Tag Archives: poetry

American Anaesthetics

American Anaesthetics
by Jonathan Holden
In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.
Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At [...]

Cúchulainn

Now you’ll sing a song of liberty for blacks and paks and jocks
And they’ll take you from this dump you’re in and stick you in a box
Then they’ll take you to cloughprior and shove you in the ground
But you’ll stick your head back out and shout we’ll have another round
At the graveside of Cúchulainn we’ll [...]