THREE FROM POETRY SUPER HIGHWAY, NOV 2002

poem in a single breath

 



think of something
bigger than god



think of famine



think of war



walk into this house where
someone’s sister has
just lost her unborn child



what she wants is
to describe it to you



what she wants is the
warmth of a living body



how human are you
willing to be?

 

 

premonition of a rock through my front window

 

my son asleep in
the afternoon of cold rain
and a strange van driving up and down
my street

what i’ve lost
is my list of enemies

wherever i am
is always too close to the place
i’ve escaped from

a pale blue room in a collapsing house
maybe
and my hands numb beneath then
weight of flat grey light

the taste of metal or
of burning

of the flesh of ghosts and
what it’s taken me twenty years
to learn is that nothing is
ever completely safe

and what this makes me
want to
do is destroy

 

 



a vague story with implied relevance





in another town
i was a different man



i remember this



i had just lost you
or the person i thought
would end up becoming you


it was winter


dark at four in the afternoon
and all of the dogs starving
and my father still alive
but not anyone i ever spoke to



and there were rumors
of christ’s return
of course
and the first whispered stories
of rothko’s suicide

and i sat in a cluttered room
in a stranger’s house



i waited
for the phone to ring



began to forget all of
the words i’d ever invented



woke up in the morning
to the sound
of children on fire