GAS Featured Poet: Henry Stanton

 Henry Stanton is a painter and a writer of poetry and fiction living in Old Ellicott City Maryland, though he is really only a conduit for the many remarkable and beautiful revelations offered to him by his loved ones, by strangers, by the sentient and otherwise.    His paintings, poems and fiction have appeared widely in print and online journals internationally – most recently in Gnashing Teeth, High Shelf Press, Paper and Ink Zine, and Rust Belt Review.  He has two books of poetry published by Holy & Intoxicated Press, The Man Who Turned Stuff Off (2019) and Pain Rubble (2020).  His third book of poems, Moonbird, was also published in 2020 by Cathexis Northwest Press.  His poetry was selected as winner of the A3 Review Poetry Prize  and was shortlisted for the Eyewear 9th Fortnight Prize for Poetry.  His fiction received an Honorable Mention for the Salt & Syntax Fiction Contest and was selected as a finalist for the Pen 2 Paper Annual Writing Contest.  Henry Stanton is a regular illustrator for Black Petal Press and Yellow Mama Press.  He is also a regular reviewer for GAS: Poetry, Art and Music and publisher/editor for UnCollected Press/The Raw Art Review.  A selection of paintings, poetry and fiction can be found at  www.brightportfal.com. 

Irises

Looking into the speckled blue throat of this iris

could a mind do this

can a thought finely turned

open like this

for two glorious weeks

and be shimmering blue beauty hanging in memory

this beautiful throat has opened 

and says nothing so quietly it can be heard

it is a bottomless throat

i have heard it called an artichoke

an onion

i have called it other things myself

and now the iris is singing

and i am as silent as it sings 

and can hear petals shiver the air

Names

I want to hear your heart 

so I push my head up under your shirt and listen

the other night after heaving and sobbing

you said

my heart hurts again

I gather up all the innocents in my arms at these times

and now you laugh with your brother over the phone

it washes away all the upset I feel

I am both joy and sorrow wearing your robe

outside the wind cries

the names

carrying them away.

(For Jennifer)