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What's New
A light wind riffles the surface of the Seine just below this reincarnation of the battle of Little Bighorn: a bend in another river where determined men slaughtered each other one June afternoon in 1876 . . . 200 of Custer's cavalry & uncounted Cheyenne & Sioux each with a weapon to deploy & each a life to surrender. 1] You have come to kill me . . . here . . . on my own land & I hate you for that & the hair & skin which I cut from your head is justly mine to show of you for what you are now. 2] This warrior has come with the rest to face his death & where he falls he arches up in one last rebellious surge of form . . . back bent like a bow & heart . . . like an arrow & eyes . . . to the sky. 3] Two Moon's rides high on his horse's back & leaps up & . . . up & up & over the bodies of the dead & dying horses & men & into an onslaught of fire & blood . . . 4] When Cheyenne go to war they wear a hat they shape from the skin & hair of a Buffalo cow & four arrows: two to do battle & two to hunt game in the spirit life. 5] I am Gall, tactician & master of strategy & war & younger brother to Sitting Bull . . .& I am the Sun & the Bear & the Buffalo & I am here to salvage what is left.
of swollen rivers & lives dismissed like deformed dogs, I've come to drink your tears, to intrude on your raptured fog. There's a butcher, red vest open to the sun, knife in one hand, a basket of bull's balls in the other. I order mine with mustard & there's Audrey with her yellow teeth & skin like putty who offers to wipe my slate clean & pours a cup of Darjeeling & whispers your name as if it could bring you back whole: Josie...shush...Josie...& there's a gunner in green fatigues nursing a baby & a naked dancer spread-eagled on the kitchen table pulsing open & close the lips of her vagina & Henry the florist holding a wreath of carnations & iris & lilies & a banner which reads: Smoke One For Her Sake... In this country there are men dusting off their eyes for one last look & drinking urine & cursing the dark & runners who turn downhill to avoid rain & a conductor tempting fate & stirring a restless pot of gunpowder & beans & masked men who open their faces at midnight & women in the upstairs rooms who fiddle & sing & rub glass in their wounds. Olives A young herder plays his flute & his leader her jangling bell & in the olive groves the trees are full & soon, before the ripest begin to fall, the women will come & spread the cloths & the young men will climb out where they can & shake the tree & loose the rest & rush to the press & that night the pungent oil . . . Greens & black & gray & pink & purple & cracked & whole & pitted & stuffed & cured with onions & garlic & peppers hot & peppers sweet & thyme & tarragon & dill & sampled with breads from Barcelona & cheeses from Pamplona & a cool glass of Fino from Jerez & the oil you'll drizzle on ripe tomatoes & onions & anchovies & toasted baguettes & this you'll serve in the shade of a misty August afternoon as the families gather & the kids race to soccer & the women shuffle & riffle the cards & grandfathers stare like pilots into the distance
for that perfect place to land...
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