beloved braincase, body’s bleeding heart
helmet law
dear ribs thick with implied meat, disused central
railroad, reverse spec house unplumbed
to propitious frame
dear double-strung forearm, dear violin bow,
dear pachyderm-eared pelvis, . . .
But sometimes it’s warm enough for the neighbor
to stand in the field
and brush out her horse’s tail. She knows the sun
slips through it.
The horse is two-toned, losing a winter coat, . . .
A “ghost ship” carrying hundreds of Syrian refugees including pregnant women and children has been towed safely to Italy after being abandoned by its crew.
—The Independent, Wednesday, 22 April 2015
What is your name?
Yes, . . .
You see, sooner or later, everything falters
into radiance. The smallest components of our pent-up
contingencies ignite. Energy shimmers in every cell.
This afternoon, for example, from the balcony
of my condo, in which I have lived exactly
three years, . . .
Someone’s sister in Europe writing her
adultery poems late night, half bottle
of wine pretty much required.
And they’re good, they really are—
The things one hears in an elevator.
Perfect strangers. . . .
Enters in the heroic mode, feathered
And helmeted, muscle-bound
For glory, smelling of scorch. Raise
That sword a little higher
If you can lift it and buckle your straps
Tight. Insert fanfare. . . .
June, 1985
If it had been night, the neighbors wouldn’t have stared at Ilsa in the back of the squad car. In darkness, the blue and red lights overhead might strobe her mother and Harold into sight, but Ilsa would have remained invisible. The fight was between those two anyway; . . .
Read more1.
In 1392, King Charles VI of France suffered the first of forty-four recorded psychotic episodes, turning on his soldiers and killing four before he was subdued. During subsequent bouts of insanity, he forgot he was king or thought he was Saint George, failed to recognize his wife, . . .
Read moreFor many years, I practiced the art of dying. During my enlistment as an active duty infantryman in the U.S. Army, I died more times than I can remember. I was blown up by a simulated hand grenade inside a mock village at Camp Rilea, on the Oregon coast. A sniper killed me as the snow fell in Fort Drum, . . .
Read moreIt looks like dancing the merengue,
like reading Anna Karenina on a tablet in the dark car,
the window’s greening glow against the night.
Or: like the horse in the stall waiting for the gun
and the gate thumping open. . . .