terminal

terminal by Ian Ernzer


your train terminates
in the dark terminal

—just then you realize
                as you see the woman
    in front of you

this is not the station
                     you want to get off

stolen lands

stolen lands by Ian Ernzer

golden straw
               black sand
sacred                     land
                 stolen—
                 stealing
       death
                 grieving

neighborhood

neighborhood by Ian Ernzer

skeleton clutching a glass pipe
fluorescent orange shit scrawled atop the sidewalk
he-she duck-taped dick hides and falsifies
the unheard (crazy) prophet shouts obscenities (truth) while
bluebirds sit on the corner waiting for prey
men in suits step over economic obstacles
the owner of an ignored infected leg vomiting pus
is now a zen master—no longer feels the pain

on the subject

on the subject by Ian Ernzer

a stop sign
badge number
traffic light
chihuahua on a leash
owner with phone to ear
a billboard tells me their product will
make me less miserable so
I can enjoy life
"wake up with our news—
the only way to start your day"
$3.50 a gallon—and that's for the cheap stuff
burritos are expensive these days
don't just be hot—look hot this summer
corner crash: shattered glass and plastic
meanwhile a man in an army coat holds
a neon sign with stenciled letters that reads:
"JESUS LOVES YOU"

a masked man

a masked man by Ian Ernzer

the woman is crying she is screaming she is in pain her shoulders are rolling and she is crying and the masked man is standing in front of her and he is wearing gloves he is wearing gloves so he does not stain his skin and there are others standing around the woman and they are standing around the man and she is crying and she is yelling it hurts it hurts so bad and her child is screaming as the man takes the child from her he takes the child into his hands and takes it from the woman and he takes a small sharp blade and cuts and there is blood and the woman is gasping for air and the masked man is holding the child and he says congratulations it's a boy

Alpine desert

Alpine desert by Ian Ernzer

An alpine mountain on a desert plateau continues, spanning from here    to there.
Underneath it all, a young seed planted, slowly grows.

Unsure of what will grow, but I can feel it.
No form and no shape.

Prediction is a game that passes time.
an ultimate plan of symbiotic bodies.

A bumble-bee lands on the poppy that sprouts through a crack in the ice.
Then—and only then—will it make sense.

The Rose Garden

The air was neither warm nor cold as they held hands and walked through the rose garden. Pinks, reds, yellows, and whites exploded. She walked to a bush and touched a flower. Look, she said, this is the only dead one. She held the few faded red petals. He let go of her hand and touched the rose as another petal fell to the dirt.

remember december

countless trips to her breath-taking lips
I returned every time with the same line

my words—stale
were slowly inhaled

I remember her, in December
wrapped in a peacoat down to her knees

her lips were cold when we kissed
it's those moments that I miss

an unbelievable response

From The Totality of Causes: Li-Young Lee and Tina Chang in Conversation
To read the interview in its entirety click here.

Chang: In "Black Petal," you write of your brother's absence, "He died too young to learn his name. / Now he answers to Vacant Boat, / Burning Wing, My Black Petal." Do you think that absence has a presence, too?

Lee: I love that question. I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech—if not all human speech—is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder—they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak. So presence and silence have something to do with each other.

The minute we start breathing out, we can talk; speech is made with the outgoing, exhaled breath. The problem that is poses, though, is that as we exhale, nutrients are leaving our bodies; our bones get softer, our muscles get flaccid, our skin starts to loosen. You could think of that as the dying breath. So as we breath out, we have less and less presence.

When we make verbal meaning, we use the dying breath. In fact, the more I say, the more my meaning is disclosed. Meaning grows in opposite ratio to presence or vitality. That's a weird thing. I don't know why God made us that way.

It's a kind of paradigm for life, right? As we die, the meaning of our life gets disclosed. Maybe the paradigm for living is encoded or embedded in speech itself, and every time we speak we're enacting on a small-scale, microcosmic level the bigger scale of our lives. So that the less vitality we have, the more the meaning of our lives get disclosed.

out under by Ian Ernzer

out under

crickets! don't you tell the truth?
whistling tunes
I despise your songs, they're the same every time
in a dry desert
paralleled by the indelible dead
things in the sky
down low is a high where some are scared
white sun on a black canvas stretched—
unfolded across the yellow sand and
tumbleweeds and needs are always moving
crickets keep singing