6-01-09, 11:33 am

Leningrad 1941 The white horse loses herself in the snowy city. Wandering past ice sculpted streetcars, Past smoke plumes, last lights gone dark. I wish I might climb into the opaque ball Of the horse's steamy breath, growing warm, sleepy. Content to let her lead us through the empty city. Michael Shepler 2/24/09

Through the Hills of Spain (for Miguel Hernandez)

Through the hills of Spain among the flowers and the seeds of life a train wanders Hernandez .... Hernandez the night is hushed mockingbirds listen to the tirades of men wounded in battle blood of your blood senseless death in the air the wind swallows birds Hernandez ... Hernandez There is death caught by the nostrils of the sky there is death everywhere the sea calling to forlorn travelers Hernnandez ... Hernandez your wound leaves the redness of skys never conquered untouched, virginal Oh, yawning tenderness lust on the wheels of a train blood on the faces of bulls soil calloused by murder homicide of undertakers and children Sword of the flesh Alicante ripe years of manhood Oh, dawning life overpowering weatherworn axes heaven of your life Hernandez ... Hernandez Through the hills of Spain among the flowers and the seeds of life a train wanders -Luis Omar Salinas, copyright 1970



The Children

allover will remember their legs their arms, the amputated spaces will be Nothing branded into their little souls, never to forget, Israel, you shattered their vessels with your gunfire, shit on the word, said fuck you to the fetus in the womb.

You not they pissed on your own wholly unholy tetragramaton, its letters a fraud and a fake. I wish I could feed you hand grenades in your mug, I want to stuff dead children into your eyes, lovers of learning lies.

May selah be broken in your mouth, may amen never find chapter and verse, may your food turn into the gangrenous limbs of the children you’ve felled, those little trees of sparks. You’ve killed David over and over, you star of death.

O aliyah, how low!

O victory of defeat!

O stones growing in the clenches of fists enraged,

against you, you rattler of bones!

--Jack Hirschman