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“It’s a ’49,” Rhinehardt said, and slammed The screen door, then worked his way around The dog turds in the yard To the Buick gutted from fire—the gears Teething rust, the fenders sloped Like the shoulders of a fired worker Out of beer. He circled the car Kicking the tires, eyeing The grille that still grinned the ribbed wings Of a sparrow. He looked inside and flies Lifted like patted dust, settling Into a loose knot on the visor. “Yeh, you’re right as right ... it’s a ’50,” Rhinehardt spat, his tongue rolling A false tooth into place. “It’s got no Running board.” He pressed a buck Into his son’s hand and retired to the porch Where he towel-flicked His wife from a chair And as evening came on watched beyond The street, a kennel of trees, Where—as he had dreamed—a plane would drop And bloom fire. Two bucks on that one.

A voice from the dark called out, ‘The poets must give us imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar imagination of disaster. Peace, not only the absence of war.’ But peace, like a poem, is not there ahead of itself, can’t be imagined before it is made, can’t be known except in the words of its making, grammar of justice, syntax of mutual aid. A feeling towards it, dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have until we begin to utter its metaphors, learning them as we speak. A line of peace might appear if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, questioned our needs, allowed long pauses . . . A cadence of peace might balance its weight on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence, an energy field more intense than war, might pulse then, stanza by stanza into the world, each act of living one of its words, each word a vibration of light—facets of the forming crystal.

In their proverbs, the Sumerians quoted Fox as saying — on having pissed into the sea —All the ocean is now my urine! Now, hang on there girl. I want to get a handle on your homeopathic incontinent ways, because I think you may be onto something. Firstly, what kind of fox are you that approaches the shore; no hen house to bother, no brambles to scoff? No line of emerald shit to booby-trap the garden with? Perhaps wherever we are, you are; so why not the beach? What promise did the salt ocean offer you, or appear to? Cured meat? Fish? After all, once a month I know I reek gloriously of kelp — salt and iron and yeast — an umami feast for the brave, or weak. Or were you worrying seabirds up on the cliff — stopped in your tracks, unable to resist. A little splish. The wind threshing your water as it fell — yellow, scattered, one or two drops of which maybe reached. Or perhaps you were caught short, coy on the beach, and entered the surf for decorum’s sake. All over the world, miles from the sea, girls caught between poor sanitary provision and a social imperative to be discreet find themselves in a dark place, their skirts about their waists. Maybe it was the king’s men that saw fit to drive you into the sea. But clever, resourceful, you just thumbed your nose and learned to swim. Paddled to safer land, much like we once did. Your charcoal paws doggedly turning the cold pages of the sea. Pausing now and then to pee, a comforting cloud of heat. And which child among us hasn’t cast their blessing on the waves? Sent into the surf  by mothers, which of us hasn’t rightfully claimed the ocean as our own, or in turn been claimed?

The dog came back, grinning and smelling of carrion, and her husband behind it, stride and gestures too large for the house. His field voice, cracking, declared a wider kingdom, and the name of a fallen city, not theirs this time. From outside the roar and shrill of celebration poured in. He drew near in a rank cloud, breathing hard, to show her the gash in his thumb. So she washed in five waters and went to their bed, but he slept without moving, still in his cloak and dust.

If you come to Mojacar and peel open an orange full of worms, count how many there are because those are the days it will take for your body to decompose after you are buried. If you come to Mojacar and find a small green snake with its back broken, don't step on it or you'll cause an earthquake that will catch up to you while you sleep in a continent far, far away. If you come to Mojacar and two brown long-legged spiders crawl on your face and shoulders, keep a sharp eye out for two individuals, a mother-son, or sister-sister who will try to take your money. If you come to Mojacar and see a scorpion scurry by your feet, note the direction it ran to, north, south, east, or west. You must avoid going there or risk the sting of losing a loved one. If you come to Mojacar and a cock crows ten times at three in the morning, lock your door and all the wooden windows because nightmares in silver dresses will arrive to slip into your bed.

About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, How alert in attendance be. From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw They have nothing of harm to dread, But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank Or before his Gorgonian head; Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth In white triple tiers of glittering gates, And there find a haven when peril’s abroad, An asylum in jaws of the Fates! They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey, Yet never partake of the treat— Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, Pale ravener of horrible meat.

(July, 1862) Ye elms that wave on Malvern Hill In prime of morn and May, Recall ye how McClellan’s men Here stood at bay? While deep within yon forest dim Our rigid comrades lay— Some with the cartridge in their mouth, Others with fixed arms lifted South— Invoking so The cypress glades? Ah wilds of woe! The spires of Richmond, late beheld Through rifts in musket-haze, Were closed from view in clouds of dust On leaf-walled ways, Where streamed our wagons in caravan; And the Seven Nights and Days Of march and fast, retreat and fight, Pinched our grimed faces to ghastly plight— Does the elm wood Recall the haggard beards of blood? The battle-smoked flag, with stars eclipsed We followed (it never fell!)— In silence husbanded our strength— Received their yell; Till on this slope we patient turned With cannon ordered well; Reverse we proved was not defeat; But ah, the sod what thousands meet!— Does Malvern Wood Bethink itself, and muse and brood? We elms of Malvern Hill Remember every thing; But sap the twig will fill; Wag the world how it will, Leaves must be green in Spring.

Jesse Patrick Ferguson is a Canadian visual poet working in both visual and textual forms. His "Mama" shows how little text it takes to make a successful visual poem. Consisting of nothing but the letter "e," variously presented, this poem represents the simple warbling cry of a child. The poem is both a touching visualization of an aural event and a strong example of how xerographic transmogrification can add character and meaning to text.—Geof Huth More About Visual Poetry >>

for Michel Tournier, The Four Wise Men At least once a month a man boards a bus bound for Detroit, one bag, a few books. Nevertheless he always tells himself I just might leave Cincinnati for good just cut out never look back... When he arrives in the Motor City he drinks and drinks it all in until he’s dead drunk on all fours, a two-year-old mama’s boy, bawling all night night after night for the salt-sweet milk of his sister-mother turning in her sleep from a hard back turning toward the Canadian border... When at long last he takes a bus back to the Queen City, long after the only rest stop, he notices the first signs: merciless thirst, gorging hunger, swollen ankles, what the folks down south call sugar.

I have no answer to the blank inequity of a four-year-old dying of cancer. I saw her on t.v. and wept with my mouth full of meatloaf. I constantly flash on disasters now; red lights shout Warning.Danger. everywhere I look. I buckle him in, but what if a car with a grille like a sharkbite roared up out of the road? I feed him square meals but what if the fist of his heart should simply fall open? I carried him safely as long as I could, but now he's a runaway on the dangerous highway. Warning.Danger. I've started to pray. But the dangerous highway curves through blue evenings when I hold his yielding hand and snip his miniscule nails with my vicious-looking scissors. I carry him around like an egg in a spoon, and I remember a porcelain fawn, a best friend's trust, my broken faith in myself. It's not my grace that keeps me erect as the sidewalk clatters downhill under my rollerskate wheels. Sometimes I lie awake troubled by this thought: It's not so simple to give a child birth; you also have to give it death, the jealous fairy's christening gift. I've always pictured my own death as a closed door, a black room, a breathless leap from the mountain top with time to throw out my arms, lift my head, and see, in the instant my heart stops, a whole galaxy of blue. I imagined I'd forget, in the cessation of feeling, while the guilt of my lifetime floated away like a nylon nightgown, and that I'd fall into clean, fresh forgiveness. Ah, but the death I've given away is more mine than the one I've kept: from my hand the poisoned apple, from my bow the mistletoe dart. Then I think of Mama, her bountiful breasts. When I was a child, I really swear, Mama's kisses could heal. I remember her promise, and whisper it over my sweet son's sleep: When you float to the bottom, child, like a mote down a sunbeam, you'll see me from a trillion miles away: my eyes looking up to you, my arms outstretched for you like night.