Michael S. Begnal


Angles


the Angles are coming!
                              keels on the shore,
               forays across the sea in keels,

heaved oars, hacked the sea,
forced the WEALES west,

                again

planting language,
ground cultivated, a displacement of DNA,
sex on the prairie advertised in print,
drunken soldiers looking for a plantation

the rustling grasses breezily cut,
and the insecure gardens of violence,
trimmed bushes regimented in rows,

               as Malick put it

trade winds dance,
                              agrarian economy, multiple-harvest,
               the difference between
                              the forest
                                             vs. the goods,

a yield of such commodities

               more


Poem Written at Work


Walls of red brick looming above,
vents & black metal railings &
industrial air-conditioning fans
spinning into blindness,
streaks of rust drip down concrete
twenty feet

sun beats bright on the
               NO PARKING
                        ANY
                       TIME
                          ↔
                        sign


                              to the side, half in the shade,
                              a tree
                              tangled in the shadows of its branches,
                              its roots underneath the tarmac

piles of pallets
& another broad wall of brick,

a delivery truck drives in


July 12


fade
                fade
                               fade
                                              umbrella


                fade
                fade
                bowler hat


                               fade
                               sash


                fade
                               fade
                                              domi-
                                              nation


                               fading

                               fading

                               fading

                                              union



Michael S. Begnal is the author of three collections: Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005), and The Lakes of Coma (Six Gallery Press, 2003). He has appeared in journals such as Notre Dame Review, Shearsman, BlazeVOX, Poetry Ireland Review, PIG: a journal, and many others. He is published in the anthologies Breaking the Skin: New Irish Poetry (Black Mountain Press, 2002) and, in the Irish language, Go Nuige Seo (Coiscéim, 2004, 2005). He is also included in the recent essay collection, Avant-Post: The Avant-Garde under “Post-” Conditions (Litteraria Pragensia, 2006). Begnal was formerly the editor of the Galway, Ireland-based literary magazine, The Burning Bush (1998-2004). He blogs at www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com.

 
 
 
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