poem poems

no. 1


Your letter-bomb arrived.
The worm is a busy animal,
Heavily armed, like a Wal-Mart end-cap.


no. 2

Seven crows in a tree.
A dog nosing nearby.
Two cats on a porch.
I carry a pitchfork
For no apparent reason.

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.'

monster picks up a tenor

Every true poet is a monster.

Tomaz Salamun

Monster out of work
nearly two years.
For twenty-five bucks
picks up a
battered Buescher
from a pawn shop
and begins to teach
himself how to play.
Scales and melodies
at daybreak,
screaming feedback
by nightfall.
He fixes
an old record
player so he can
jam with Coltrane.
For a change of
tempo gives up
drink. Says
to his cronies in
the busted
park Got my golden
horn to drink from, man.
And to any-
one who crosses
him Don't fuck
with me or my tenor!
Sweetest slice
in the world comes
from my horn. Goes
begging in bars
for the cost of a box
of reeds. Plays in an alley,
Believeth Me, If All Those
Endearing Young Charms.
Tone filled with spit
and righteous
vibrato. Later he
sleeps with his horn.
White genitals
cradled
in its bell.