Sample Poems by Joseph Wood
Below the Saw Blade
Buried in Tuesday’s New York Times: a man,
drunk & bumbling, & the saw blade doing
what a saw blade should be doing: adios
rock climbing, saxaphoning, & walking
five dogs at once—even the docile ones
need restraining, such as it was yesterday
at a Bay Area dog park, where a corpse,
beheaded & pregnant, lay on the shoreline,
& the greyhounds were held back from
what they love to do: sniff, lick, scratch
the swollen belly with such curiosity
that a grander horror might come to pass:
the baby, or rather, the corpse of baby
spills out onto the sand: ten formed fingers,
curled toes, smaller, yes, nonetheless alike
the dozens of nuns left to rot, jungle-deep,
1980s, throats slashed & tongues pulled
out through the slits: Colombian neckties
it’s crudely referred to, but perhaps crudity
is the correct path up the mountain:
the crucified hundreds, if they were men,
always on a hill’s apex, were not given
loincloths, but rather, their penises, due
to blood flow restriction, body’s position,
were always erect, & most, even in throes
of blinding pain, would blush & beg to hide
themselves: or so it was told by an aging
priest, Friday, over Merlot, rice, & trout—
the fish, struggling against the water, saw
the hook’s milky glint, & in one swift gulp, bit.
If One is Wise He is a Traveler; If Foolish an Exile
—In honor of Johannes Kelpius, Philadelphia’s first known mystic
Your body was to ascend your death.
Your casket tossed into the Wissahickon.
When the splintered hickory box lay on the banks,
Your corpse went upright & emanated lightning—
Or so the story goes. This was the 17th century.
You & your disciples huddled a shale cave;
The Wilderness Woman never did rapture you.
And now your celibacy is buried beneath
Your dwelling’s dirt floor—itself obstructed
By broken glass, condom wrappers, little bags
Emptied of coke? I wish a ship
did not beget a ship, a settler a settler:
We’re field mice to owls, Dear Johannes.
The sun is not raiment we share.
The creek grows browner by the hour
As the hickory box splinters the banks…
A Brief History of a River Ward Row Home
Forget the masterpieces of nothing except extravagance. Let the suburbs keep their dumb waiters & expansive Doric porches. In my Umbrian façade covered with ivy, I was a triumph of simplicity—all our humble vessels were…
Then the river filled with offal. Then the smog was held aloft by street lamps. The trolley took the able-bodied from us, & the able-bodied spent the day knee-deep in yarn.
Of course the mills would come to empty themselves like a corpse’s orifice. The taverns shrunk the humans into bloated fire ants, who scattered the tavern as the sun rose…
Sharp winter stars. Anemic light. Faint pulse through the roof rot, the hobos, half-chewed scrapple.