Winter 2009 - THE POTOMAC



Three Poems
   Vlada Teper

Collserola Path

"I believe in angels," he said.
I smiled.
I saw the doily-laced wings,
the white silk of their dresses wrapping around their ankles
in the Viennese waltz of their downward descent.

The backyards of Barcelona spilt
on both sides of our Collserola path; we approached
the glaring white broccoli observation tower
pressed against the underneath of the sky.

"And you come back, again, again," he said,
"as birds and whales and other people."
With my eyes I followed the scoop of his neck,
The swoop of the gaviotas,
Brushed my hand past where it rests when I say the "Shmah."

Still, the Christmas-ornament angels held hands,
danced the horah, smiled dimpled smiles.
Inside the broccoli tower, Barcelona, settling
on the spoon-bottom below us, fell away. He said,

"You can see everything from here."
I squinted.
I could not even see the Monjuic mountain.
The green, open fields below were just squares
with just people walking down the Collserola path.


Inishmor Country

I recognize that cow
in your photo album. Its eyes
reflecting the morning gray mist, I still
see it chewing my desire to see Dun Aengus
with lazy indifference.
(I too am an early riser today,
but I can't chew my days.)
He blinks, then stares. I debate.
He watches the stone walls, knee-high,
separating the land into green squares.
Inishmor is green graph paper lined under a Guinness-moon;
Lines zigzagging, crossing.
I do not have the time.
I continue walking between holyrood-lined cemeteries.


Sunny and Rainbow-Colored

Fuck this, man.
He enters; the door slams behind the
color-stained fingers, Pollock-splotched smock.

It's him.
With our bodies, we try to form a barrier
between our customers and his language.

No fucking ocher yellow today? Goddamn it.
No paint, but higher goddamn prices.

I smile; Allen cautions me with his eyes.

A hemp-farmer with two gorgeous daughters,
backwoods George paints city scenes.
With the goddamn acrylics

          (the leftovers)

he paints detailed Golden Gate Bridge California

          (calendar only $14.95 plus tax),

sunny and rainbow

  
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