The Other Press

two poems.

I'd like to touch

your British eyes

crush your polite laughter
make you feel ugly,
awkward-until suddenly
that jazz hits you, tilts you
takes you into the

whirl of things

where the big band

the trumpet

and the saxophone man
play so fast all

you know are stars
between your feet,

and my hands-

swirling, guiding

the air about you.

I’ve seen you

between the trains
whistling upwards

into crowds and city noise
looking as if morning

was the beautiful time
and that only earnest time
could catch the sounds,
like sparkling motes,
rising from your

smiling, steepled

lips.

Tim Shepard

November 1, 1993

 

The tarmac is barely discernible

From the baked, hard dirt

That lazily swallows its edges,
As we stall to a landing

Trailing dust storms from our wings.

The air is dry in the sun’s bright rays and

Tam carrying a multi-hued palette of fears;

For the first year in twenty

Iam home again, ~
But I do not know this place.

The city seems diseased,
Bombed, what buildings are left,

Scarred with bullet pocks.

Fighting broke the food chain,

Noe there is man-made famine.
Too, soon will come rain

And with it - cholera.

With this crew I have returned to record

The nature of this tragedy. big
But Iam beset by the things the camera

Cannot capture.

At the Red Cross camp

We are given our ‘technical team’ -

Guns for hire; security for the tour. 4
There are armed teenagers everywhere

As we make our first visit, to prove our neutrality

To the warlords; the stinking scavengers

Who control this city, and who my guts threaten to
Revolt at, by the though of

Boot-licking to.

From the camera truck, a woman
Lying at roadside,

AI stone clutched, pressed hard against
Jer head. Her desperate grip fading,
As children, near catatonic,

March naked to the feeding centers
And lie lifeless in the teasing shade.
Of perversely swaying palms.

.At the center for the severely malnourished
Teurse my own health.

Sidewallx

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Jeremiah Johm