Choosing A Branch
Marines on beaches die
live in the movies
have monuments and songs
The end of an airman
is falling,
a glutton for impact,
toward someone surprised
Small crosses mark groves
where lawnmowers perfect
regiments of little flags.
I love the death of the sailor
the mystery of that moment
when the moon pulls sea overhead
Translating For Tourists
Like pillars of salt Your dollars for peace--
Were those you left behind-- and hard currency
Worth no second glance, lives so empty, unmarked.
In this hell.
"The Ministry of Tourism your footprints baked
and the people welcome into clay will vanish
you, cousins; I am again into the west.
your guide." Ourselves we will excavate.
At the crossroads:
This truly is the village great flocks blacken the sky,
really that very house settle during migrations: each bird
where grandmother's Lot recalls the topography of place,
cast himself out of the demon knows nothing of other creatures'
Let's go inside; surely lives made here from beginning
no one will mind. to end here, only here.
One photo, please
.
It is Sunday; we should rest. Worthless, lazy, pagan idolater
Lumber along, cousins Your photos like sand--
into the past, back time will uncover
to when dinosaurs where you have walked,
were already extinct, This is your future.
Your fur-heavy beasts; Fragments on your tongues
Already were lost.
These caverns hid resistance fighters, Your firebombs baked them alive
our books and our works of art. Examine their entrails on the walls
Wasn't it lovely, Here every morning in season
around the corner, in the market the birds seem to chirp,
where our souls are in each trinket-- as they rise into the sky
left behind in that place disease in their droppings.
a woman, as I have heard, grim and gigantic,
was seen by certain persons and declared
these disasters insignificant in comparison
to what was destined to befall them.
Without teeth she bit the air around them
and accused them of atrocities.
No, not us. That was long ago, dear.
Twenty? Thirty Years?
Surely, not yet fifty.
Photomoment
Daughter:
here's your likeness
eaten by rot
dampened dried smudged
blood on your lips
your eyes staring red
blank brutally torn
somewhere in the faded
background your world
unmoving rests
in my hands
your hand holds
a hand I've never seen
a man who's cut away
bulk shadows you
Pieces
TAGS in teeth
KICK jaw shut
what to do when
partial plates break.
Read the letters;
rewrite so blood
isn't sent home
stains depress mothers
wear clean underwear.
"Mom, tell dad I'm in Hell
worming toward glory;
come see me."
Rewrite so they've
something to remember.
It's better than Golub's leg
removed evenings after work
or Old Man Summerlee's knee
that locks up each winter.
Citations parenthetic to the text.
Delayed Stress
Eaters of souls.
Souls that are eaten.
Ideas that evolve
and shed their skins.
This is who we are:
souls waiting to be eaten
and the eaters of souls;
shadow and light,
shadow and khaki
in shadows and camouflage
waiting to spark,
hungry for life from the living,
living a madness of death.
Eaters of souls.
Souls that are eaten.
We are not safe.
Please us, else
we tell kids
not to fight.
July Fourth
Police sirens here they come!
Patriots police patriots hawk
hawk little banners Coca Cola
mama's babies shouldered high
I'm-a-Pepper Pepsi real thing
proper-sequined bathing suits
square dancing barbecues HERE
THEY COME! Fire-engine escort
baton parading college girls
floats sirens whistling twirl
and highstep highschool girls
bagpipe guys in skirts gymnast
bicycled patriots more police
token purchased tilt-a-whirls
Melons on the fairground grass
cotton-candy pinks and whites
kids watching cameras clicking
smile like you've a set of pearlies
please say cheese
flags waving round the carousel
kids around the hydrant spray
drunk dads hot after mama
baseball sno-cone tummy ache
dignitary skeet-shoot clowns
wrestling Guardsmen flagwaving
Legionnaires squirtguns Amvet
roller-coaster nighttime fox
trot Shriners Dorsey Cab Basie
swing Hendrix anthems prizes
Budweiser boatrace fireworks
brassrings bingo teddy-bears
teargassed protests maryjane
chickenribs barbecued buddhahead
monks Roman candle fireworks
motorcycle patriots horsetop
police patriotic fireworks
can't see dessert storming
coming boatfolk buttfucked
runner in the white shed
happyfourthmotorcycled patriots
(the preconditions for any distinction
between public acts and private parts)