Poetry

It happened like this: he lived in a palace which was also a prison. You understand how nothing is ever simple. He had built a labyrinth for the king’s monster son,   a great service, which came with a secret. One for the king, one in the builder’s head. Be reasonable, could the king ever…

I call my father on the phone it’s twenty years today My mother died and his life turned sorry And he’s filing his fishing hooks smoothing down the barbs He’s going to throw back every bass in Minnesota When Grandfather died death stood way over there In a gray sharkskin suit directing the mourners When…

A knot of string, crossed sticks, a dab of ink— can’t any work begin as a passionate doodling? So here is another of his constructions: a wooden   cow, but so skillful even the bull was tricked. You see, one must reckon with the jaded boredom of queens. During the drawn-out days, she lusted  …

I love to find a door. Like the spinal tap— above the draped fetal curve, you work the trocar inwards. Dowser, boatman, auger, bore. Every surface has its opening, even bone. Steel finds fossa, penetrates. That give, as the needle enters dura. Slide out the central metal filament, it rings, and the invisible emerges, drop…

Never discount what began his wanderings. In Athens he was the greatest craftsman. So much work he had to hire his nephew to help him. But his nephew had his gift   and soon people claimed the nephew’s gift was greater than the uncle’s. If the uncle built with bronze, the nephew built with gold….

for my great-grandfather We ran from a home                                   we never saw again. Saw nothing                                               remain ours. My arm shot               from my body. My wife’s broken neck. Our son burned                                 into a wing of smoke. A peeled face boiling with flies.                                             A man tearing his gangrened leg off              with his…

What else could the boy have done? Wasn’t flight both an escape and a great uplifting? And so he flew. But how could he appreciate his freedom without knowing the exact point   where freedom stopped? So he flew upward and the sun dissolved the wax and he fell. But at last in his anticipated…

Morning met the grass in whiteness white sparks, chalk and bone. Noon was a gristle of crickets. Dusk was black leaf smoke, quick, then dark, star-still, darker still.

Say genius is one side of the mountain, then is vanity the other? Consider Daedalus after he escaped from the king’s prison. The king pursued him. He had many jewels   but Daedalus was brightest. Of course Daedalus concealed himself. The king went to his lesser kings and set them a task. He gave each…