Two
poems from Mike White's How to Make a Bird with Two Hands
followed
by a note on the author
|
Death
for Bad Guys Tastes Like Candy
which
explains why there's no hurrying
the bad guy when he's got the good
guy right where he wants him
sweating under the industrial saw blade
that advances so slowly you wonder
how such a speed setting could ever be
useful in the manufacture of anything
though it's just the thing for the bad
guy who lives to savor the almost
unbearable anticipatory sweetness of
death drawn out to an eternity
of close-ups alternating between two men
(every pipe in the place is steaming) who share
a certain moral fanaticism and a passion
for the pretty office girl turned militia-queen
who is just now regaining consciousness
and taking her cue from the swelling
music is maneuvering a giant meathook
onto a giant pendulum and still the bad guy
has time to finish the good guy with the flick
of a switch but he chooses instead to method-
ically turn and take the meathook full on
with a slo-mo grimace and a long tapering moan
that always means a happy ending
Middle
Age
for Frank O'Hara, who never had one
Look
out! it's springtime in midtown
and everywhere you turn grown
men in loft apartments are falling
over themselves flowerpot-sniffing.
Grown men! show me one.
I am in the business of debunking.
Here is my card.
Here is my wallet.
Here is my pants.
In the back pocket you will find
an edible self-portrait.
I've started it
but feel free . . .
In order to buy myself time
I shout over my shoulder
Is that Georgia O'Keeffe I see
over there painting vaginas?
We are in a race to find out.
He shouts The child is father
of the man and just like that
he's leapfrogged over me.
I get lost in interpretation and wonder
if it is my father or my son
running away so fast with my pants on.
©
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Mike White is originally from Montreal and
now makes his home in Salt Lake City. He received his doctorate
from the University of Utah, where he continues to teach courses
in literature and environmental writing. His poems have appeared
in magazines including Poetry, the New Republic,
the Threepenny Review, the Iowa Review, the Antioch
Review, FIELD, and Witness.
"Death
for Bad Guys Tastes Like Candy" first appeared in Poetry,
and "Middle Age" first appeared in Denver Quarterly.
