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.