Three poems by DANNIEL SCHOONEBEEK
Poem Four Years Too Late
When a man with no memory goes out looking for a woman.
When he throws his boots in the fire the night he leaves.
When he walks the wood to the wood where she was born.
When the wood’s as empty as his head was when he left it.
When it’s winter and the burdocks catch in his beard.
When the snow falls from the sky but the sky isn’t there.
When the snow touches the wood and the wood disappears.
When he calls their names but his footprints won’t follow.
When he eats a handful of snow and feels like a kid again.
When he asks himself what year was it when I forgot.
When I forgot I wasn’t a man and started to tell myself.
When I started to tell myself the story I’m telling myself.
When the girl in the story her footprints won’t follow.
When her name’s as empty as the wood I was born in.
When her hair fell like snow when snow falls into a fire.
When a man with no memory goes out looking for a woman.
40 The Paris-American
When a man with no memory goes out looking for a woman.
When he throws his boots in the fire the night he leaves.
When he walks the wood to the wood where she was born.
When the wood’s as empty as his head was when he left it.
When it’s winter and the burdocks catch in his beard.
When the snow falls from the sky but the sky isn’t there.
When the snow touches the wood and the wood disappears.
When he calls their names but his footprints won’t follow.
When he eats a handful of snow and feels like a kid again.
When he asks himself what year was it when I forgot.
When I forgot I wasn’t a man and started to tell myself.
When I started to tell myself the story I’m telling myself.
When the girl in the story her footprints won’t follow.
When her name’s as empty as the wood I was born in.
When her hair fell like snow when snow falls into a fire.
When a man with no memory goes out looking for a woman.
40 The Paris-American
Les Fauves
Kid I’ll smear
dog blood
in your eyes
if I have to
and sorry
our bodies
grow fur
mine’s gray
and pelted
you’re slate
our flanks
sorry raw
they smoke
the sundown
long brother
don’t die
like our opa
our american
toad who
scraped teeth
all his life
then croaked
no let’s run
bang our head
on this rock
and the scrub
grass in our
village licking
your meat
yes the sun
smokes them too
bang our head
don’t let’s wait
tie your rope
around a tornado
why don’t we
41 The Paris-American
Kid I’ll smear
dog blood
in your eyes
if I have to
and sorry
our bodies
grow fur
mine’s gray
and pelted
you’re slate
our flanks
sorry raw
they smoke
the sundown
long brother
don’t die
like our opa
our american
toad who
scraped teeth
all his life
then croaked
no let’s run
bang our head
on this rock
and the scrub
grass in our
village licking
your meat
yes the sun
smokes them too
bang our head
don’t let’s wait
tie your rope
around a tornado
why don’t we
41 The Paris-American
Whole Foods
--for M. Gertzog
Officers please
should you
see a man
shoot past
you hair
on fire
what skin
he has left
it peels
off his back
like cheese
cloth a pitch
fork stuck
in each thigh
and bag
after white
plastic bag
our swiss
ruby chard
our swollen
mangosteens
our chicory
root and his
rutebagas
the humboldt
fog he loves
his black
forest worms
our yellow
and red ones
our good
korean pears
his goat’s
milk gouda
his pignolis
olives so fat
you could
smother
your child
to sleep
with one all
units you
see him fire
our wild rice
from his sawed
off shotgun
pour nectar
down his
throat and chant
in some dead
language what
to your ears
you’d swear
it was lines
one and two
you learned
by heart
in grade
school man’s
first no
the fruit of
disobedience
that fair
tree the last
word who
speaks it
a black sleet
in god’s
land to wipe
out the kings
the line
how does
the line end
the night
who will
the night end
42 The Paris-American
--for M. Gertzog
Officers please
should you
see a man
shoot past
you hair
on fire
what skin
he has left
it peels
off his back
like cheese
cloth a pitch
fork stuck
in each thigh
and bag
after white
plastic bag
our swiss
ruby chard
our swollen
mangosteens
our chicory
root and his
rutebagas
the humboldt
fog he loves
his black
forest worms
our yellow
and red ones
our good
korean pears
his goat’s
milk gouda
his pignolis
olives so fat
you could
smother
your child
to sleep
with one all
units you
see him fire
our wild rice
from his sawed
off shotgun
pour nectar
down his
throat and chant
in some dead
language what
to your ears
you’d swear
it was lines
one and two
you learned
by heart
in grade
school man’s
first no
the fruit of
disobedience
that fair
tree the last
word who
speaks it
a black sleet
in god’s
land to wipe
out the kings
the line
how does
the line end
the night
who will
the night end
42 The Paris-American
Danniel Schoonebeek was born in the Catskills. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Boston Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review, La Petite Zine, The Awl, Publishers Weekly, and elsewhere. He writes a monthly column on poetry for The American Reader, hosts the Hatchet Job reading series in Brooklyn, and works as associate editor at PEN America.
