English Poems

With a boil the size of an egg
protruding from her right hip,
she knows what I must do,
and to stall me has locked herself
inside the bathroom, bargaining
for a way out.

But it’ s too late: I’ ve seen
the oozing wounds stopped up with bits
of toilet paper and tape, the scarified
pockets that crater the surface
of her arms, buttocks, thighs.

A mean fix torched her last vein
years ago, and she’ s been banging the dope
ever since, puncturing her body
like a juju doll. She wants to kick,
but not now.

It used to be more private — just the
immediate family gathered after mass,
the baptismal font at the rear
of the church tiny as a bird bath.
The priest would ladle a few teaspoons’
tepid holy water on the bundled baby’ s
forehead, make a crack about the halo
being too tight as the new soul wailed.
We’ d go home to pancakes and eggs.

Gift of a friend, the stone Buddha sits zazen,
prayer beads clutched in his chubby fingers.
Through snow, icy rain, the riot of spring flowers,
he gazes forward to the city in the distance — always

He will not light long enough
for the interpreter to gather
the tatters of his speech.
But the longer we listen
the calmer he becomes.
He shows me the place where his daughter
has rubbed with a coin, violaceous streaks
raising a skeletal pattern on his chest.
He thinks he’ s been hit by the wind.
He’ s worried it will become pneumonia.
In Cambodia, he’ d be given
a special tea, a prescriptive sacrifice,
the right chants to say. But I
know nothing of Chi, of Karma,

Treachery abounds, look
inwards! Your bird jangles its small
swing. You’ re getting sleepy, very
sleepy. In a vulnerable tyranny.
Leave for now the marksmen to
their desolations, they ruin everyday
life. & luck can’ t do anything
about the undying devotion of
the undead, putting their backs
to the bus shelter while
crumbs still stick to the dishes.
I guess someone is a king of France & apart
from whom nobody is a king of France. Same
rockstar, different poem. I like icons

Bit weird at first,
That starey look in the eyes,
The hair down past his shoulders,
But after a go with the ship’ s barber,
A sea-water shower and the old slouch hat
Across his ears, he started to look the part.
Took him a while to get the way
A bayonet fits the old Lee-Enfield,
But going in on the boats
He looked calmer than any of us,
Just gazing in over the swell
Where the cliffs looked black against the sky.
When we hit he fairly raced in through the waves,

Whenever I touch the cairn
marking the summit
of one of my parents,
touch the top stone,
an animal caution comes over me,
sinew and muscle like the brook’ s,
a sudden shivering
green-brown flame.
Soon they will be constellations,
and I a small tower of stones.

Haze of wave spume towards Small Point,
Seguin Island Light like a whale's spout —
maybe life washes itself here, cools off.
It never comes clean. See all the sails up
and full in the windy parade of skin
and sand and brine. Soon the rocks will pluck
each wave's feathers. Soon the beach
like the moon, waning, will be 1/8th its size.
Somewhere else — maybe Ireland — the tide

american indian
outside the guthrie
forever wounded
by tributes
high western
movie mockery
decorations
invented names
trade beads
federal contracts
limps past
the new theater

wounded indian
comes to attention
on a plastic leg
and delivers
a smart salute
with the wrong hand

precious children
muster nearby
theatrical poses
under purple
tapestries
castles
and barricades
on stage
with reservation plans

east

the whole moon
burns behind jamestown

seven wings of geese
light the thin ice

west

the asian sun
bloody on the interstate

spring flowers
break on the gray prairie

exit

fingerprints
on the rearview mirror

feral shadows
transposed near fargo