Peter Filkins Biography

for James Lasdun

'Topped, dropped & chipped 2 dead white birch trees'
reads the bill arriving one week later.
The damage? 'Labor & Equipment - $250,'
...

Daniel Pearl (1963-2002)

My father was a Jew, my mother was a Jew,
and yet just what that means for me
I'm not really sure, are you?
...

Was it Kiki or Heinz with whom we hitched
that ride from Hamburg to Berlin
twenty years ago, the sun setting across
the barren expanse of the Prussian march
...

for Susan

Dawn's tender light
shatters to a blast
of shotguns on the lake,
...

Outside my window, a man running.
Though it's mid-winter, ten above,
he stays the course, determined
...