Two Poems

Walter Bargen

Carrots of Guilt

I don't know why cooks only come out at night
on stretches of abandoned beaches, and for this reason
and my fear of the dark, I'm slowly starving.
In this hungry delirium I am reminded of carrots,
those tapering orange roots that make accusations
as they are eaten, pointing at my open mouth, as if I was
the one who said it, was the one who revealed the secret,
was the one who started the ugly rumors, and that's why,
when I eat them, I eat quickly and choke.

Carrot and stick, this vitamin A-rich root is forced
on us at an early age while watching Saturday morning
cartoons, that visionary home of giants: Gog, Magog, Og,
Kong, Bugs. Those years of half-hours like ocean waves
pummeling the shore of our watching. What of us was
stepped on and flattened, dislodged by such upwellings,
pulled under in the ebbing of childhood?

I keep looking at the line that is horizon, that is sea,
that is sky and garden, that is one infinite illusory
variation, that dissolves the sun into water and earth,
leaving night rich in odors of kelp, beached gasping fish,
and compost. I hear angry surf, giants chewing carrots,
wind rifling the planted rows, the cooks' sandy
steps grinding salt on empty rows of plates.

***

Refaceable

The youngest girl sits down,
her scarred smile the only hint
of doubt. She has brought along
a photograph, a close up of the deep
teeth tears, the hanging raw meat.

A dog must have thought, if a dog
thinks, when it tries to swallow
a voice so that it too can speak
of its loneliness, its hunger, or
perhaps it was simply chasing
something that disappeared into
her mouth and the dog was attempting
to save her at such a young age
from devouring her own death.

In living color, she holds
lost slabs of cheek, the hanging lips,
the little bobbing boats of teeth
bobbing on a red sea.

All that remains, thin jagged
white lines radiating from
her mouth, as if the finest china
is forever breaking to pieces on her face.

Walter Bargen has published twelve books of poetry and two chapbooks. The latest are: The Feast, BkMk Press-UMKC, 2004, winner of the 2005 William Rockhill Nelson Award; Remedies for Vertigo (2006) from WordTech Communications; West of West from Timberline Press (2007), and Theban Traffic (2008) WordTech Communications. His poems have recently appeared in New Letters, Poetry East, and the Seattle Review. He was appointed to be the first poet laureate of Missouri in 2008. Visit him at: www.walterbargen.com

Return