
-----------------
No one
is poor. Like lions caged too long, the waves
loll lazily along the beach. He stares
out at the bright horizon, lost in thought.
I wonder if his memories might hurt.
Tonight, beneath a moon as clear and plain
as need, we'll drink banana daiquiris.
He'll ask the mariachi band to play
a Cuban song, which they'll almost get right.
But in the morning, he must realize,
we'll still awaken here. Same sun, same sea:
the simulation, if more dream than real,
is close enough...
The birds-of-paradise,
though mute and flightless, still preen in the breeze.
SHEFFIELD GHAZAL 4: DRIVING WEST
A tractor-trailer carrying two dozen crushed automobiles overtakes a tractor-trailer carrying a dozen new.
Oil is a form of waiting.
The internal combustion engine converts the stasis of millennia into motion.
Cars howl on rain-wetted roads.
Airplanes rise through the downpour and throw us through the blue sky.
The idea of the airplane subverts earthly life.
Computers can deliver nuclear explosions to precisely anywhere on earth.
A lightning bolt is made entirely of error.
Erratic Mercurys and errant Cavaliers roam the highways.
A girl puts her head on a boy's shoulder; they are driving west.
The windshield wipers wipe, homesickness one way, wanderlust the other, back and forth.
This happened to your father and to you, Galway -- sick to stay, longing to come up against the ends of the earth, and climb over.
The Poem You Asked For
by Larry Levis
My poem would eat nothing.
I tried giving it water
but it said no,
worrying me.
Day after day,
I held it up to the llight,
turning it over,
but it only pressed its lips
more tightly together.
It grew sullen, like a toad
through with being teased.
I offered it money,
my clothes, my car with a full tank.
But the poem stared at the floor.
Finally I cupped it in
my hands, and carried it gently
out into the soft air, into the
evening traffic, wondering how
to end things between us.
For now it had begun breathing,
putting on more and
more hard rings of flesh.
And the poem demanded the food,
it drank up all the water,
beat me and took my money,
tore the faded clothes
off my back,
said Shit,
and walked slowly away,
slicking its hair down.
Said it was going
over to your place.
Then the steel-.
hearted tug as the truck started up
again, as your shoulders yanked
to just short of snapping. And if
you held on, your time was up
as the driver fishtailed and cast
you across the covered concrete
to bury you in a six foot bank
of snow, everyone cackling, blood
electric, all the pieces of your face
inches away from the hydrant
you wouldn't see till spring.