Paul Vermeersch Poems

I came in a bottle, a prize like the worm
in the mezcal you swallowed
in lieu of an apology. Isn't it lovely
how I complement your fragile face?
...

for Baby Fae

Since our dawning in the Great Rift Valley
they have been our primordial homunculi,
dog-faced shadows at the edge of our world.
...

The hickory thigh varnished to a gloss
above the creaking metal knee
feels nothing, not the tarnished brass
thumbtack pushed into its grain,
...

Their discovery has been a kind of homecoming, too.
Part of you has been here before, germinal, hidden.
A painted hand resting on the stone. A molecule.
A memory of muscled, brawling giants buried
...

Marineland 1987

What I was before and then after
I was bitten by the glorious white-tailed buck
were as far removed as velvet and bone
...

You, jarred from sleep half an hour
before the alarm by an idling engine and
the hydraulic crush of busted kitchen chairs
from down the block. It doesn't help
...

I

In its own language its name means:

I walk slowly on hillsides
...

From that day forth his life was aftermath.
The streets were grubby, his fever hot,
the water in his glass was aftermath,
and he laid his blame evenly like snow.
...

Kneeling at the fence and reaching through,
you lay your hands upon the lambs.

Never this close before, their sinlessness
is in you now, flowing like a current
...