Thanks to the editors of the following publications, where some of these poems first appeared:
Is Your Country a He or a She in Your Mouth
Mine is a man I think, I love men, they call me a fatherlandsexual, all the motherlandsexuals have been sailed away, and there were never any here in the first place, they tell us. Myself I have never seen a mountain, myself I have never seen a valley, especially not my own, I am afraid of the people who live there, who eat hawk and wild rice from my pelvic bone. Oh no, I am fourteen, I have walked into my motherlands bedroom, her body is indistinguishable from the fatherland who is loving her from behind, so close their borders match up, except for a notable Area belonging to the fatherland.
I am drawn to the motherlands lurid sunsets, I am reaching my fingers to warm them, the people in my valley are scooping hawk like crazy, I can no longer tell which country is which, salt air off both their coasts, so gross, where is a good nice gulp of Midwestern pre-tornado? The tornado above me has sucked up a Cow, the motherland declares, the tornado above him has sucked up a Bull, she says pointing to the fatherland. But the cow is clearly a single cow, chewing a single cud of country, chewing their countries into one, and I hate these country! I scream, and their eyes shine with rain and fog, because at last I am using the accent of the homeland, at last I am a homelandsexual and I will never go away from them, there will one day be two of you too they say, but I am boarding myself already, I recede from their coasts like a Superferry packed stem to stern with citizens, all waving hellos and goodbyes, and at night all my people go below and gorge themselves with hunks of hawk, the traditional dish of the new floating heartland.
Search Lizard Vagina and You Shall Find
A higher country had a question, a higher country searched and found me, and the name of the country was north of me, Canada. When I think of you I think
up there just as I think when I think of my brain, my brain and the bad sunning lizard inside it. Today you searched lizard vagina, Canada. It is so hugely small if you can imagine it; it is scaled it is scaled so far down.
It evolved over many millions of years to be perfectly invisible to you; and so you will never see it, Canada. Here is some pornography, if it will help: tongues flick out all over the desert! Next time try thunder lizard vagina. That will be big enough for even you, Canada. You have one somewhere in your hills, or else somewhere in your badlands. Perhaps someone is uncovering a real one right now, with a pickaxe a passion and a patience. Ever since she was a child she knew what she would do.
She buttons her background-colored clothes, she bends down to her work; keep spreading, Canada, she will show you to yourself. Your down there that is, my Up There. Oh South oh South oh South you think, oh West oh West now West say you. The pickaxe the passion and the patience hears, pink tongue between her lips just thinking. The stones and the sand and the hollows they watch her. The tip of her tongue thinks almost out loud, I have a brain am in a brain brain suns itself in lizard too.
Where would I be if I were what I wanted? Has a feeling finally, swings the pickaxe- the passion and the patience-tip down.
The Whole World Gets Together and Gangbangs a Deer
Bambi is fresh from the countryside. Bambi is fresh and we want him on film. He doesnt even know how to kiss yet. Lean in and part your lips, we say, and pull a slow strip off a tree. We shine our biggest spotlight on him, our biggest spotlight is the sun.
And under the spotlight the deer drips sweat, and what do deer like more than salt. Now look at the fawn and grow an antler, we patiently instruct him. It will grow from your thoughts like the ones on your head. Oh Bambi says the fawn, oh Bambi. Fresh grass-stains around the young mouth. Every deer gets called Bambi at least once in its life, every deer must answer to Bambi, every deer hears dont kill Bambi, every deer hears dont eat Bambi, every deer hears LOOK OH LOOK its Bambi.
When the deer all die they will die of genericide, of one baby name for the million of them. Then women begin to be called Bambi, and then deer understand what women are like: light-shafts of long blond hair and long legs. The sun piercing through the Bavarian trees and the sun touching down on the dewy green ground. Then women begin to be called Fawn, and then women begin to say Bambi oh Bambi. And their mouths are open and they gape like a mouth when it takes a big bite of spring green. The spotlight shines down through the trees in long legs.
This is the first movie most of us see. Small name for a small deer: Bambi. Sometimes he feels all the deer could fit inside him. The movie we are making is this one: all the deer in one deer one after another. Subtitles so we know what his soft sounds are saying. Mostly he says THE MEADOW, THE MEADOW! like the women who are Bambi say GOD OH GOD.
What they mean is a wide open space, a great clearing. All the deer and us watching in a great open field. A great wide clearing in the face of the deer says THE MEADOW, THE MEADOW! and all of us watching. The deers mouths moving as if they are reading. But no, they are eating the grass.
He Marries the Stuffed-Owl Exhibit at the Indiana Welcome Center
He marries her mites and the wires in her wings, he marries her yellow glass eyes and black centers, he marries her near-total head turn, he marries the curve of each of her claws, he marries the information plaque, he marries the extinction of this kind of owl, he marries the owl that she loved in life and the last thought of him in the thick of her mind just one inch away from the bullet, there, he marries the moths who make holes in the owl, who have eaten the owl almost all away, he marries the branch of the tree that she grips, he marries the real-looking moss and dead leaves, he marries the smell of must that surrounds her, he marries the strong blue stares of children, he marries nasty smudges of their noses on the glass, he marries the camera that points at the owl to make sure no one steals her, so the camera wont object when he breaks the glass while reciting some vows that he wrote himself, he screams OWL instead of ILL and then ALWAYS LOVE HER, he screams HAVE AND TO HOLD and takes hold of the owl and wrenches the owl away from her branch and he covers her in kisses and the owl thinks, More moths, and at the final hungry kiss, That must have been the last big bite, there is no more of me left to eat and thank God, when he marries the stuffing out of the owl and hoots as the owl flies out under his arm, they elope into the darkness of Indiana, Indiana he screams is their new life and WELCOME.