In Soweto today, two black men, one in the rulers' blue, one in civilian drab—ankle-length britches, a shirt whose once-distinct stripe has faded— faced one another. Each believed the other would take what the believer had—his power, his life— and believed that he, in that instant of history, embodied the force of history. I do…
Hazed with harvest dust and heat the air swam with flying husks as men whacked rice sheaves into bins and all across the sunstruck fields red flags hung from bamboo poles. Beyond the last treeline on the horizon beyond the coconut palms and eucalyptus out in the moon zone puckered by bombs the dead earth…
Ripsaw whine across the picture dome of day dividing blue from blue: the steady Munch-like scream of Flight 630's engines as we sat there minute after minute on the runway trapped, until I saw my broken body kicked & pitching forward, one more dead American sure he was going someplace else, dumped instead onto the…
Coming from the wings, he leapt onto the raised opera-set built to lift his libretto—ten years of work— into the national atmosphere of fanfare, and he missed: down on his stomach, pasted prone, a spread-eagled grunt, and a gasp from the audience that sucked up applause for the two or three seconds it took him…
The noose rests lightly on the lamp Restraining No engaging it to memorize these details that charisma drawn from the well of a broken circle
Though my tenancy there ended long ago —when I moved his mistress's pet dwarf orange trees out into the snow— I still live in the closeness of that first summer the deserted comb flowed in the wall and I dodged old honey dripping on my pillow. It tasted saplike, woody, a thick auburn beer. I…
He wanted to tell me something He had not told anyone before It might have been anything When he moved through the door He had not told anyone before Unsure of what he wanted to know When he moved through the door And took off all his clothes Unsure of what he wanted to know…
An iron meteorite is on display in Beijing Planetarium. I said: Once a brilliant orb, who left nothing but this remnant, You mishap of an early death caused by impatience. How disciplined your companions are To hold their assigned courses, never moving an inch away. You exchanged humility and trepidation for enduring peace And have…
I felt restored: smokeless stars, clear quiet, a sprinkling of months. And then—I'd never heard such a sound as my neighbor Shirley loosed, mourning her mother, wailed toward the faith-proof Beyond which kept her dead parent from spring on earth. My friend cried to stars the yelp of an animal. On a tape I made,…
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