Poetry

The deer has the eyes of a deer in headlights. I must have them too, sitting in the car, driving. The deer came out of nowhere. It is magic. It’s the kind of magic you wish wouldn’t happen. The deer must be thinking the same about me. The road came out of nowhere, this man…

Our dead will not congregate but come to us, distinctly, as they were: her stooped majesty, his cold dreamy self, that darling girl’s sly smile, which could be why, when I have them meet in heaven or here at night in my room, they make absolutely clear in the way they don’t open their mouths…

In the train, in the dim glass, you, long dead, slip your face over mine. A mask, a shade, a past that is somewhere there, in the dark but not here, nor in any other scored-out street my dog-eared notebook holds, not here, your voice gone, your name caught in a fold of paper in…

from Çekoslovakyalılaştıramadıklarımızdanmısınız or Long Words,a sequence of poems that take their titles from the English translationsof long words in various languages. This poem is drawn from  Pinakanakapagpapabagabag-damdamin, a word in Tagalog. is qualified by an inserted parenthesisthere is of course a difference between disturbing and upsettingbut that is registered fairly deeply in the person saying…

Ramphal sat in the section of Georgetown Cinema Called The Pit, right up under the big screen Where all the bad boys congregated To hoot, whistle, and offer slapstick outbursts, Even instructions to the cast, as the film rolled. Next day, in a corner of the schoolyard, He narrated whole westerns to us, Starring Audie…

Already dying, she would lead the way to a table Full in the window and watch out eagerly Over the hurry of life under the sun, drank this Till the coffees came, then woman to woman Asked after my life that would continue a while yet Beyond hers. The heart side, she asked, What of…

And in that same tempest the Austrian Ambassador Fearing he stood on the brink of drowning Flung his snuffbox, on whose lid was painted His mistress naked, into the sea. Unlikely He hoped this would persuade the god Poseidon To rebuke the wind and the wind would cease And there’d be a great calm. No,…

Where did the dust come from and how much of it do you have? When and where did you first notice the dust? Why didn’t you act sooner? Why don’t you show me a sample. Why don’t you have a sample? Why don’t you take some responsibility? For yourself, the dust? Personally I’ve never suffered…

She thirsts for her lamb, minutes old, still-born and cooling in a cold dawn, licking him clean with a growl of love till you turn her away, steal the corpse and rip with the hiss of the blade in a single tear throat to tail. The stripped flesh is a breath of steam, delta of…