SAM RASNAKE

THIS IS CACTUS LAND

"We are children of our age,
it's a political age."
         —Wislawa Szymborska, "Children of Our Age"

There's a wind that won't quit.
Sand, given time, levels everything.
Something slips away from us
in the night.

Smoke in Rumaila.

Fedayeen. Madina. Screaming Eagle.

Fox News: Are you apprehensive
Are you apprehensive
Are you apprehensive
Are you
You

A British body here, American there,
Iraqi, Iraqi Iraqi…

Meanwhile, the professor studies
Jewish law, looks out his window
across the Seine, thinking
of a German fable in the line
from Goethe: "I cannot,
I cannot regain my balance"—
making all connections.

Silence is lonely business.

*

Soundbites. Telewriter. The press
directs the war. And the general,
seasoned in linguistics and
his Pocket Aristotle, explains
the difference between
tactical and operational.

Under sand, the war head looms
in tie and western suit.

There is no school today.
There's no building today.
No child.

*

Alert: Orange. And oil for food.
Next.

"War in Iraq
And no one gets us closer than CNN
Stay informed"

We love the soundtrack.
The commercial for trucks,
fat burners, and Footlocker,
that's our favorite.
A chance for a refrigerator run.

*

Kane, his feet on the desk, his shirt,
showing the day at cuff and collar,
presses clanking behind him, says,
"You provide the prose poems.
I'll provide the war.

No question about the outcome.
We're gonna get 'em."

*

And lemurs, steady in deep foliage,
eyes to the one trail,
wait for darkness on their limb.

This is the way the world ends—:
Not a bang, no whimper,
but with a streaming ticker
at the bottom of our screens,
telling us who we are.
 

Sam Rasnake's poetry, widely published, has appeared in Literal Latté, Switched-on Gutenberg, Portland Review, One Trick Pony, nycBigCityLit, Lilliput Review, and Poem. He is the author of one chapbook, Religions of the Blood (Pudding House) and one collection, Necessary Motions (Sow's Ear Press). When not trying to master the deep pools of Muddy Waters, Dogen, and Elizabeth Bishop, he edits Blue Fifth Review, an online poetry journal.