Passing Influence—poem

This appeared in FENCE way back in 2001. My first 'big' publication in a 'big' literary journal:

 

Passing Influence

                                    for Susan Wheeler

This is the best part, hate which now

brings you the whole head in reality–

the man’s SUV slides down the road.

Dancing on the (I don’t know the word) tile

you look down slowly;

this is exercise or punishment.

For only a few minutes you have reeled in, forgetting to

lose (you forget cacti), and before it was obscure:

the driveway which surrounds this dry desert

is the dawn entrance of rapists. In this life

they catch children at the critical moment

and undress the bodies in the heat.

The real stupidity, you know, is always

                                    paying the asking price.

Then the plane lands, and the man

lights your joint and takes a stone from his briefcase

and leaves a ship of idiocy in the seat.

You are sinking; he has bent your arm, whispering

you are under the boot of a man.

Clumsiness is insect-like, it means punishment.

So you did everything expected, and in your pain

you remembered not to ask whether it was irrational

or only a steady pool on the floor. Loss, fade

distinguish, worms crawling in the dirt,

a maze of arrivals uncrossed like coathangers around which

during pleasant days, voices make mounds of death.

Every night you have locked a door and turned on a lamp

that leaves only the best comfort.

He calls to say he is ready to come. There is

nothing. Now you can’t recognize the abyss

for what it was, now in there, under the dying river,

a goatman is leaving you, nervously straight; promising death.

Passing Influence—poem

"Passing Influence" appeared in the literary magazine FENCE way back in 2001. My first big time publication!
 

Passing Influence

                                    for Susan Wheeler

This is the best part, hate which now

brings you the whole head in reality–

the man’s SUV slides down the road.

Dancing on the (I don’t know the word) tile

you look down slowly;

this is exercise or punishment.

For only a few minutes you have reeled in, forgetting to

lose (you forget cacti), and before it was obscure:

the driveway which surrounds this dry desert

is the dawn entrance of rapists. In this life

they catch children at the critical moment

and undress the bodies in the heat.

The real stupidity, you know, is always

                                    paying the asking price.

Then the plane lands, and the man

lights your joint and takes a stone from his briefcase

and leaves a ship of idiocy in the seat.

You are sinking; he has bent your arm, whispering

you are under the boot of a man.

Clumsiness is insect-like, it means punishment.

So you did everything expected, and in your pain

you remembered not to ask whether it was irrational

or only a steady pool on the floor. Loss, fade

distinguish, worms crawling in the dirt,

a maze of arrivals uncrossed like coathangers around which

during pleasant days, voices make mounds of death.

Every night you have locked a door and turned on a lamp

that leaves only the best comfort.

He calls to say he is ready to come. There is

nothing. Now you can’t recognize the abyss

for what it was, now in there, under the dying river,

a goatman is leaving you, nervously straight; promising death.

What Nothing Reveals—poem

Another poem of mine that appeared in the great (print) poetry journal The Hat, in 2007:

What Nothing Reveals

                                    for Susan Wheeler

Freakish, nothing burst into nothing where you

were gathering nothing frantically, phonetically.

Nothing is flying, Nothing a

calamity of nothing–or perhaps they said

nothing. This left nothing, that left nothing

and he, nothing, had it, too.

Now nothing rearranges nothing.

On the right there is nothing, nothing

or nothing, in a bright and terrifying nothing.

Nothing altered nothing. Pressed to the rear of

nothing toward nothing, you started with nothing

with nothing that troubles you still. Like nothing

who only dreamed, you can’t shake nothing.

Nothing, straightened now, is white against nothing.

Nothing confirms. Nothing replies.

There is nothing like nothing.

Nothing drops out.

You pay for nothing.

There is nothing to fill nothing,

nothing yawing in nothing

on nothing.