Two Poems
Danniel Schoonebeek
POEM WITHOUT A PRAYER
The word for what you want from me is novena, which means
nine days I will shave your beard and tell you: what falls
wants to rest with what falls, which is why your beard
wants to rest with the leaves in the trash bag, and why
when the leaves fall, what you want is to rest with me.
Nine days I build you a man out of millet seed and suet
and wait for the cardinal and his hood of fire to famish.
I will tell you what burns is what wants a word for famine,
like when I watch the bird watch you rest your hair in
the trash bag, the word for what I want from you is never.
APOLOGY (MAXIMUS)
I have had to learn the simplest things last. —Charles Olson
Have had to learn, for instance, this light, (this morning it came like a bruise and entered
Her mouth), was not god’s way of saying, I’m not entertained, did not prove the loneliness
Out of which god created me, but proved the existence of god is disproved by morning.
Have had to learn through immersion, without background, without a name, without
An education and with no pioneers, without my struck-out mother, without our fathers,
Without their one saying, which is that which one loves is that which goes without saying,
Which is why what you love is what you must learn to love living without this morning,
This day, and this instant that god cannot watch you depart like a bruise from her mouth.
Danniel Schoonebeek’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Tin House, The Rumpus, Publishers Weekly, The Awl, La Petite Zine, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and the Arts, Maggy, Paperbag, and Underwater New York. He was born in the Catskills. Read more of his work at La Fovea and I Am A Natural Wonder.