Poetry
Driving my flatbedover Nebraska back roadswhere marsh land opens uplike an ironed seam.Driving to Merton’s fishing holebeyond the aster and bottle-brushwhere we once spent afternoonsreeling in trout.
Some people have been leaving too soon.
Their library books still due,the gas and electric bill waitingin the bills to pay slot.
Where the author’s formulations challenge the reader’s credulity, I have quoted the German original in the notes. Seeing is believing. —Ralph Manheim, translator Mein Kampf
Mothers make excuses, hardly doe-eyed but entirely well-meaning.Their daughters aren’t wayward. Simply, they misplace their sensesof direction or heighten their prospects of efficiency.
When I got to her earthen room,I thought, Oh God, no. Not this one.
Too young, too fragile, for this word-made-flesh deal you’ve got brewing.
The new bed rests where the oldone was, but he will notset paw on its new-smellingsoftness; instead, sticks his nose underthe old rug wadded for trash, sighsfor what still smells like home.
I felt as if I knew him. I felt as if he knew me. —Young soldier, upon hearing about FDR’s death
I can have anything& everything I ever wanted.—Kid Cudi
I wanna be like the Silver Surfer,coasting on white-hot solar winds
I don’t think I ever brought
my sotto to your voce, my custom to your fit,my ultra to your marine.I know you did not bring
I keep scraping the canvasAnd painting him over againBut he keeps slipping away—Edward Hirsch
Putting her fragmentsTogether in yetAnother way
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