Poem

Here is a great poem by Brian Beatty from his collection Duck! (Brouhaha, 2009):

MY BOOK IDEA

Two ghosts fighting
over an oatmeal cookie

for 400 pages of enormous
Times New Roman --

I'm thinking it's a mystery.


***

I would buy such a book, buy it and read it.

sections numbered 30, 31, 32, 33

30
Water flows from the burnt stump. The red dog digs for the bone
in the jaw of the corn stalk. The carnival hauls its grotesque blaze.

The heavy monster lies down in the mud. In the graveyard
the stone angel waits with lidless eyes, believing in the invisible
tongues you ferry in your chest.

31
I believe in mid-western mysticism. Intention means nothing.
The turkey vulture doesn't try. Nor the horse in far field.

Mr. Pig wallowing doesn't try. Not one tries to eat magnificence.
But they do just the same.

32
Garrulous meat upon the salt table. Fried bread.
Our skates sharpened by madmen.

Bilious towels. Carnivorous mail. Obese pinwheels.
A sacred, ragged bus depot where our pilgrimage begins.

33
In Dodge City, Kansas I don't know anyone. I don't even
know who I am because I am waiting to be born.

I lost my birth certificate and can't travel
the full length of a bathtub. It is a small bird.

***
The above sections are from a long sequence titled 'The Practices'. Which itself belongs to a mansuscript of poems titled 'Family Portrait With Two Dogs Bleeding.'