Part of a series of Native poetry collected by Mark Turcotte.
they built the mall of america
like a curse over the convergence
of our dreaming
they carved their brave explorers names
all men
into our mother’s tongue
(poetry)
Tag: poems
This is the first of a series of Native poetry collected by Mark Turcotte.
My father. I am your only son.
Look. In my hands I hold a name.
Ours. This proper noun we share.
Oh how you follow me still.
(poetry)
I have missed the predictable angles
of houses & the swollen arms
of buff dads. & these buff dads’
sullen children, their sullen faces
frowning across the road.
(poetry)
where were you // when you heard it / who were you with / what did it make you feel
All that’s left of the baby is the rattle. / All that’s left of the granny is her knitting.
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“In the end when they ask would I do it again // I’ll shake my head: where does one draft / end and another begin?”
When someone’s chasing you with a knife, / you just run, as someone said ages ago in a statement, / actually a manifesto demanding a person be face to face / with the words or they won’t count.
I might have lived a life or two / instead of counting steps in the parking lot, / between the rust-colored cars, / missing you.
I blossomed into violet / flames while my / Self, in silent flight / within my soul, / drank and sang / until dawn.
Now all I want is to / hear what Paul Thomas Anderson whispered into Fiona / Apple’s ear to make her cry in public.
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“And what if dying is like / that time I got out of school early / because I had an appointment”
I compliment / the man on his black leather jacket and he hangs it on my / shoulders and says, I think you’ll like it better than me, bunny.
The only language you know / the form you know as love / as one, / complete / complete.
(translations)
But those who press the grapes now, / who toil from morning till night, / they’ve disowned us…
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He slices an opening in the side / of my breast and puts a needle inside / which flails around like a water hose he can’t control / in the yard
(poetry)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“every long night before I met you // every long night when I wanted you”
It was late in the evening and dark, the dark river with its lights passing by, reflections from the Seine travelling across the ceiling, sliding along the walls.
I have not / strayed far from the dead. I see their hip favored / executives and can pick them out from big / crowds
She bravely gazes into the unknown without trying to articulate what gazes back.
(reviews)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I tried twitching my nose, but nothing happened.”
Entangled one with another they watch us. / The good died too soon.
(translations)
O, old ocean! the river has mixed with your waters / where I so often bathed
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I licked every word in the story, to know its taste”
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“My teachers told me // I should practice, but they never said why.”
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“Outside, harmonious cats / tread the pathway.”
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“From space you can see the shimmer / of the thousands of immigrant children / wrapped in tinfoil sleeping on the desert // sand”
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