Monday, May 19, 2014

Daniel Wilcox- Three Poems


1967

flowers and heaven
so-called, so we sung,
‘drift-would’ go west
(young ones);
but short on change--
who needs to ‘petal’ wheres or roses?
no Berkeley Barbs or thorns--
I dug half-gone potatoes
from a Lucky dumpster,
one spared meal in the Haight;
skin for skin
eye-opening,
that’s the skinny
no dope



Face-Overs

Broken glass from his mug
Glints on their withered lawn,
The mush of dirty snow,
Law brief’s scattered leaves,
And a dented Coke can
Spewed empty—
After the divorce


First published in Mouse Tales Press, Nov. 2012



Use Your Head?

Heard the old saw,
“Use your head”?
Why? When you could
Cut ahead of others--
Like Cromwell while singing psalms,
Heedless of kingship;
Or the Jacobins’ reigning Reason.
Was that Fouche or touché?
Yes, the “Feast of Brutus”;

The eastern samurai and their slow bamboo saw
--Heads up,
And don’t forget to cut the White Rose
Of Sophie and Hans;
Rather germane…

By all means
Decapitate Nablus;
Be so whole-wall hogged
The heady exuberance of hubris.

Or like the Frank Crusaders of old,
‘Goading’ everyone with crosses,
Downright upside down swords,
Lobbing heads of Muslims
Over the heights of Nicaea,
Blasted walls! All ‘preys’ to All…
Heedless to others,

And horse racing Afghans clubbing
Another trunkless pate
Headless to all,
Across a rock-strewn mountain meadow,
Or one goading Palestinian playing bloody soccer
With a Jewish soldier’s fleshy skull in Gaza.
What a cut-up!
Ah, the place of Golgotha;
It’s all a heady, mindless gas.

First published at Unlikely Stories, Sept. 2012



Brief Bio: Daniel Wilcox's wandering lines have appeared in many magazines including The Danforth Review, Word Riot, Write Room, Camel Saloon, and Unlikely Stories IV. Three large collections of his published poetry are in print, Dark Energy, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and selah river. The books of published poetry and his speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth, available at Barnes&Noble, local bookstores, and Amazon in the United States. 

Before that, he hiked through Nebraska, Cal State University Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel, Arizona...Now he resides with his wife on the central coast of California.

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