share


Sleepwalking through the Mekong

I have my hands out in front of me.

I’m lightly patting down everything

I come across. I somehow know the

banana shake when I touch it.

 

I can see myself from above.

As if on a video monitor.

Why?

 

I travel slowly down every alley,

across every rice paddy,

into and through every bedroom,

into and through every closet.

I am asleep and yet I am polite.

 

electronica

 

rain showers

 

It is always like this.

I wear a light brown suit.

When I come upon you I grope you

for what seems like ten minutes.

As you have noticed.

But I am excused because I am asleep.

It is understood I am harmless.

I am like a blind reverend.

I am like a politician.

A ten-year-old girl detains me

in the park. She carefully clips

each of my fingernails.

 

When I yawn the earth rumbles.

I pat cans in your pantry.

It is said sparks can be seen

coming from my briefcase.

But I do not carry a briefcase.

I am not like that.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is an American poet from Livingston, Montana. He is the author of Can You Relax in My House, Yes, Master, and Thin Kimono.

READ NEXT

poetry

July 2011

Letter of a Madman

Guy de Maupassant

TR. Will Stone

poetry

July 2011

Introduction by the translator In the early hours of 2 January 1892, sensing the approach of insanity, the renowned...

feature

July 2012

Ways of Submission

Saskia Vogel

feature

July 2012

On a pale marble fountain in Dubrovnik, I posed. I pretended I too was a stone figure, water gushing...

poetry

Issue No. 11

Poems from [---] Placeholder

Rob Halpern

poetry

Issue No. 11

Obscene Intimacy My soldier was found unresponsive restrained In his cell death being due to blunt force injuries To...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required