(Poems from “The Woodstock Roundtable” on WDST on March 20th, 2011.)
* * * *
Field Trip
By Dennis Doherty
Heim, your blood is on this belt. We carried you through the jungle…
In a plastic bag at the base of the monument.
Cynical, that here among colossal displays
of nation – even the office buildings impose –
the threads of a kid killed at the confluence
of dubious, arcane motives and interests?
Tribute, honor, to an open society and those
who served when called, regardless the cause?
Sop to The People whose strings are pulled?
We went to Washington for a wedding.
Took a stroll with Molly to The Mall.
I only know, that moment the universe
entered me, my love for Mollies and families
and camaraderie; soldiers, pacifists,
sculptors, panhandlers, jungles, cities,
brides and grooms and Chinatown synagogues;
drinking, dancing on great lawns in sun
grass on moon streets by car light.
Heim, your blood belts my battered-tender vessels.
I went to Washington and found you.
Dennis Doherty’s new book is Crush Test. He teaches creative writing at SUNY New Paltz.
* * * *
My Inner Mexican
By Mike Jurkovic
My inner Mexican
Loves yard work.
The 20-horse growl of 8am,
The edger’s obdurate cut.
Don’t we all look alike
Pushing seed, laying turf,
Watching your daughters ready for class,
Ripping up your flowerbeds.
My inner Mexican
Loves a good fight.
Ruts in jalapeno juke joints,
Collects my Social Security,
Salsa and tejano
Heat the night.
Mike Jurkovic is the author of Purgatory Road. He co-directs the Calling All Poets Series and helps run the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, New York.
* * * *
Pagans
By Will Nixon
After the March rains I masturbate
over the thawed soil to plant more of us.
Hatched naked as mushrooms, we never grow
the green skin needed to survive by the sun alone,
so we must step off our roots, hungry
and curious, perfectly disguised
as fellow humans, cocky and protected
by ethical principles, scientific understanding.
Then a bee crawls in our ear to pollinate
the thousand folds of our brain.
Laden with the dewy residue
of dreams and Godly visions, the bee
grows too heavy to fly but can’t stop buzzing
anymore than we can explain this sudden desire
to roll naked in mud, cloak ourselves
in seeds and minerals, dress in trumpet vines
that blossom and feed hummingbirds
at our breasts. Earth again, we forget the reason
we could be anything but pagans.
Will Nixon’s last poetry book is Love in the City of Grudges. He blogs about poetry at willnixon.com.
