Kirk Wilson

Dear Mama

It’s been a while

since my last report

There are scattered bits of light

in my bowels and a fish

is sleeping in my liver

I’m still at your place but

it doesn’t feel so much like home

I do have my ambitions

I hope to rise up

like the killer birds

who ride wind

and study the whole

You’ll remember Odds Bodkins

who lives next door

in another kind of time 

My life waits to hear from him

but doesn’t

outside a perfect feather

now and then 

Meanwhile our species has gone

crazy for the void

We’re busy

building roads to get there                                                                                         

Today the traffic’s bad

The terror cops are loading

people into vans                                                                                                         

Nobody wants to think about

what’s underneath their masks

Bandits

Yes I own a car

Yes a roof

keeps me from flying

I only fall

through the future

There is this small confusion now

that bandits have stolen all the laws

and aimed them

To not see their faces

people walk with eyes shut

The steps are so precise

as though we’ve seen the movie

The trees go still 

The stones mime sleep

Each time a cruelty happens

there is a sing along and then

the surface of this poem

will blink   

Real Life

In the fashion districts now we see

the fascist outfits in the windowpanes

The wind is stuck outside

and it holds grudges

It body slams against the gold facades 

producing fearful spasms

in the mannikins 

Just look at the stones piled up on one another

like they know it all

Just look at those black holes we found

under the bed

We’re all impostors here no worries

Nobody gets to understand 

how much these words want off the page

Surely it’s the oceans’ outrage that we feel

Surely we’ll crush the demons

and dance on their nerves

Surely their souls are made of glass

and will leave in small boats

Surely our parents wait inside us

willing to try again

Poem and Situation

A dead character is onstage talking

and it is easy to feel how some

in the audience see this as a threat

or an annoyance though the speech

consists of sentences as everyday

and beneficial as a bag of groceries

No poem could hate this even if

the character is undocumented

and the wind moves through it

and for the moment it is free

of bloodstains and rictal grins

and fills its outline as though it lives

death to the fullest the poem would see

the character as past and future

in other words time established

as a situation so much more relatable

than the plain fact of eternity

just as the poem could not deny

the many situations that have come and gone

in our lives like words spoken on a stage

We are of course also a situation

but one that has not been solved

the words are still being said

the story time has placed in us

and we have told it back

is still alive and no poem would dispute

the way the wind that moves

through the dead also moves

beneath the wings of sparrows

who are for the moment free

I Am to Myself Uncanny

In this way I am the nation

the world and the cosmos

and I can tell you nothing

about why I’m here

I can describe this problem

in a number of ways

As for example

a painterly realism

a nude sleeping

by an open window

The nude dreams a sky

that shows a band of jays

a surefire way out

as for example the time

the angel arrived on the train

to check for signs of life

and left a trail of cake

crumbs through the station

There must for example be a word

carrying the genes of the original

word that left nothing out

which I would know if I weren’t

always late to meetings

where all the fateful motions

are already voted down

No doubt when I die

the spirit will pack in the dark

and leave in a rush I understand                                                                                

because I too am desperate

to break into the light                                                                                                 

in a place where the grass is wild

enough to swing in the wind

What to Do About History

Close the door

Close the eyes

We live in the weather

like it or not

This is what I learned

from you and you and you

who stay out under the statues

and won’t come home

even on a path of words

You’re right we need the poems

to be more real and say real things

History lies around inside us

like a deadbeat

History wakes up exactly

like a horse spooked

and tearing through the forest

which is the night of our bodies

It does terrible things

it can’t even remember

History of Cloud Stack

of Money Sack

of Ghost Wind

Find the rhythm of the running horse

Ride and turn it when you can

Feed it breakfast and hug it by the neck

Don’t go wild too soon

Be afraid for everything alive

Learn how things you’re afraid of

survive

Synonym for Counter Melody

I arrive on the platform

a little like an angel

a little like a cactus with gears

Whatever you are I know

we are too much trouble

for each other even if

we are hopelessly in love

with detail and blind

to everything that matters

Because I listen to you

we are nearly interchangeable

and despite everything

working against it

your words open a glade

alive with bumblebees

and sunning minor prophets

You know me

I sometimes have problems

saying what I want

I want the kind of quiet

that is afraid of itself

I want a cicada’s colors

maybe its eyes too

You can imagine

what a state I’m in

I’ll leave the running

of things to the fools

the night to the light

inside it

I’ll wait here

til the government falls

and everything changes