite it to see if it’s soft metal. I’m pushing for a
move to Calgary to work moose and huckleberry.
Then I will smell the true scent of my character.
Lawrence Bridges
Lawrence Bridges’ poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and The Tampa Review. He has published three volumes of poetry: Horses on Drums, Flip Days, and Brownwood with Red Hen Press. Follow him on Twitter @LawrenceBridges, Instagram @larrybridges, and visit his website at http://www.LawrenceBridges.com.