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,
