WAXWINGS
and suddenly
three
in the shadblow
as if dreams
could sprout wings
hoodoo hipsters
in miter caps and shades
feasting on a storm
of blood-black berry
then
just as quickly
gone
vanished
disappeared
like boys
into men
men into
war
war into
fog
filthy
air
SPRING EGRET
Last summer this egret
high-stepped the salt marsh
a white puff of grace
more follies fan than bird
keen eyes keeping watch
in the body’s long curves
like the f-holes of a cello
bending low to the sun
stained flats to spear a shad
swallow, cry in voice phlegmy
as an old woman in hospice
the augury of tides –
this spring’s fan of bone arrayed
in stony shallows, chill ripples
lapping leached beauty
beginning the slow, slow dissolve
THE COURIER
for Jan Karski, the Polish courier sent
by the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto
to inform the world of the Holocaust
I am carrying the sea
In my cupped hands.
Not drops of it, not liters,
the whole dark sloshing sea.
Claws pinch. Nettles sting.
Teeth rip at my palm lines.
It hurts to hold this much,
to be so small and human,
running, running,
as the bloody sun runs –
west – carrying the sea
in my cupped hands.
The faster my legs move,
the more I try to get there,
the more I fear I spill.
Rancid fish and wrackweed,
broken shell and coral,
mark my travel like a tideline.
Everywhere I’ve been
I have sown salt.
Everywhere now, the rich
green earth laid waste.
But I do not look behind,
not behind and not above,
where the white moon
nightly is devouring
the stars, first in nibbles,
then vast mouthfuls,
bloating like a leech,
whipping storms
as cruel as history
inside my pressed hands,
these poor dumb beasts,
my hands. How much they want
to toss it all away,
to empty it in trenches,
to wall it up for good.
How much I want to fold
myself in pine boughs,
to lie on high ground
humming, to be free
of this thing I’ve been
anointed with, so
horribly, to make it all
mad fancy, mere nightmare.
It is not. Straight ahead,
fast forward, I must run,
run, as the bloody sun runs –
west – and bring the sea
for the whole wide world
to hold. The journey is
a minute. A millennium. Both.
But I do get there. I do.
I am ushered to a chamber
of telephones and chairs,
an ordinary room
of the twentieth century.
Three well-dressed men
walk in, mopping brows
with well-starched hand-
kerchiefs. I want to beg
forgiveness, to explain
I’m just the courier,
a small man, insignificant,
that the news is not
the messenger. But my words
are lost in wind. The three
stand stiffly, staring.
They smile. They nod.
And I… I let it go,
waves of salt and bone
flooding from my hands
drowning all the ordinary
rooms of this century.
And the next. From the sea
floor I start rising through
a maelstrom black as ink,
past the dead eyes of the living,
the live eyes of the dead…
till I surface with my hands,
two smooth and separate shells,
knifed open like an oyster
which can never join again.
CONFORMATION
hard chairs bolted to desktops
fixed rows in cold classrooms
the buzz of dying fluorescents
we want the same for our boys
now, nothing modular or mobile
no coddling circles, open skylights
want them to fidget as we did
lust for sun in schoolyards
know how long a minute can
last, boys who will be boys
to carry on as we carried on
as our fathers did, their fathers
sting of wrong answer
slap of disapproval, shame
like wildfire burning its way
from blush to white heat
boys who will brawl into
streets when the bell sounds
sprint to the kingdom of
tilt spin curl lift whirl, there
to crown in our own image
cruel giving way to cool
the next lord of misrule
a new king of fools
Paul Genega
NO SWASTKAS ARE STENCILED ON
LENI RIEFENSTAHL'S DIVING BOARD
OLYMPIAD, 1938
syllables sprung
from distended tongue
spin tales of thought
free feeling –
each athlete dissolving
into Athlete / athleticism
somersault jackknife
flying cloud clotted
forevers cleansed
of unctuous self –
cruciform silhouettes
pyrotechnic eaglemen
who want us to want
what they want
until we do –
in the storm high
springing rising
in the mind’s sky
soaring gliding –
heroic historic
hypnotic erotic
& evil