The Wake

What follows
before the first word?
What tree’s dead falling fruit cracks
open upon the ground feeding
you seeds: the knowledge
of apples and gravity, falling
neatly into chalk outlines laid out
like a child’s school uniform waitingfor the word.
The knowledge—
waking dreams in pictures: the ghost
of Van Gogh’s ear
still hears
the color of morning
light at soundspeed racing
to your waking lucid
eyes, scratching sleep from your temple
with mother’s brooches—pearls
and dreams and unnatural
understanding. Cleanse
yourselfin a warm shower
you’ve been dirty so long
you’ve gotten used to your own
smell, forgotten the warm
wet drops
on your
skin
drip dry in the breeze.
Cleanse yourself.
The third eye of the hurricane will wash you
…

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Someday when you are older, I will bring you to the forest
that I planted. I dug a whole for each tree and bade The Rains
to come. I made clear this is The Wood of My Son.You are that son.Each year, I return to that parcel of land. Now the trees
have branches that connect completely to each other branch.
If one tree decided to fall, they would all fall together.It is a no-wind zone. I willed it and made it so,
so that no other child’s breath would touch your trees.Only you.*In the years before the motor car, we walked among
the paved roads and wondered what they were made for.We did a dance we called The Side-Walk and we wore
hats that you would deem ridiculous. But you are just a boy.One …

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Wading through a chest-high sea of easy prey,
dominating the crowding hall, she is foreign
in this place. The perfectly patterned lockers stretch
infinitely down the corridor. Monochrome
landscape, free of pheromones and vibrant
colors, anything exciting the emotions beyond
squeaking Florsheim shoes (overwhelming
all other sounds). Towering over the ten-year-old
saplings, she navigates the elementary orchardand patiently waits …
confidence manifested in her expression,
curiosity piquing her plucked eyebrows.She falls into a distant life, vividly removed,
she feels the itch of government issue bed sheets—
caustic sandpaper tissue against her face,
She looks up through her prison-patterned
telescope and fantasize about this day.She sighs now
choosing an exceptionally short blond
from the largely anonymous collection
of miniature neckties and squeaking shoes.Pausing …
realizing now she knew
this day would come
she feels …

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I was conjured from constant boil,
boil
toil and trouble. Thick as molasses
from the center. The tree of knowledge brewed,
curling up and in
away a bubble grew.
Traveling out through arms of light
the finger tips of what
held me a slight.
For out of night I coddled this image:
utopian fields and day starred through
emeralds, eyes that watered
constantly. Until, became of me
bursting the day as fingers
broke free
which from no longer did I hang
like sap off the tree.
Sweetly and full of juice, an almost
bound sea.
And once I dropped from these
tangled branches, they rained
with such velocity I obtained,
a child born of roots dug low and
mother veins infiltrating …

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The piano tapered at the seams
Filled over the strings
With water
Chocked thick
With Dust
From twenty years’ skin
And fingers shredding into oblivionLetting crimson seep
Through piano pores
Warbling the sound
Through the mic
To the mixerVarying the wave
As the liquid drains
And the muffling wanes
Allowing delay to emerge
From the bleeding thing
Thundering descending minors
In low registry
In strange timing
While shifting
From the strings to the keys
Mutilating fingers
Crying
With hair in his eyes
And emotions unsheathed

I saw the best minds of my generation ignore themselves, starving raving saccharin,
Dragging themselves into disheveled sheets at dawn looking for an angry burger,
Slickhaired infants chilling for the latest heavenly hookup to the dazey dynamo in the machinery of nightlife,
Who credit carded and ends oriented and silk striped and down with sat up slouching in the supernatural glow of neonatal niches floating past Starbucks contemplating static,
Who bared their brands to Idol under the El and never saw Risperdalized angels wandering on hospital floors disarrayed,
Who passed through universities with aviator-dressed eyes hallucinating glass boots and Joyce-light tragedy among the scholars of scrip,
Who were admitted to the academies for gilt and publishing obscene assumptions on the windows of the skull,
Who jaunted in laidback rooms in tight jeans, burning their …

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W.B. Yeats writes his own death. Words in algorithms and sentences like polynomials, he crafts his poem “Under Ben Bulben” into a will. He forgets to mention who gets the mahogany dinner table or the bank account, and writes, rather, of where the ground should break for his final resting place. He writes of how, exactly, he would like his legacy to breathe and stretch and sigh and endure. He tells a reader: Bury me under this mountain Ben Bulben, here in the Drumcliff churchyard in County Sligo, Ireland. Right here. He is, of course, much more poetic.The day I saw his gravestone, another Thanksgiving years before Normandy, only three colors existed: the green grass (only green, bright green like that color that immediately comes to your mind … that’s it), the gray headstone like …

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The members of Doomtree, a local hip-hop crew, have been ravaging the Minneapolis music scene for some time now. They have probably done more to get in touch, lyrically, with their listeners than even Atmosphere and the rest of the Rhymesayers.When I was given an opportunity to speak with one of Doomtree’s members, Dessa—a hardcore M.C. who is described on the crew’s website as the quiet, brainy member; but is in fact a well-spoken critical thinker and speaker—I couldn’t resist. The Wake: I know this is a generic question, but what are your influences, in terms of spoken word or poetry?Dessa: I don’t read too much poetry. Poetry with a capital “P” doesn’t have a sense of humor and tends to consider itself so somber that it’s hard for it to be full of the blood …

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Two minutes until we measure a yesterday by the weight of wet sand beneath our feet. A white sky, white clouds, white raindrops, maybe a white sun if it ever appears. Wind-chapped grass awaits the lotion of raindrops. We mount one of the hills above the beach—it stretches for miles until it eclipses with that white horizon—and we stare at an ocean. The wind dribbles sugar-sand over our shoes; we sink a little.
One minute until we descend down the dunes, down into decades ago. But we stop awhile for reasons we don’t say. This canvas of saltwater before us means we can each paint a spot with our eyes to pass the seconds. In my mural, I see a person swimming (Is it me? In the soggy denim and Nikes?) and swimming in …

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i once went to a family restaurant
because i missed, and felt alone.
i went to catch the feeling of a kid
in-between the tables a carousel (alive).
i sat and drank and watched it spin,
never with the courage for a ride
antes de morir yo quiero
echar mis versos del alma,
con los pobres de la tierra
quiero mi suerte echarmorire de cara al solone time came down the mountain, i saw,
an ancient moon
with the voice of god and mother earth
spilling from her womb
and it whispered– …

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too cold to play
the too long in bed
against the wall
…

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Louise Erdrich, known for both her poetry and her fiction, calls herself a storyteller under all circumstances. Yet her poetry makes one believe she is clearly a poet at heart. Drawing on her Chippewa and German heritage, she has won many awards for countless novels, and her poetry manages to be timeless and yet specific enough to capture a different chord with readers of all backgrounds. Baptism of Desire was published in 1988, which may seem like ages ago in a time of infamously big hair, leggings and scrunchies, but it still makes a staunch impression on readers today. “Baptism” in the title brings us to what this book of poetry is attempting to say. The poems focus very much on the Catholic religion and Erdrich’s feelings about her own faith and connection to God. …

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At the Café Du Borg the exhaling marijuana
plays nostril hair endings like a loose mandolin.
The girls who brought us here are Dutch and after
mayonnaise and french fries I realize two things—
that life is all we’ll ever have,
and everyone is lonely.
After the café they run us to their favorite bar,
a place called Bogart’s with its neon lights shining.
I get a Guinness and Dave has an Amstel and the girls
all order up the same mixed drink. I am unimpressed.
They love this place. The walls are wood and dark.
We get a table, they tell stories of some boys who
were from Austria, who had previously tried
(the very same night) to do what we were doing now.
I call their bluff and keep on drinking….

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If one cannot revolt then what does one have? A perfect state? A perfect life? Equality? Perhaps, in revolutionless societies life is more pure and consequently more perfect because there is less death, and the lack of death causes people to know what life is really about. In such societies life would be seen as the ultimate goal, the ultimate reality and thus would not openly invite death to their door. However, with that written a question lay unanswered; namely, can such a society actually exist? Many have written books, articles and screenplays about these societies, but as of late as I stare blankly at my TV screen, I am not convinced of their existence. Therefore, as many of us stand on the pinnacle of our young lives we wonder what can be done, or …

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I did it again today. I stole from the union. It was amazing, that flawless theft that can only be for food. That dance with abnormal morals which effects one from lack of nourishment. Some hollow, bitter, cold outside that’s enough to make a man’s guts hungry for anything to take away the feeling; but not hungry enough to drain the check card on essentially cafeteria food. Not seven-dollars hungry.I should really feel terrible. Committing this unthinkable deed, this sin of universally bad karma. Stealing from the institution that is so graciously handing me a future. But when you really think about it, about “robbery,” about taking that which does not belong to you … Let’s contrast and compare. Number 1The food in the union is not good by any standard, it’s actually quite awful. …

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