Jeremy Osner
 

Butchers

      Poetry which may perhaps 
      defend my shadow 
      some time, in days to come 
      some time when I'm just a name 
      not the man 
      with empty pockets, wandering 
      and working 
      in the butchers of the old 
      and of the new continent.

                             —Roberto Bolaño
 

My dreams, my not-so-easy dreams, 
   my dreams with antecedent 
   in some unknown trauma 
   some nightmare long gone by 
I drop them and they fall 
   there's no external reference 
   to hold them up, to slow them down 
   no parachute, 
   to where? and when 
   will they stop, will they find some 
   resting place 

Dreams fall of the old
   and of the new continent,
   they fall without end;
dreams of friendship
   macho friendship: rough homo-erotic self-
   suffiency, published privacy. And in the
   butchers of North America
   may no dreams work
   but shadows.
 


 
 
 
 

 

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