Poetry Hut Blog
Poem by an American

(not a draft but I fear I will be adding to it)

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Poem by an American

I.

For a time that September,
our cities of comas
were tender and united.
(We who name bombs.)

II.

A day that clouded the concrete.
Then we staggered infant-hearted,
through days that could even sink epiphanies.
We have broken the dreaming.

III.

The quick pearl of summer, now
vague and done. Little autumn,
little autumn; a faint mourner you are.

IV.

Reason is now a kaleidoscope here,
this death trip is spellbound roulette.
It taps and grasps while no solemn voice prevails.
Ruin wins each dim bet.

V.

I lay leaden
all day, and
pray this world
that’s all in hell
gets petaled; Erik,
you are a man in
a war, bent and
hemmed by the
red-stick-and-grab.
Perhaps your
foot has missed, because
only bullets meet
disaster whole? Or
your hand is rendered
to the ground below
… so vertebrate. You are
a seed inert, riding inside
your machine-tiger’s belly.
Erik, Erik, Erik,
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq,
safe, safe, safe,
pray, pray, pray.
Against this rude era,
all I have is this wrecked-
noun-morse-code, featherlight.

VI.

a man is riding
a man is riding inside a machine
a man is riding inside a machine in a war

a man is digging
a man is digging inside a road
a man is digging inside a road in a war

is is digging
is is riding
machine machine war

VII.

I am a rant. So well hear
this zero moment, under
laws abandoned, under
maniac king, under
dour heaven, for you
are there Erik, in that everliving
raw ruckus, heat sick and
overburdened amid the privatized
explosive devices and the damn
ashen tasks. Here, fine damn slogans
always blink and repeat. The barons
of black-water-boarding lie glib and
the televisions sweat their endless spin.
I am a sponge and I am
a target-rich environment.
Grab a hammer, and shine
a tribute over here.

VIII.

Veins wracked

in some secret hour - hush -
none comment, none deem scorner,
none say detainee against the

bankrupt machine. My country
is an idea undone. Do you not
hear the humerus click? The

chain aches and the
night gets bent. There is no
golden key for the hood’s

hungry mouth.

IX.

O liars,
O greed-fingered thrashers of dread,
what you have wrecked!

I carry a clockfull of fear
for all that’s unfolding.
I’m lonesome for absolute poetry.

Tags: poem, Poetry

Filed under Nashville, Poems —