by E. Brook Haley The sky and earth collidewhite on whitetowers and steeplesfloating in the air
Category: Poems
He Wanted to Bring Back the Big Bang
Describe how this island
became an island; whether
it was once all water or once all rock.
The petrels matter to the ocean.
If they do not fly there is no island—
there is neither coast nor reef.
Under the reef, more rock,
originally hot, now cooled to stone
by the slender hand of God,
reached down from dim Ceres
to leave an invitation
for a séance at Vesta 4.
An invitation we never got.
How could we have?
For, it was buried beneath coral and lamprey,
meant only
for the minor gods of magma and pumice;
for the soft-boned fish,
born in the teeth of the mako,
circling in waters above.
St. Vincent
My thrift-store friend
has no money.
I have a little.
Tonight we’ll slide
down the gray Missouri
throwing foreign coins
at a midnight moon.
Narcissus the Drunk
Occasions for celebration
are plentiful as lost hairs.
He passes a mirror
and catches his glance.
"Not bad," he thinks.
Indeed, he doubles back
for an encore
but ice cube echoes
tell him no.
A glass of cognac waits, melting.
karaoke woman
I can't remember what I miss most,
the poetry in me,
its nickel-hot core,
repeating all the things I say
and wearing that
goddamned purple bra,
repeating all the things I say and
signing the check with a smile.
Mollusk
men are dying to say—you must get something done, now. Marines decide to drivepriuses after a second tour. The neighbors are startinga production company andyour current nemesishas just received a ten thousand dollar grantto complete charcoal drawingsof sea cucumbers and othercephalopods in the Lesser Antilles. It’s either that or Iraq.
The Moon Wears Glasses
Wow, that bright light
with its hand outstretched,
begging for money at dawn
is the Moon—
waning and wanting a fix,
tired by now of filling in
for the Sun at night.
The Moon beseeches
comets passing by,
suggests an arrangement of
light bulbs slipping across Earth,
a necklace of radiant pearls,
a release from celestial debt.
Beluga
This is a night when men run their fingersover tusk-like keys in hopes of unlocking a woman’s brassiere.There will be caviar,cocktails, and champagne.Someone will talk quietly of her winter in Moscow—too much vodka and Russian police.In another room,I’ll hold my breath while I’m dancing.
A Long Way from Mulch
Her naked foot rubs against
the unborn blue of the mattress.
A tiny pair of socks airs out
beneath the open-sky window.
Someone has gone running—
but not very far, and not very hard.
The room might not be so big.
They haven’t slept in it since
they hung his latest painting.
It’s been too hot.
He could close the window, yes.
But that wouldn’t keep
the dog from barking
into all corners of the night.
It doesn’t matter,
he doesn’t need sleep—
he is sure of it. Yet,
he closes his eyes each night,
plays the game anyway;
thinks invariably about
weather patterns, or
his high school graduation.
Sometimes he just listens
to what the house has to say.
Gasping, she awakes to the smell of him;
rolls over and asks,
“What are you doing?”
He stops breathing.
By morning she will have forgotten
ever asking the question.
Back Taxes
The Germans appealed World War I,
so I was sent to the trenches,
taking my grandfather’s place.
For days I saw no one, except
an enormous storm of a man,
who fought for neither side,
but drove a rusted combine,
collecting back taxes like
golf balls at a driving range.
As his squeaking tractor scoured
the trenches he demanded,
“Back taxes, back taxes!”
If you didn’t duck he took up
your scalp like a head of wheat,
so I dug down, looked after
my tomatoes and corn.
Jets, too, roared overhead, but I guessed that
out in the distance, somewhere
amongst the farmland of old,
large general stores lay empty,
and the highways died silently,
trafficked only by men with guns,
in haphazard uniforms,
beating the pavement,
burning gasoline for their fires at night.
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