Poems
Maggie Golston
History Chanty
1. plodding father
Loser… blinker–
arrived or arriving
skinned or languidly skinning or whole
countrymen dead
men bending…
winds hanging; loudly
intoning. Hidden sides of;
then digging baseward father’s window shuts,
dredging compost–
rude to say.
(hidden folds and last year’s heist)
my god thick with vibrato
Give up.
Have anger gore into you until it sings:
–Underhanded…
(bang!
dad’s in the middle of giving you life
and you’re just standing there)
–mother’s jagged name represents
forests then alimony then her forefinger…
2. india ink
You can always have this city
not blotted but respectfully
under-dyed until you can blur it.
You can slide your hands through it,
hiss your high notes
(some hungry like cities and saddened or sick).
Men full of guilt,
sick of order or emptiness,
one digit
placed beneath the place where the tide meets the muck
signalling
some work forestalled. Some tint of misfortune.
A boy with a lump swelling from his forehead is moving
but unmotivated. He’s limp as a syringe
plunged and jettisoned.
You sleep afraid in lighted rooms,
more lolling or contrite than a backstabber,
than payback.
Your skin and hair
rougher now, rougher–
scabrous or about to scab, shoulder by shoulder
sit with her,
grasp rovingly that princess
of little affect
inventing
tender plush
inventing
(fill her)
inventing