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the impala poems One Tossed turkey skin and bones to the gulls as food was airlifted to the homeless. Planted flower seeds and dug dandelions as exiles fled across the far border. Watched children build castles at low tide as others huddled on cardboard beds. Watched moonlight braid across the bay as smoking rubble filled the Danube. Read a good poem about God and potatoes as the serpent devoured its same tail. Two On the edge of forest, an overgrown mound, laughter and baskets of mushrooms. A child found the shallow trench, jumbled bones, each vacant skull pierced with a tidy hole. The authorities used shovels, a hundred tags, and rain washed the spread bones white. The Legions halted here, afraid of dark shadows, cathedral trees and no roads through. Now turned earth and stew, a call to prayer, and church bells sound the shod souls home. Three We have come to this place again, poised and counting corpses. Like carrion in ruined temples, the blame festers in us. The Emperor's head is propped high on the body of the Sun. It should come as no surprise, this fiery womb of nations. Keep singing slow to our end: husha, husha, we all fall down. Four The unexpected way his passion died, suddenly, full of cold easterly winds. Her lips curled a puff of smoke, weather patterns turned topsy-turvy. Said I was all he needed, vintage, counterclockwise from the average. Called me his sweetie, a fire in bed, now a world-breaking weight of ice. The strangeness of it all, she mused, a blizzard from the southwest. Five One doctor killed and another charged with murder. No details. Four teens in a parking lot beat a 60 year old woman senseless. A gas station attendant assaults seven females, aged 10 to 50. A man shoots his wife and niece, but spares the five children. It's a matter of numbers, the atrocities. Numeric from ten. Six Find a verb: run. Ask how fast. Make it fast as words can go. Dash into the damp neon night, past nouns hanging on the corner. Snatch one in passing: blade. Colour it green or draw blood. The strange chase lasts until dawn, exhausted, all avenues deserted. What can you make of five couplets? Connections, clandestine sense.
Seven Billboards and litter flank the rude road into this common place, curs yelp round. Everything in sight arrived on a truck, sweat and profanity, despot landlords. What words lost to this history of victors, screw the Queen's English: Git down. There's nothing but space between this line and the next. So calm yourself. Can't you hear the master calling: loose the stallion, the mare is in heat.
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