OPPENHEIMER’S CHILDREN
When my nephew told me he didn’t think
I could get by today if I were his age,
well, what can you tell those who don’t know.
He is worried about guns, AIDs, bad drugs…
and he’s right to worry.
I’ll keep the Bay of Pigs to myself,
and the Cuban Embargo, and the Gulf of Tonkin.
He doesn’t remember the [...]
GOD GOES POSTAL
Got a picture of Jesus
in the mail today.
8 x 11 inch paper facsimile
of a prayer rug with
Jesus in His blondeness,
His California surfin’ dude beard.
I thought,
if You looked like this back then,
they would have killed You
in the cow shed when You were born.
But hey,
it makes us white folk feel better
about worshipping someone
from the Middle [...]
TRANSLATING ROBERT BLY
We start to burn
as we are born.
The barn boards
exhale wheat breath.
We are born knowing
all we need to get by.
The lake, half in shadow,
is a coffin or cave.
Living is an art but
Dying is a saxophone.
The horses in the dark field
will be us in their next life.
The gate in the fence swings open.
We are on [...]
What can one poet do, or even two,
when the numbers are human
and very large?
We can write words until our eyes bleed,
stroke keys until our hearts implode,
bury the dead until the fields are full.
What separates the living from the dead?
And who is to draw the boundaries?
I say let the living honor the dead as they may.
Let [...]
THE FALL OF BAGHDAD
Today a statue in Baghdad was toppled.
The Dow closed down 400 points.
The ghosts of Johnson and Nixon howl
down Wall Street, trailing shredded documents.
The boy sitting on the head of Saddam
slapped the bronze nose with his sandal
all the way to his village square.
The Jackal of the Desert
finds hole after hole to hide in,
and [...]
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