F. J. Bergmann

F .  J .  B e r g m a n n

H O W   T O   W R I T E  P O E M S  # 2 5 7 3 

Poets will have been camping

for days, weeks, months, the line

reaching all the way around

the mall when technology finally

becomes available to recover lost dreams

from their dark-encrypted archives.

E N M I T Y

I was dying in my sleep (damn pinto

beans and red onions for dinner, anyway)

and a tunnel opened, a kind of tube

or well, infinite stairs spiraling upward.

Angels with dusky wings, bedsheet robes,

muscular forearms, took hold and dragged me,

struggling, toward bright altocumuli.

I kicked where a crotch ought to be

and one of them said, “We don’t have those.”

“I don’t want to go!” I shouted.

“You don’t know what to want,”

another explained patiently.

Beyond the clouds

were darker clouds.

E V O L U T I O N   E N D S   H E R E

Twenty-six volumes of reminiscences.

Nineteen cats, five toasters, scads

of forks. One spoon left. Subtle plaid,

wispy hair a wasting sickness,

misdiagnosed. A hotel near the casino,

elegant but run-down. The elevator’s cage

filled with singing finches that perch

contentedly on a grid of twanging

golden wires. Continental breakfast

and a pistol under your pillow. Occasionally

there is nothing to be done; the purple

uniform is still ugly, the sun pushes

aside clouds and no one is watching.

All of a sudden.