Two Poems on Monsters/Aliens

Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale after Max Ernst Max Ernst saw an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale and a spinning top in an innocent knot of wood by his bed. I see faces in the Rorschach-like pattern of the curtains, a profile of a man, snoot-nosed and Victorian, condemning us. I dream I am in South Africa with a former lover, we dodge bullets and buy postcards of old houses, we touch each other’s skin. My son, worried by lightning, pulls out the plugs all over the house; he stands still at the window, wondering if airplanes will fall. And I don’t dare to tell him that airplanes do fall, that people condemn, and that there is menace in more than paintings of children threatened by a nightingale. First published in Poetry Ireland Review, Issue 97, April 2009 Also appears in the new anthology The Watchful Heart – A New Generation of Irish Poets, ed. Joan McBreen, Salmon (2009) Other People’s Children I don’t take to other people’s children, their odd manners and peculiar smells; they are either ugly and inconsequential, or beautiful and covetable, but I don’t want them. And I don’t want them invading my home, staring at me like little homunculi, sly, greedy for goodies and praise, which I give. I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t like other people’s children; all my patience goes on loving my own, on being a mother who gives in the right way. And, I know I will fail my sons somehow, maybe all-how, but still I try – try my flawed best – or somewhere near to it at least. 2009-05-18T06:02:31-04:00 false false 733

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Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale after Max Ernst Max Ernst saw an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale and a spinning top in an innocent knot of wood by his bed. I see faces in the Rorschach-like pattern of the curtains, a profile of a man, snoot-nosed and Victorian, condemning us. I dream I am in South Africa with a former lover, we dodge bullets and buy postcards of old houses, we touch each other’s skin. My son, worried by lightning, pulls out the plugs all over the house; he stands still at the window, wondering if airplanes will fall. And I don’t dare to tell him that airplanes do fall, that people condemn, and that there is menace in more than paintings of children threatened by a nightingale. First published in Poetry Ireland Review, Issue 97, April 2009 Also appears in the new anthology The Watchful Heart – A New Generation of Irish Poets, ed. Joan McBreen, Salmon (2009) Other People’s Children I don’t take to other people’s children, their odd manners and peculiar smells; they are either ugly and inconsequential, or beautiful and covetable, but I don’t want them. And I don’t want them invading my home, staring at me like little homunculi, sly, greedy for goodies and praise, which I give. I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t like other people’s children; all my patience goes on loving my own, on being a mother who gives in the right way. And, I know I will fail my sons somehow, maybe all-how, but still I try – try my flawed best – or somewhere near to it at least.

*Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale* __after Max Ernst__ Max Ernst saw an eye, a nose, a bird’s head, a menacing nightingale and a spinning top in an innocent knot of wood by his bed. I see faces in the Rorschach-like pattern of the curtains, a profile of a man, snoot-nosed and Victorian, condemning us. I dream I am in South Africa with a former lover, we dodge bullets and buy postcards of old houses, we touch each other’s skin. My son, worried by lightning, pulls out the plugs all over the house; he stands still at the window, wondering if airplanes will fall. And I don’t dare to tell him that airplanes do fall, that people condemn, and that there is menace in more than paintings of children threatened by a nightingale. First published in __Poetry Ireland Review__, Issue 97, April 2009 Also appears in the new anthology __The Watchful Heart – A New Generation of Irish Poets__, ed. Joan McBreen, Salmon (2009) *Other People’s Children* I don’t take to other people’s children, their odd manners and peculiar smells; they are either ugly and inconsequential, or beautiful and covetable, but I don’t want them. And I don’t want them invading my home, staring at me like little homunculi, sly, greedy for goodies and praise, which I give. I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t like other people’s children; all my patience goes on loving my own, on being a mother who gives in the right way. And, I know I will fail my sons somehow, maybe all-how, but still I try – try my flawed best – or somewhere near to it at least.

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Two Poems on Monsters/Aliens false

2009-05-18T06:06:07-04:00

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