Poetry

Some Writers in Wartime

What is essential as breath reduced to a squabble about moral parity to hold a brief for the party that orders death. Moral parody: ours is but to cook, serve, clear, speak when spoken to. * We will not swell the glory chorus, slaughter calling to slaughter like lovers possessed. Nor will we turn away….

More than Peace and Cypresses

More than peace and cypresses, emboldened hares at the field’s edge, Father, I love gallantry, tenacity, the sanguine heart before the ledge: the artist questing and failing— the feet of bested Icarus plunging into the sea’s crest— the artist triumphing: a page of fire from the book of heroes. More than light-hooved gazelles, views from…

A Spell to Wake My Brother

We will weave through the labyrinth of headstones to clear the patch of soil where you rest, to plant a tall palm with leaves that know that north sea breeze, to roast a suckling pig. The blood of this pig will mingle with your bones, tickle your limbs, awake the bomba y plena pulse. We…

A Sunday in God Years

Like someone trying to nap in a room with a glaring terrarium God rolls over but before resuming his dream where He’s a lover decked out in a sunbeam, He glances at the blue planet he made, at continents crashing and mountains popping up, at sheets of dirt settling in streams and streams settling in…

Chess Match Ends in Fight

As one opponent calling out checkmate an hour past midnight could crack a man already broken and bring allegations from his tongue, violence to his veins, bring him to rise and hip-knock the table so the legs screech, so the pieces quiver and topple, the bishop a salt shaker kissed by an elbow, bring him…

The Second Night

Outside the white cottage, a half-dozen chairs set out. A run of rocky fields washed by starlight. Full moon rising off the cliffs cutting a path to the islands. Inside the cottage, the sounds of children quieting themselves. The slow scrape and rattle of chairs dragged across a linoleum floor. Last stir of footsteps fading…