OVID’S CREEK

SAM MAGAVERN
ART BY MONICA ANGLE

B LA ZE VO X[ B OO KS ]
Buffalo, New York
Ovid’s Creek
by Sam Magavern, Art by Monica Angle
Copyright © 2023

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover Art by Monica Angle
Art photography by kc kratt

First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-433-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023935381

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Kenmore, NY 14217
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 Ovid’s Calf

I weighed 92 pounds at
birth.
I could stand within 55
minutes on my own

spindly legs. My brown

irises filled with light.

My hooves sank slightly

into warm, dark earth.

12
Ovid’s Youth, XVI

I was myopic and fat.

My physique – weak.
Hated to run, swim,
throw discus, wrestle.

Never won a raffle or

lottery,
much less a laurel
wreath. But from

the hour I could speak,

I knew how to baffle.

13
 Ovid’s Greek Diner, 1981

What did we talk

about,
Virgil, all those
hours at the Greek

diner? I have no
idea now. Today
I’m a cold faucet

that drips. Then

I was an open spout.

14
 Ovid’s Salamander

I stand ankle-deep
in
a glittering creek.
I know some things

I can’t understand.

The red eft wriggles

easily out of
my clumsy hands.

16
Ovid’s Haberdasher, 1844

How sad, Ralph Waldo,

the day
you sat writing in your
sun-splashed room and

discovered that even

the raw, naked self was

a costume
pulled down off a shelf.

19
 Ovid’s Meditations

Cows sleep only four hours

per day.
They ruminate for eight.

When you see me lying

down,
glasses off, pen in the air,

I’m not “doing nothing.”

I’m chewing my fate.

20
Ovid’s Tractacus

What we cannot speak

about
we must indicate with

sighs, shouts, grunts,

tears, and shrieks.

Even a squirrel’s riot

of chatter
is better than a sage’s
austere quiet.

21
Ovid’s Goose Egg

King Lear was not a hero,

but
the butt of a fool’s sharp
jokes. And yet he broke

open the zero – nothing –

goose egg –
& released a golden yolk.

23
Ovid’s Love, 1983

You are an anti-Medusa.

Your dark pupils, green

irises,
warm, sunlit, rain-rinsed

gaze changed stone-

dead nights to flowering
days.

25