I don’t hope for cease-fire much, if you
must know. I don’t pray for rain.
On a good day, I honor the war
by calling it war. I sing
along with the hook. I sing
every nigga is a star
& don’t mean dead
things shine too. For shame,
my six-year-old nephew dreams
of a life indebted to invention,
his first prototype a blade
-thin suit to help the human body move
faster. For a muse, he claims nothing
more than the implicit sweetness of speed,
but I know his best heart, how he longs
for cousins to grow gray as an alloy alongside.
I think him a prophet. I think of the fire.
I think of the drones with pictures of first wives
in their wallets, their bad teeth, middle names,
401(k)s for when all of the blood dries. I think
of the badge & see children running,
children laughing, children cradled
in smoke all at the exact same time.
On a good day, I think die die die
& don’t know where to aim
the hex, who to hunt down or cut
a deal with, some armistice
without end, a certain commitment
to infinitude built right into the fine
print, in an unexpected turn.
I don’t want any more words
that heal. I want a language for being
born underground, gravestone quarried
the moment you arrive. I want explosions
or else a fresh cosmos. I want the fang
-white king splayed
against a throne of bones
I see in all my new dreams
gone. Spare me any coalition
that does not require blood.
Give me time to think & a hope
-less cause. Give me lethal
equipment. Give me the names
of the slain. Say each name
like benediction. Ask,
Who will claim this flesh?
Expect the quiet.
Expect the flood.
PENGUIN POETS
JOHN ASHBERY
Selected Poems
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
PAUL BEATTY
Joker, Joker, Deuce
JOSHUA BENNETT
The Sobbing School
TED BERRIGAN
The Sonnets
LAUREN BERRY
The Lifting Dress
PHILIP BOOTH
Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950–1999
JULIANNE BUCHSBAUM
The Apothecary’s Heir
JIM CARROLL
Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems
Living at the Movies
Void of Course
ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING
Genius Loci
Rope
Stairway to Heaven
CARL DENNIS
Another Reason
Callings
New and Selected Poems 1974–2004
Practical Gods
Ranking the Wishes
Unknown Friends
DIANE DI PRIMA
Loba
STUART DISCHELL
Dig Safe
STEPHEN DOBYNS
Velocities: New and Selected Poems: 1966–1992
EDWARD DORN
Way More West
ROGER FANNING
The Middle Ages
ADAM FOULDS
The Broken Word
CARRIE FOUNTAIN
Burn Lake
Instant Winner
AMY GERSTLER
Crown of Weeds
Dearest Creature
Ghost Girl
Medicine
Nerve Storm
Scattered at Sea
EUGENE GLORIA
Drivers at the Short-Time Motel
Hoodlum Birds
My Favorite Warlord
DEBORA GREGER
By Herself
Desert Fathers, Uranium Daughters
God
Men, Women, and Ghosts
Western Art
TERRANCE HAYES
Hip Logic
How to Be Drawn
Lighthead
Wind in a Box
NATHAN HOKS
The Narrow Circle
ROBERT HUNTER
Sentinel and Other Poems
MARY KARR
Viper Rum
JACK KEROUAC
Book of Blues
Book of Haikus
Book of Sketches
JOANNA KLINK
Circadian
Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy
Raptus
JOANNE KYGER
As Ever: Selected Poems
ANN LAUTERBACH
Hum
If in Time: Selected Poems, 1975–2000
On a Stair
Or to Begin Again
Under the Sign
CORINNE LEE
Plenty
PHILLIS LEVIN
May Day
Mercury
Mr. Memory & Other Poems
PATRICIA LOCKWOOD
Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals
WILLIAM LOGAN
Macbeth in Venice
Madame X
Strange Flesh
The Whispering Gallery
ADRIAN MATEJKA
The Big Smoke
Mixology
MICHAEL MCCLURE
Huge Dreams: San Francisco and Beat Poems
ROSE MCLARNEY
Its Day Being Gone
DAVID MELTZER
David’s Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer
ROBERT MORGAN
Dark Energy
Terroir
CAROL MUSKE-DUKES
An Octave above Thunder
Red Trousseau
Twin Cities
ALICE NOTLEY
Certain Magical Acts
Culture of One
The Descent of Alette
Disobedience
In the Pines
Mysteries of Small Houses
WILLIE PERDOMO
The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon
LIA PURPURA
It Shouldn’t Have Been Beautiful
LAWRENCE RAAB
The History of Forgetting
Visible Signs: New and Selected Poems
BARBARA RAS
The Last Skin
One Hidden Stuff
MICHAEL ROBBINS
Alien vs. Predator
The Second Sex
PATTIANN ROGERS
Generations
Holy Heathen Rhapsody
Wayfare
ROBYN SCHIFF
A Woman of Property
WILLIAM STOBB
Absentia
Nervous Systems
TRYFON TOLIDES
An Almost Pure Empty Walking
SARAH VAP
Viability
ANNE WALDMAN
Gossamurmur
Kill or Cure
Manatee/Hum
anity
Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble
JAMES WELCH
Riding the Earthboy 40
PHILIP WHALEN
Overtime: Selected Poems
ROBERT WRIGLEY
Anatomy of Melancholy and Other Poems
Beautiful Country
Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems
Lives of the Animals
Reign of Snakes
MARK YAKICH
The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine
Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross
1 Listen. What I mean to say is, I am not very much like him at all. I do not adorn myself with the bones of birds for fear of drowning. I will not eat any animal that can solve a puzzle, or suckles its young. I am not trying to make myself beautiful for you. I am not a cadaver yet.
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