A Biblical Prophet Comes to the United States

You think you are righteous?

You think you know

what is best for everyone

else? You are oppressors

of your own people!

You have filled your prisons

with the unpaid laborers

who brought your country wealth!

Your gods are money

and possessions

and popularity!

You spout:

“Peace!”

as you agitate wars!

Your righteousness

is exploitation

disguised with talk

of philanthropy!

Joseph Conrad wrote

about your “philanthropic pretense

of the whole concern,”

and he called it

Heart of Darkness!

DKNY Be Delicious

DKNY Be Delicious (Donna Karan New York)

Your breasts will grow

to the size you need them to

or they will ungrow

if you want them to.

they will always be as firm

as a fully blown up balloon,

as uplifted as the soul

free to worship—

you will be worshipped

for your scent; like bursting fruit

it’s delicious and it’s Donna,

Donna Karan New York,

new, gorgeous—and soon

you will be notorious.

Like this brunette

with that glistening apple

in her hand, one bite gone;

you can be Eve too!

the envy of every woman,

desired by every man.

For a small price, say goodbye

to loneliness and hello to DKNY:

Be Delicious.

The Edge of an Iowa Farm

Oh great tree, so long ago
fallen: lightning, perhaps?
And in your former shade lies
a thick bramble of life.

Indoor Baseball

“It smells like a gym in here,”
my mother used to say. Jonathan
would laugh, and I
would wind up and throw
another pitch
in the living room,
Nerf ball zooming
toward the closet door,
Jon standing, crouched,
ready to pummel a line drive;
both of us drip
another drop of sweat, and mom
sniffs in loving disapproval
from the kitchen.

A Vietnam Vet Reads His Poetry

Again and again and again . . . we do this.
-moderator of the poetry reading, speaking of war

Back row - me;
two seats down, perspiring black man
holds tightly to his wife's hand.
"It's coming back to me,"
I hear him say.

The poet reads of death
and killing, Vietnam at seventeen,
bodies which never leave
nor are left, carried somewhere inside,
untouchable, unmovable, unburnable -
less than ashes yet bigger, heavier
than they were when they were alive.

I have never been to war.

I look again to the black vet two seats down
whose knitted cap is pulled tight
over kinks of gray-white hair,
the cap black on top and stripes of green,
yellow, and red around his memories.
I watch him, too fearful to show fascination
by turning my head. Slow rocking man,
forward and back, forward and back,
his wife's hand shaking because of his.

The applause dies; people stand
and whisper their way to the door.
I sit watching the black vet
still from the corner of my eye
as he walks up to meet the man
who read his memories back to him.
Poet-vet sits in a chair,
crutch propped beside him;
cap-wearing vet approaches,
faces him, kneels down,
and they exchange quiet words.
They stand and embrace.

I wanted in that hug oh yes, yes, I wanted to hug the black man when he sat two feet away, when he sat and I watched with my corner eye. I wanted to know what he felt wanted to hug him yes, I did, but I knew it would never work, would never do -
I had nothing to offer
but my beating blood and a stranger's face.

At a poetry reading I came to understand
that I could never understand.

Boy Against Girl

I slam the heel of my Doc Martin's
into ice coating the street. It feels good
to wield such power.

Like ceramic tiles tossed aside,
the mud-speckled shards of ice clap
against the brick street as I kick them
apart. This display of force
makes me wonder if I am angry,
and reminds me that I had a wife

ten years ago.
With her off birth control
I took control: Baby?
No baby. Sex? No sex.

I stand surveying the damage
to the ice. Do I have the upper hand
now? My Doc Martin's move
grudgingly, nudge a few pieces
of the ice-puzzle
with the toe of my boot,
return them
to their original positions.
But there are gaps,
un-mended seams.

What is gone is
gone; what is broken
is broken:

Essential crystals lie
scattered over bricks,
like a shattered backboard on a gym floor,
like a spread of diamonds
in a jeweler's unfolded cloth.

The Sacrifice

(a slightly inaccurate recreation of a scene from Schindler's List)

They are lined up, a dozen, side by side:
an old man with a shaven head,
shoulders slightly slouched; a woman
who recently gave birth - her breasts
should be bloated with milk, but her child
has been taken away, killed, cremated in a pit,
and she herself has been starved --
her skin is beginning to stretch
tight over bones; a young boy
is in the line, maybe a teenager, maybe
not, and he stands like the others, head up,
looking forward with fearful discipline,
arms at his sides, palms back.

A uniformed soldier stands facing the line,
his narrow, lethal pistol raised.
He moves toward the old man -- one,
two, three steps -- the barrel of the gun leads
the way, stopping at the old man's forehead.
The soldier freezes in this position, his head
turns mechanically left and right down the line;
his stare touches each trembling body. He

fires. The old man falls forward, dead,
exhibit number one. The soldier steps
away. He looks back and forth down the line;
every head is bowed, eyes to the ground.
"Who committed this crime!" he yells, daring
any of the defenseless to accuse him. There is
only silence as the soldier's starved steel eyes
scan the line. His jaw clenches; his head jerks
as he screams out again: Who committed
this crime! He waits, his gun now at his side,
his fingers and arm tense, ready to spring to action.

There is movement in the line,
and the young boy steps forward. He
raises his arm stiffly and points
at the old man's dead body on the ground.
"He did!" the boy says. "He committed the crime."
Hearing these words, the soldier's body
relaxes. He does not pocket the gun,
but the tension in his arms
fingers hands is released.
He orders the prisoners away. The boy
has answered correctly
in accusing an innocent man.

Death may have come to all . . .

I see myself standing, pointing
at a man on a cross.
"He did it," I say. "That man
is the guilty one." My voice shakes,
and I remember the quivering lips
of the boy, and the water in his eyes
as he pointed a finger.