THE DEFINITE ARTICLE

The people crowded the square.
The crowd peopled the square.
The troops circled the square.
The troops and the people squared off.

The name of the people is they.
The name of the troops is not us.
The name of the square is there.
The name of the circle is again.

The square peopled the news.
The news circled the world.
The troops circled the crowd.
The world turned the page.

The name of the news is yesterday.
The name of the paper of course.
The name of the new page is maybe.
The name of the world is asleep.

POOR FREUD,

"Freud’s theory of sexuality was the half-truth with which he reconfigured his own traumas and anxiety."

— Louis Breger, FREUD: DARKNESS IN THE MIDST OF VISION

walking home,
clips a cigar,
wants nothing much:
an evening’s peace,
some coke in the vein,
a postulate to chew on;
maybe he will finally
write that letter
to his father. But
they come again:
the boys like monkeys
chattering around him
waving handguns;
the girls bent over,
wiggling their asses.
Where to turn? How
To fly? They trample
him, a wet leaf
plastered to the century,
his flat, stern visage
trembling on the sidewalk
like a paper dollar.

FROM A FRONT WINDOW

1.
There is the city of glass and money,
over there, but here it comes,
closer with every newspaper.
Unidentified lying spokesmen
interpret the same old photos:
the bloody feet of refugees,
the bloody hands of soldiers.
Here comes someone, not a neighbor,
with a clipboard and a calculator.
Where will we grow children and roses?
Where will we grow older?


2.
Because mothers still tell children
making ugly faces to be careful
or they will harden into one of them,
I am a little less afraid.

When fathers wipe their children’s dirty faces
with handkerchiefs that smell of sweat,
their children do not forget them
easily. I am a gladdened father
learning that, and a calmer son.


3.
And lovers’ bodies make a clumsy knot
just good enough to mend the net.