March 4-10, 2013: Peter Schwartz and Sean J. Mahoney

precious eagle cactus fruit

The heart, referred to as “precious eagle cactus fruit,” was cut from the live victim and burned on a fire in the temple.

(found poem)




unnaturally predatory

you poured lava on my pillow,
so i made you veal.

what was said

A cold and slow afternoon plays host
to a radio special: commentary
about The King.
He would have been 76 today.
The magnitude of his passing
momentarily eclipsed by
chambers emptying on the periphery.
The sound of flowers when
dropped beside roads
and sidewalks
beneath simple crosses,
within the simple amplitudes
of modulation
as the voice of an announcer finally
breaks to revel in
shreds of information
regarding bullets
and a head held together
by hands:

They will put a 9-year old
to rest in the coming days
so that she can dance
and swing
in the cool
Floristic Kingdoms.
She was green
and only as bright
as yesterday.
And though gone
is remembered
at least twice a year
in dust and filament,
in pow
and bang
and in disbelief;
in the gasp
and the panic
and increased
police.

The girl was nine and born
the day her father
crashed onto
the City of the Covenant.

I can see east through
the glass across the hills,
through San Jacinto,
above the Salton Sea
and over miles of desert.
I can see damp people
belly up before me
ignoring fruit
and hovering over
sugars. Children
wallow and tilt
in chairs, anxious
and squealing.
As swine they too will
be targeted someday
for a wild skinning
of some kind.
At that weight they will
not rise as angels
but as manually
propelled mist,
their every option
calculated for them
all the way through
the modest heights
the slaughterhouse
will bestow.

The thing is that someone
at Pima CC will remember.
They will recall
in fits and starts
the uneasy edges
and the smirk;
they will remember
how he dressed, not
what he said but when
he said it,
and how he did
fidget among
any who would
have him.
And that will be
the yardstick
meriting
the most lunacy.

I open the glass door.
I am lost in geography
and the not-at-all arbitrary
sutures of my country.
The girl behind
the counter asks
if I would like a sample.
I say yes and the cold
goop in the paper cup
nauseates me
Gabby.

A cold and slow afternoon.
A radio special: radio commentary
about The Thin White Duke
He is 64 today.
The magnitude of his existence
momentarily eclipsed by
chambers echoing in America.
The sound flowers make when
breaking the topsoil
and arcing upwards
beneath the simple crosses,
the simple amplitudes of
ginned-up modulations
and the voice of an announcer
finally dimming
to reveal speculative
shreds of information
regarding bullets
and her head cradled
between hands….
if only for the moment.