Five Poems From Andrew Baron

Standing at such remove

Fixed (or moving) Standing

at such remove and from its hover the bird dives deep breaks

surface of the water the depths

of its hunger.

In a magazine in a waiting room I saw a photo

of home. Some kids were driving

through the desert and spotted

something on the scorched horizon. A television.

We saw it. A missile

hit a school (mostly children) and all talk was of how missiles

don’t hit schools the living screamed

out the back of our minds for their dead.

We turned it off, locked

the doors and fucked not to

stand at such remove.

Stand moved.

Dive deep.

Robert Creeley

If it would

have been

a convenience store it would

have been

open

all the time: there off the freeway and kept

by those we forget,

and outlive. Night

would have meant another fluorescent bulb there’s

no point here nothing

To champion or condemn we

could have gone in

anytime.

goodbye Robert Creeley, and thanks.

Letter I

Dear Dru,

God is good.

The ground is so saturated

here the roots come loose,

a tree falls into their bedroom

and the couple on the news swears he’s the only thing

that saved them. Empathy

wakes us from the comfort of our atheism: I’m happy they’re alive.

I’m writing to tell you I’ve

discarded all gods but yours, ours.

All shades not present at the creation

when you shaved a candle onto the open phone book and left

me to read there in the sun, all artifacts

without this pulse are dust. Nothing

but what holds us through this distance, your voice

on the phone in a motel parking lot in the middle of the night

before I hang up and go inside, listen half-awake

to a man

on a velvet stage

scream

for all to know what God is.

Good.

Untitled

I see you

at times

as if through that classical veil, layed

by whatever illness or injury keeps

me poised on the edge

of elegy.

A rodeo clown can stand, transfixed

at the edge of bullshit

or can go on

averting the beast that would gore.

I give you this—

strong love

and in our weakness make

love strong.

Thanksgiving

A stone, a carcass, a chisel, a knife:

We’ve carved so

many turkeys

and left carcasses as witness of our joys.

Thankful it’s not worse, that chiseled

in stone the names of our own, our victims

and a monument too imposing to chisel out

again.

again. again.

It’s happening again

this war in which they’ve used no napalm,

no carpet bombing of a land whose destruction

is the first and last we’ll ever hear

of it’s ever having lived. Again, thankful

for our hatred of these lies.

They say we’ve failed to give solutions.

They say we’re desperate to cohere.

So here:

Let’s chisel out a meal together from the breast of a dead bird

and carve our thanks in stone.

Andrew Baron studied at University of Salamanca and the University of Utah, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Romance Languages. His translations of poetry from French, Italian and Spanish appeared in the collection All Echoes and Shadows: A Selection of Poetry in Translation. He currently works as a Latino community organizer in Portland, Oregon.

Andrew Baron estudió en la Universidad de Salamanca y en la Universidad de Utah, de donde recibió un Bachelor of Arts en Lenguas Románticas. Sus traducciones ingleses de poesía en francés, italiano y castellano aparecen en All Echoes and Shadows: A Selection of Poetry in Translation. Baron trabaja como organizador en la comunidad hispana en Portland, Oregon.