NEW! Poems by G.C. Waldrep

G.C. Waldrep

NATIONAL GALLERY

Why does everything
have to be
a Native American
burial ground.

I have not set fire
to any visiting poets.

You look through
the kaleidoscope, and
Russia looks back.

Ants the size of
people. Little church
biographies.

Swine flu on campus
means nothing
much. Wood ducks
fly through it.

The bank clerk
pretends to examine
the watermark.

Flagstone, crisp
as a cathedral apron.

An idea of residence:
we live here.
Lichens drift past us
in the swan boats.

There are no rules
for theater. Toppling
into the eulogy:

Interferon, various
prostheses made of wax.

Darfur is not
a medical experiment.

Visible spectrum.
Your left hand opens
in real time.

Sand dunes, sand
storm. Faint crescent,
puma, cloudy sky.


EPITHELIUM

Try thinking of Jamaica
as a search-&-rescue mission.

The third thing is
the noumenal, by which
we mean advertising
when we aren’t around.

A tentative dislodging.
Man-in-boat, man-in-
cave formation.

Marsh grass. Shallow.

The president announces
new household gods.
I burned myself
trying to light the fire.

There was this weird
noise. And we got there,

the little prayer flags
beating time with capitalism.

No, the book report
is not a lyric form, unless
it’s a book about
constellations, or sand.

The largest unbranched
inflorescence is the titan arum.

Nothing new is hiding
in the trees, you said.

A living dog being better
than a dead lion,
we left the child in peace.