Poetry

Spring 2008

 

 

Stephen Stepanchev

Geese Flying North in October

October: an arrow of geese is flying toward
The wilds of Canada: can they be lost?
Are their direction signals wrong? Is their global
Positioning system flawed? Is it falling apart?
If my Chevrolet can do it, why can't they?

Perhaps they will find something in the wrong
Direction, a Greenland of undiscovered promises.

Like them, I'm a lover of serendipity.
My false directions lead to symmetry:
The fragrant apples of controlled surprise.
I stand amazed in a blighted, frozen field
And hear the murmur of my mother's pulse
And see the warm tears brimming in her eyes.

 

A Soldier Speaks

The dead lie flat,
As I lie flat,
On desert sand,
Looking up at the stars,
The blue ones, very far.

My twin died in my mother's womb.
Thus death is a familiar.

Addressing students at the U. of C.,
The President consoled us, "You, like me,
Can become the President of these States."
I never made it, but earned a degree.

Later my mother, like Grendel, warred
To extricate me from the Pentagon.
The sun of Iraq was hot on her ass —
She was wearing only a thong.

The Tigris rolls past palaces
Of ancient glory. Now the blood
Of Americans drenches the neighborhood.
And the sun titters in the breeze
Of brilliant ironies.

 

 

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