Family Anagrams

‘Runs’ in My Blood:

Der family tree’s branches 

Snap sharp splintered thorns. 

The tree, Es höhnt. 

Parchment reflects pictures

Of an itch bred in the 

Dank stench of a community bunker.

Conversations between parents of schoolboys

Debate whether to send 

The eldest across the sea

Or risk another father 

Figure being blown to bits

In front of the young 

And starving. 

First Schineller, boat-bound,

Brings with him nothing

But a skinning knife 

And a Lone star nestled in his fist. 

He follows the star, wordlessly, aimlessly, 

‘Till three generations later.

Butcher blood helps the ink flow thinner, 

Eating every crease, every line, every 

Scratched vowel.

He’d scoff at New Schineller

If he had warm lips to curse with.

Nach dem Boot:

A Lone Schineller doesn’t exist.

Schinellers sprout from the mycelium of

Fly agaric mushrooms, flowing under

Ocean beds. Quick as a feigned

Memory of the Autobahn. 

A Lone Schineller doesn’t pretend to

Feel aftershocks, he inspires them.

The force of his admission

Splits trees as if struck by

Lightning. Leaving

Chared and flaking bits

To be reassembled into something.

A storm has not yet brewed, 

Thus, a Lone Shineller doesn’t exist.

I Am:

More Lone than a Schineller

Should be. I am the first, the unfavored,

A Lone.

      For Lone, 

I give myself the buried butcher’s 

Knife and sever the roots, saw

The tree’s branches, and catch the

Next boat back East.