Dan Fliegel
Kin
When we would kill a buffalo and squat
alongside its last heat in the swaying gray
afternoon, autumn stalked by winter, sharing
the heart fresh and first, still steaming and warm
in our hands, the world shuddered, everything
horizon, without words
for ocean, or rainforest or city. You would
smile with a look of liverlust, an organ
urge, not only for the singular beast, but for
all of it, eyes shining, teeth flashing, jaws
working muscles turning such strong muscle
into more muscle, two animals content, and
the blood of another pouring dark from
our lips, staining our chins.
Results
Your message, love, said the results
were benign, and suddenly
yes, it speaks spring again, but colder--
leaves edging into where blooms
first shivered, already weeks ago.
I passed a possum, crushed
on the road, where it borders
the woods that echoed birdsong.
First one hollow needle
then another needle inside
the first, this one biting and tearing
threads of you, the tissue
within the breast that fed three
and drew my mouth too.
Would you like to see the sample?
the nurse had asked, gripping the cup.
Morning again and light
seeps through without song or story.
You have stopped icing your breast,
the pain less than it was.
If you live long enough, some kind
of cancer will kill you, your brother
the doctor said, sipping wine
and standing remarkably straight,
his feet noticeably apart, as if bracing
for some shifting in the ground beneath.
After Lorca, After
*
when I across words
do meanings
inevitably translated
infinitely small
transfer object emotion
clinging to barnacles
scrape and poet
shrivel like tradition against
an ocean vocabulary
* somewhat
Songs
“recycled” poetic
Portraits, etc. folk
conversations
about thought
might draw
shape traditional
octosyllabic feminine
sung in Spanish
Lorca laboring a vision—
gypsies, horses,
breezes, rivers hidden
to imbue
fragmentation,
mystery conviction,
metaphor,
not
poetry
* Absent
bull, fig, caballos,
ants of
afternoon
because forever
stone, black satin
body breaks memory
para siempre
Autumn grapes,
tus ojos like
dead dogs yo canto
your mouth
born open,
words
breeze the grove
* This
poem
dedicated to kill
now and Lorca
Feed each great
Spanish century
some twenty years
I stanza only
a few lines
* shapes
deflower
some flamenco
guitarist, his grave
dug from wisdom
between ribs, the moon,
names,
things themselves
* Dear
Lorca would like poems
of lemon a lemon
like a newspaper cloud
utterly independent
a sound finger
erotic to invent
blue visible
decay argues in slang
this seaweed needs
these letters in
some future
--
Dan Fliegel is a teacher and musician living in Chicagoland. He is an MFA candidate at Northwestern University.
when I across words
do meanings
inevitably translated
infinitely small
transfer object emotion
clinging to barnacles
scrape and poet
shrivel like tradition against
an ocean vocabulary
* somewhat
Songs
“recycled” poetic
Portraits, etc. folk
conversations
about thought
might draw
shape traditional
octosyllabic feminine
sung in Spanish
Lorca laboring a vision—
gypsies, horses,
breezes, rivers hidden
to imbue
fragmentation,
mystery conviction,
metaphor,
not
poetry
* Absent
bull, fig, caballos,
ants of
afternoon
because forever
stone, black satin
body breaks memory
para siempre
Autumn grapes,
tus ojos like
dead dogs yo canto
your mouth
born open,
words
breeze the grove
* This
poem
dedicated to kill
now and Lorca
Feed each great
Spanish century
some twenty years
I stanza only
a few lines
* shapes
deflower
some flamenco
guitarist, his grave
dug from wisdom
between ribs, the moon,
names,
things themselves
* Dear
Lorca would like poems
of lemon a lemon
like a newspaper cloud
utterly independent
a sound finger
erotic to invent
blue visible
decay argues in slang
this seaweed needs
these letters in
some future
--
Dan Fliegel is a teacher and musician living in Chicagoland. He is an MFA candidate at Northwestern University.