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Casualties
1. Everything has to be lined up exactly in its place, no deviation allowed even the minutest deviation is obnoxious, unacceptable, you know what I mean utterly in line, like soldiers People aren’t lined up, most people go off in obscene angles, they’re careless don’t give a shit about rules…
Refugees
Across my dining table’s small expanse of space, children with fly-flecked eyes stare through a screen which flickers with a chance of staying alive—this is not high definition television—but the warping image doesn’t stir the flies—they keep locked on those young faces, scarping trenches through yellow matter oozing deep from…
Cross Reference
Just before he dropped the bomb, he asked, “Do we all agree that this is Hiroshima?” He had to be sure. He had to check. He was a careful man. I am a proofreader, a researcher. I get it. The importance of cross-referencing. He asked his crew, “Do we all…
Oblivion
The sky, this Arabian sky, boils out dry dust a hundred mile thunderhead of dirt and heat beats out a coded hymn that lusts for oblivion; I am erased, this Wind unseats the flesh, a speck of spittle nameless and forgotten moment, unnoticed defeat. Somewhere a woman abides, with mistaken…
Trojan Women
“What’s Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her?” Cast as understudy for Cassandra, I was plainly not the drama coach’s favorite. Face it, I was plain. The chosen girl had hair that flamed, also a mad look that settled in only for rehearsals. Outside,…
Uncle Sam Wants You
UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU naked, puts his digit up your stern, jiggles your jigglies, says, Cough. No matter what he finds, or doesn’t, you’re going. He turns you into nobody from somebody, from nobody into everybody, feeds you what once passed through you, bellows, “Kill!” same time killing you. Does…
Scarlet Seconds After the Last March
I. Perched on Har Megiddo Don’t waste your time I’ll tell ye right now Buddy when ye pray ye pray to me not any of Yer idols or coffee sepia ikons that ye got in that Dirt-and-solace look’n rucksack or yer everyman Ideas about whose hand it is what holds…
Col. Gabriel
To him, no one ever says “Pandora's Box.” The uniformed salute. The uninformed just smile, know him as “good ol' Col. Gabe,” the most unreadable face in the staff poker game. And no one anywhere in his corner of the highest security sector at the White House finds it even…
A-bomb Dome, Tancho, I Have Begun the Folding of Cranes
A-BOMB DOME Coming on it from the northeast on an early spring afternoon, it is all in soft shadow. Dark but not brooding dark. Yet a brooding settles on the ragged shape, its open dome of twisted girders like wrought filigree wrenching the sky within into tortured forms of blue,…
This Is How I’ll Tell It When I Tell It to Our Children
The soldiers came around, kicking up dust, calling for women. We saw that they were only boys, with guns like toys, and shook, but they began to shout, and fall down, and get up, laughing. They threw pebbles, flower petals, clods of dirt, pine needles. When swung by their arms,…
FNG, Get Some, Hadji
FNG This is your rack—keep it made and sleep on top of the covers. This is your dresser; this, your wall locker. Keep them locked. There’s only one thief around here: everyone else is just trying to get their shit back. This is the shop. Be here tomorrow morning dressed…
So I Was a Coffin
—For Corporal Kyle Powell, died in my arms, 04 November 2006 They said you are a spear. So I was a spear. I walked around Iraq upright and tall, but the wind blew and I began to lean. I leaned into a man, who leaned into a child, who leaned…
No Socks
Why does my truck radio always wait until I am in the bottom of some canyon, before bellowing out, “unit seven”? That voice had to be the District Manager since there’s only him and a clerk at the office today. On the days I read meters, a temporary clerk staffs…
Under the Surface
It’s precarious really, no matter the amount of make-up, you can never be beautiful. No matter the sublime surgery, you incessantly wish you were someone else. To always know that you can never find love because hidden underneath the happy personality, you know you’ll never be worth keeping. It’s called…
The Color of Tomorrow
I love colors. When I was six years old, I first learned the names of all the colors in English from Papa. He told me the midwife named me Neela, because I turned blue seconds after arriving. No one knew if I'd live past day one. Mommy's cord was my…
The Skedaddler
I remember a trip we took around my tenth birthday. A mighty blizzard had been blowing for over a day, with snow like I had never seen. We were on board a steamer, the Carrie Martin, heading to Falmouth, Virginia to visit General Hooker and his army. There was Pa…
The Healing Heights of Machu Picchu and Dear Madame Renaud
THE HEALING HEIGHTS OF MACHU PICCHU Then up the ladder of the earth I climbed through the barbed jungle’s thickets until I reached you, Macchu Picchu. —Pablo Neruda, “The Heights of Macchu Picchu” “And now we will go up to this temple of the Inca,” said Eddy, our crinkly-eyed guide.…
Letter to Sylvia
It was the dead of winter, February 1980, when I first became aware of your movements. So subtle, at first, like a fish swimming in my belly. I felt growing excitement and the peacefulness of familiarity. The pregnancy, my third, was settling in and unfolding as it should…nothing unusual, I…
Stranger in the Snow
The blustering wind whirled large snowflakes across the ground and thrashed them across the windshield of my car. I parked in the garage of Lincoln’s Public Works as I did every workday for the past eight years, but this was one day I hated to be there. Before getting out…
The Neighborhood Pig
“The Tudors got a pig!” B.J. skids into the kitchen on mud-covered soles. All she can see of me is my rear end. The rest is stuffed deep in the cupboard next to the sink. “Three cans of applesauce, one of corn, twenty-five tomato sauce, why did Don get so…
Searching for Father—A Tale of Repentance, Redemption and Resurrection
A LITTLE BOY'S QUESTION: It was a happy childhood in my Gran's home, in Bristol, England. I was a well-loved only child by my mother and I felt I was the “apple of my grandmother's eye”. Happy and content though I was, there was the inevitable question that one day…
Sleeping Beauty — Au Courant
Prologue Sleeping Beauty's a tale of a princess of yore, it's a classic love story we've all heard before. The Frenchman Perrualt was the first to compose, Brothers Grimm wrote a version they called “Briar Rose”. Tchaikovsky adapted it into Ballet, and Walt Disney's version is well known today. To…
The Golden Fox
poem not available online at this time
The Cravin
with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe Once upon a midnight boring, while her husband lay there snoring, Quite fatigued from rugged work-a-day, as many husbands are; While he lay there nice and cozy, chubby cheeks all warm and rosy, In the middle of his doze, he was awakened by her…
Brother and I
We walked across the fences bisecting home from home, On foot by foot across the wobbly wooden ones Or smooth concrete—we dreaded those, Embedded with the shards of broken bottle glass. (Where I grew up it was essential To keep out the thieves and little boys Who crept and darted…
The Path to a Village
A path passed before never taken never even seen now beckons A path once a road some bits of pavement remain to remind, that is all Soil has encroached foliage has narrowed it decades have upheaved it potholes and pebbles render walking unsteady Lupines line this path, purple sentries saluting…
An Overcast Morning on Mulberry Street
I take my coffee out to the front porch and settle into my green painted rocker. Doesn’t match the rest of my porch furniture, but I can’t get rid of it because sinking into this chair on a cool morning with a book and an oversized cup of coffee on…
Time Pieces Restored
Buzzed in to her bleached blonde (teased too) domain, I hear no ticks, no tocks, no bells, no hums. It's close, no room to move beyond the case. She's caged behind the glass, approaching me. We speak above rows of old stopped watches. I pass my slip through the cup…
juror number twelve
juror number twelve? there he is: squinty eyes, maybe thirty or so, trim, fit, hair combed neatly, parted just right mister congeniality with a real estate license, he’s a trifle flirty but he seems proud of his pretty wife and two kids—plus one in the oven—the family ensconced in a…
Friends
It was the coming home from school Never knowing what to expect That binds us. The blasted hope When everyone was Nicey-nicey That somehow It would stay That way And always feeling disappointed —If not exactly surprised— When it didn’t. Unlatching the front door, Wide-eyed girls in ponytails, Plaid uniforms…
Playstation Universe
1. The Juggler The boy was mothered by the soft spin of cloud over the white tumble of rolling waves, his eyes at home to dolphins, to flying fish, to autumn leaves, crows and starlings flung to the sky like a deck of cards, fluttering with wild cries, carried merciless…
Gifted
My little sister likes to read Harry Potter books. Will spend an entire afternoon doing nothing but something she’s not supposed to be able to do. Don’t be fooled, though, by the fluttering pages in her palms, she’s channeling Da Vinci: inverting words like a fresh bruise turned tangerine orange.…
Vibrations
Like the big mug in the Window of Gene’s Tavern, The sky is neon blue. The sign flashes on and off and Buzzes like a Thousand sleepy bees. I close my eyes. The sky buzzes, too. Zzzzzzzzzzzz… It is softer than the sound of the blue mug, But I feel…
Camp Four Jeffrey, Inyo County, CA
I. On the way east, Hwy 108 where logging trucks once roared, gears shifting down, solid coffin loads of seemingly rolled cigars, strapless dresses displayed in open-air street bazaars. The silent theatre of moonlight was there, remembering, and disrobing into night. By day, this mountain road has us police human…
Almost Light
The overgrown rail track is dry and withered, the trapped dust chokes and the sleepers have restless days. Khaki weed a foot high grows between the rail tracks and Never-Let-You Go branches tack onto old trees. He sees her from his window overlooking the disused track and wonders what she…
From Tending Sheep to Confusion on the Amtrak 10:50
in memory of Louis Korologos i. The Father I remember why love starts with a story. In the long amber days of 1958, I was ten. The story was part of our family skin, stretched across our communal body, protecting all who were inside from incursion. Your great-grandfather died at…
A Wake in the House
Traveling the world of my Grandpapa’s stone house through the hallways and twilight rooms, from the brightly-lit kitchen where the men, sitting at the table or standing around the stove with work shirt sleeves rolled up, drank Grandpapa’s red wine and played brisc at the table, getting so tipsy they…
For Antoine
After Kenneth Koch I love you as a widow loves the memory of pancakes on Tuesday morning with her fourth and best husband, who brought her the blackberries she dropped into the pancakes frying on the stove. Love is never having to worry your beloved will hate your pancakes. Who…
Pizza Is a Vegetable, I Say
Something is creeping around the garden, watch out! A new sort of vegetable growing from a sprout. Flat and bubbly, all cheesy and round, A vegetable called “Pizza” coming right out of the ground! Seed of tomato (puree), milk? of one cow, Grease from somewhere, I don’t know how, Powdered…
The Ballad of Spurgeon’s Cottage
When Charles Spurgeon was sixteen, in eighteen fifty one, his mentor Mr. Vinter tempted him to Teversham. A young man would be preaching there who wasn't used to speeches, and company might help preserve his dry unsoiled breeches. As Charles and his colleague walked along Newmarket Road, he found to…
Stolen Kiss
One day I stole a kiss from you and put it in my pocket I gently took it home with me, Gazed thereon adoringly, Then to keep it near my heart, I placed it in a locket. The next day there were “Wanted” signs on every post and board. “Please…
The Valiant Little Tailor; or, Seven at One Blow
I'm thinking of a certain land; And in it, on a summer morn, A tailor who is deft of hand But squat of frame, and squat of form Is sitting, quiet, and forlorn; The sun shines on his table glowing. He sits here, busy, sad, and sewing. This little tailor's…
The New Yorker Comes A-Calling
Dear Ms. K, We heard you were thinking of submitting to The New Yorker. Wonderful! We wait with bated breath for your Poem. That twisted little vignette that slices through our thick veneers and makes us face our cowering inconsequence. So, come on, just submit it. How about, you could…
The Charge of the Light Weights
1 Half a pint, half a pint, Half a pint downward, All in the valley of pubs Walked the six Light Weights. “Forward the uni club! Charge for the bar!” he said. Into the valley of pubs Walked the six Light Weights. 2 “Forward the uni club!” On to another…
Ode to a Turkey
(with apologies to John Keats) 1 My head aches, and a gnawing hunger stings My gut, as though I hadn’t eaten lunch, But been compelled to witness feasting kings Who gorged themselves on turkey legs and punch: ‘Tis not because of nature-given bliss, But only due to joy to wander…
Luke Skywalker’s Da Punk
Luke Skywalker's da punk who used to fly a T-16 skyhopper and bullseye onetwothreefourfive wompratsjustlikethat Ani he was a rebel man and what I want to know is how do you like your Jedi boy Mister Darth
The Twelve Months of Puberty
In the first month of puberty My body cursed on me: A budding bosom in a small tee. In the second month of puberty My body cursed on me: Two pubic hairs and A budding bosom in a small tee. In the third month of puberty My body cursed on…
My Bus Will Go On
(Based on “My heart will go on” by Celine Dion, and inspired by my high-school heartache—missing the school bus every morning.) Every morning at nine from my window, I see you, I hear you, That is how I know you’ll, Go on. Far across the distance, and spaces, Between us,…
New Vile Cuisine
You hear about cuisine that is très haute, but rarely of exotic, striking fare, still less of chefs who actively promote such dishes which they fashion with a flair. To start with, some prefer potage zygote, or aphrodisiacal paw of bear. Read on for offbeat Cordon Blur cuisine to tempt…
Whimsy for Willy
His penis is so beautiful I just want to knit it a hat. —Rafi Gardet A bit of haberdashery: I shall top your red-haired stranger with a Stetson, Mr. Winky in a kiss-me-quick porkpie. Knit one, purl two: your shlong in a kippah, your bobby in a tam, Mr. Happy…
