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REGARDING OUR SEPARATION
a white male in his forties
at jackson heights station
threw down the book he was reading
walked to the platform's edge
and casually dropped off in front
and under the arriving express
why bother to pay the sixty-cent token
or spare the book he was reading
it must have been the spur of the moment
to say to himself what the hell
like a lonely person relinquishing to marry
the next day i saw a sand-like substance
piled deep on either side of the rail
that had divided him across the chest
and every day for a month
i've examined the diminishing sand
to remind myself love is perilous
FIRST LINCOLN PARK POEM
(Winter '79-'80)
a buffalo reservation hardly more than a few acres
these native americans cut off by chicago
from their million mile nation
just as seals cannot migrate
and condors have no room to soar
meanwhile bears pace because feet
remember wall-less continents
their heads twitching like train commuters
and timber wolves unlike our pets
having asserted their independence
have been made prisoners
whereas we lock ourselves into homes
into cars into barrooms anyway
sauntering past their cages on weekends
are watched by the
discontented eyes of the wolves
THIRD LINCOLN PARK ZOO POEM
(winter '70-80)
winter storage for cats in their furs
the lion house another brick institution
for wild animals to go mad in
here many visitors gather in the warm indoors
there are more people in this hall
than lions stalking all of africa
poor lions i would feed you christians and capitalists
the former who believe they are more divine
than you
the latter who assert they are more fit to survive
this poem
is for the memory of joy adamson
who walked through this zoo in tears
who lived in the savanna among the lions
who died in africa from an alleged lion attack
but they were men with knives
ABOUT THE CRACK IN THE WALL
this is one of those times
my heart pumps and
cold acid surges through my veins
i plunge the knife into the
hard skin of the wall
cracking it to the floor and
still i am marred and continue
to bleed
your leaving was harsh
in the breath on a pane of glass
i'd write my mistakes
to become vapor
but my hands tremble
AT TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF AGE
we suburbanites dread pain
housewives wouldn't kill the things they'd cook
fathers protect their children from influences
sons shirk mowing lawns or shoveling snow
daughters bury the birds that fly into windows
we're humane our pets never go hungry
in the morning over coffee
we tsk tsk what we read in our newspapers
concerned only when our security is threatened
or our businesses
our soldiers never go naked
or barefoot
at twenty-seven years of age
our daughters are married
giving us grandchildren
living in suburbias of their own
while half the world away
on the eighteenth of may 1972
they snatched you from the street
look what is happening to your lovely green eyes
they said showing you a mirror
soon you will not be able to see at all
you will lose your mind
you see
you have already started bleeding in your mouth
dear ayse semra eker
what was your crime
no one ever spoke to us of you
of how you were wired to a car battery
that chattered your mouth until your front teeth broke
did they fear your offspring
that they forced a
wired truncheon up your sex
of age twenty-seven you shall remember
those ten days of your youth
detained
by the turkish secret service