ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
W. Todd Kaneko is the author of The Dead Wrestler Elegies (Curbside Splendor 2014) and co-author with Amorak Huey of Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Academic 2018). His recent work can be seen in The Normal School, Barrelhouse, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, SmokeLong Quarterly, Monkeybicycle, and many other places. A Kundiman fellow, he is co-editor of Waxwing magazine and lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he teaches at Grand Valley State University.
Also by W. Todd Kaneko:
The Dead Wrestler Elegies
Poetry: A Writer's Guide and Anthology
Where the Sky Meets the Earth
Enter Sandman
Pledge of Allegiance
The children know my name.
They speak it every day
because their teachers tell them to
say a prayer for the dead,
one hand covering their heart,
as if to protect it from those words
placed in their mouths
like communion wafers.
There are no promises here,
only a boy face down on the asphalt,
his heart uncovered for the evening
news to transform into a knife
or a shotgun or a lethal kiss.
My name is a field of stars and bones,
a ragged eagle swooping down
on your family of tiny songbirds.
Pretend, if you can, that I am
a strong melodious song,
an incantation to protect you
from gunfire, a tree standing
tall in the school yard.
Try to ignore all the ropes.
Don't try to name all the bodies.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
