![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.walterbargen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DaysLikeThisCover_small-204x300.jpg\" "\\"DaysLikeThisCover_small\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
New & Selected Poems
\nBkMk Press-UMKC 2009
\n$16.00 (Cover and inside art by Mike Sleadd)<\/p>\n
Selections:<\/p>\n
The Paseo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n -for Federico Garcia Lorca<\/span><\/em> moment on an arid Andalusian slope<\/p>\n of the Spanish Civil War;<\/p>\n a soldier\u2019s death caught<\/p>\n in shades of black and white,<\/p>\n his body halfway falling back forever<\/p>\n toward his shadow, his rifle pointed<\/p>\n at heaven, his head turned away,<\/p>\n already forgetting to tell us the way.<\/p>\n A woman\u2019s gaunt upturned face,<\/p>\n lips drawn back from her teeth, a forehead<\/p>\n of plowed wrinkles, her eyes straining<\/p>\n to find the sewing-machine hidden<\/p>\n in the sky, clouds being stitched<\/p>\n together with threads of fear,<\/p>\n and we know what happened,<\/p>\n the dusty, dive-bombed rubble<\/p>\n of Barcelona, the child at the slope<\/p>\n of her exposed breast<\/p>\n nursing on oblivion.<\/p>\n In the city where I lived one summer<\/p>\n oaks rose in civil explosions of leaves.<\/p>\n Branches arbored the boulevards<\/p>\n over the speeding cars and trucks<\/p>\n that had somewhere more important<\/p>\n in mind, work or love, not the quaking<\/p>\n heart of an air raid siren.<\/p>\n Mostly it was Friday,<\/p>\n maybe Saturday evenings, that I drove<\/p>\n the Paseo as it was called, the body of asphalt<\/p>\n releasing the day\u2019s mesmerizing heat.<\/p>\n Along the way, fountains reared horses<\/p>\n and breached dolphins, spouting a moist<\/p>\n eternal glitter, surrounded by groomed<\/p>\n green esplanades where I might stroll<\/p>\n an equally endless time. In one<\/p>\n breath paseo simply means ride,<\/p>\n and in a different one it means<\/p>\n take him for a ride, the end of one<\/p>\n language and the beginning of another.<\/p>\n House of Turtle<\/strong> or maybe I\u2019m simply not ready for the responsibility,<\/p>\n though it has nothing to do with not wanting to help,<\/p>\n nothing to do with all the possible guilts that sweep<\/p>\n over us for not having loved enough, or been present<\/p>\n enough, or even not having stopped the car and moved<\/p>\n the turtle off the road, and finding the flattened mess<\/p>\n when we returned, having watched in the rearview<\/p>\n mirror another driver intentionally swerve. We must<\/p>\n take into account another time it was hopeless,<\/p>\n of just pointless, when we had not yet surrendered<\/p>\n hope, when the pond by the highway was drained<\/p>\n for a new apartment complex, the backhoe with its<\/p>\n claw sunk for the night into the breached embankment,<\/p>\n waiting for morning to again swallow another mouthful<\/p>\n of earth and spit it out. What more could be done,<\/p>\n the quitting-time traffic no longer able to dodge<\/p>\n those orphaned by the air, who crawled for other waters,<\/p>\n and over the asphalt the hundred or so moss-backed<\/p>\n shells were cracked and savaged flat. Perhaps this is<\/p>\n just a warning, like the children standing in a down-<\/p>\n pour shouting over whether running or walking<\/p>\n through the rain will leave them drier, even as the rain<\/p>\n falls harder, drenching their most refined arguments.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New & Selected Poems BkMk Press-UMKC 2009 $16.00 (Cover and inside art by Mike Sleadd) Selections: The Paseo -for Federico Garcia Lorca The last flung-back, bullet struck moment on an arid Andalusian slope of the Spanish Civil War; a soldier\u2019s Continue reading Days Like This Are Necessary<\/span>
\nThe last flung-back, bullet struck<\/p>\n
\n<\/span>I can\u2019t tell you where to start, maybe I don\u2019t know,<\/p>\n