Monthly Archives: January 2011

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WWP Poem #39, #2: Age of Sun

I. Cork County, Ireland

I’m guessing that you are what lives
in the back of my throat, my fake swagger,
my unlearned fist: but I really don’t know
if it’s you. I chose you as my best guess because of the bloodshed
cutting grooves into your green shoulder, Rebel County;
because of the song that hums just a few inches below your green that
sounds faintly like fiddle, dulcimer, and banjo. The red neck
hides underneath brown skin; every now and again it erupts,
rebel and cheeky face upturned to an August sun. I hear twang in its
whisper. I wish I could still hear the brogue
below the red, below the fist; wrap my tongue around
Corcaigh instead of Cork in a green, pint-riddled and
iron breath.
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WWP Poem #39: Age of Rain

I. Père Lachaise

Funny how graffiti never pulses underneath your palms,
even if it is red,
even if it does look like blood,
even if it does look like letters who have forgotten their boundaries
and have risen up like fresh, city welts on this skin of concrete. Palms prone
on the stone, you wish for a heartbeat beneath it
and yet, you find none. The poet is still
breathing: but not here. Mime
the curtain falling to cloak a greasepaint face
with the flutter of bare hands. Peel back the rain, and you might hear
a piano tiptoeing past your ears.
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WWP Poem #35: A Tale Told by an Idiot, Full of Sound and Fury

I. Challenger

I give you a song I stole from the dirt: I dream a mess
of ley-lines and leptons, plasma fields and turf giants. Last son
of a dead planet, strongest man in the world. I am a nova,
all-exploding, planet-cremating. But there are
many ways to lose the oldest game.
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