Mac OLIVER  earned his degree from Tulane in 1994. Currently he studies poetry in the Doctoral program at the University of Minnesota. He has written reviews for Metre and Thumbscrew. His first book of poems, Ham & Mercury is being printed privately.

        It's dawn
        and I'm raking the yard and thinking
        jesus I am

        fifty-fucking-six and still
        won't say
        what I need to say-

        when suddenly
        BAP!

        Someone is reading my book
        aloud. Is it God?

        Does God read?
        And the voice-

        a woman's voice but not
        certainly not

        my mother's who is dead.
        Anyway isn't God a guy?

        I'm sorry, yes,
        for the trouble, the mess−sorry

        I'm late and shamed I reek
        of song and death−sorry I flat

        refuse
        to mend my way

    Why waste what dignity remains on song
    when like fugitives we kneel before the pulse

    of succulent engines in the vineyard of wing-
    beat of empty hands, desires, loose

    heat of plenty, unfulfilled, seeking still
    in afternoon caesura? Why conjure a circle

Aperture: I wander through white birch, a splash of blood on the wrist of your sweater. Which is also white and blue. Bruised. Or is it you that wanders, lover? I wrote, a month after my stay at the hospital: "He wanders through white birch."

        it is so hot it is a desert our shoes
        no longer burn
        our feet are naked in
        the temple of our poverty
        we kneel we are inflamed
        apotheosis of hands the milk
        of stars a divine gift we refuse

        Addressed to a dictator
        Whose object ­ unknown ­
        was to be an astronaut.

        To him, this poem
        extensive in its briefness.

You can't escape the feeling of disaster that pervades the country: at universities, culture studies folk are pasting the internet with urgent messages to remember the political history of US hypocrisy and self-interest in foreign affairs. The newspapers of Latin America, while sympathetic to our losses, remind their citizens and leaders of the crimes of imperialism and oppression that have lead us to such disastrous events. On the other hand, we have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson claiming that the sins of America are the reason that His Almighty has rained fire down upon New York.

It's in amazement I write to tell you about space, not where the stars dwell
But rather where we live among the tall pine, sycamore and dogwood.
I can never tell you how to feel-its up to you to notice
The mad look in my eyes the television gave me, the look
I use to greet the businessmen and bureaucrats in hell.