Poetry

Inflamation

Bang! 1917 & a Victorian Milan. That bang was the Garcia Crespo works gone up from munitions, 400 women, their long hair gone, have gone up with 150,000 rounds. Vickers guns emplanted on the line stayed quiet for two days near Trieste. A company of Yugoslavs convinced themselves that peace had come, threw down their…

Photographic Life

No matter what’s the photograph, you’re the man in the center always making sense. Look through the family album, grandma’s first beau, the nice guy who, vaguely, disappeared. Dad in the leather flier’s jacket, a plane called ANZIO BELLE. In the background’s the waist gunner they chipped out of a pile of shells & frozen…

Why I Am Tormenting You

You are a name I have taken at random from the phone directory. Soon we are exchanging recipes for bread. You confess none of your boy friends chat as well as I do. Your life history is fascinating. I continue to torment you. You tell me this doesn’t matter. Since we’ve started talking you’ve gotten…

Como

Tiresomely, in prose, long ago great-sonneting Berryman said that in Heart of Darkness the Congo stood for a private part, specifically a vagina, to Marlow. Now, I find that perverse, if I had to say. The continent was mysterious, the river led into its mystery, ok. But Marlow (and Conrad before him) could tell a…

The Pakistani’s Daughter

Is lingering by the door With a younger sister Listening to my music. Oh come into my parlor Blush and promise to come again Should I say, “My need is great,” Or “My father married a girl much younger,” Or, “I saw you in the Moka having a milkshake.” Oh why should I, old enuf…

Veal

I love to watch the butcher wipe the sharp blade on his apron stained with fresh blood. I’m going to marry him      WHAM the side of beef split open he tenderly spreads it like a woman’s legs between smeared fingers stroking the cold smoothness from his fingertips            bloody red drops on the floor spotting…

In June

The old man wasn’t thumbing but I picked him up. He wasn’t growing a beard, just didn’t shave and his sack, Army duffle and white, bulged with all he owned. He apologized three times for the space he was taking and he hated women. Story after story he told of waitresses who said no when…