wasteland

ON THE U-BAHN

Grace Andreacchi

(from Berlin Elegies) 

Everybody’s watching me

Everybody’s smiling

I’m the Princess of the U-Bahn

in my bright metal jacket

There’s a big pool of bloodgetting bigger every minute

right under my feet

Everybody’s watching 

Barren Determination
 
Natasha Guy

I wage war against the dunes
Like cacti with legs in search of a mirage,
Drinking the destitute waste of the sun’s wrath
As if it were my last chance at salvation.
 
Each sinking step into glassy granules
Absorbs the pain of tiny particles,
Each doing their part to scrape away dead skin
Caked on bare mistreated feet.
 
All is sacrificed when searching for love.

 

DREAM

Grace Andreacchi  (from Berlin Elegies)

I dreamt we were walking

free among the dead

Bombs had flattened the sky

The earth was on fire

We crawled into a hole you

laid your head on my breast

laughed, and touched me with desire

I thought, are we dead?

Is this heaven, this place full of

bodies?  I wanted to ask but

you kissed me instead