Photograph: Homesteader, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940

What is it

That makes this man, knife in hand

Getting ready to cut a head of cabbage

More than the sum of his parts?

I don’t pretend to know the full answer

But I can see that look

Of reverence towards that lowly

Head he is about to sacrifice

Gives me part of it:

Here is a man thankful

For all the simple things

That make up a life, even when

He has to part with them.

Earth Angel on the Horizon

Suspended

Between the sensible

And the celestial,

I wait for that animated miracle

That will keep me from falling

Out of the sky.

Scum Bag

Not having anything wholesome

To offer the hoi polloi,

I’ll just give them

The benefit of the doubt

And give myself

Wholly away.

First Time at Bat: Advice to the Slugger

Son, you just

keep your eye

on the ball

and stay away

from slimebags

as you touch

all three bases

on your way

back home.

Definitely Not Lemmings #35

A warm welcome to N. G. Lykomitros who joins us from Athens, Greece. Nikos studied English Language and Literature and did graduate work in translation at the University of Athens; his first book of poems was published by Gavriilidis Editions ( Athens 2010) and translated into Spanish by a mutual friend, the Spanish poet and translator Mario Domínguez Parra.

For the Last Time, I'm Telling You All I Know

Say it was translated

Into intelligible speech,

This poet’s sibyllic

Song would still sound

Like no song ever

Heard before.

In Terrorem

Remember:

in

ter

min

able,

un

flinch

ing

err

or

un

er

ring

ly

true,

e

pluribus

unum

skull

and

bones,

red

white,

blue.