Daniel Wilcox- Three Poems

1967

flowers and heaven

so-called, so we sung,

‘drift-would’ go west

(young ones);

but short on change--

who needs to ‘petal’ wheres or roses?

no Berkeley Barbs or thorns--

I dug half-gone potatoes

from a Lucky dumpster,

one spared meal in the Haight;

skin for skin

eye-opening,

that’s the skinny

no dope

Face-Overs

Broken glass from his mug

Glints on their withered lawn,

The mush of dirty snow,

Law brief’s scattered leaves,

And a dented Coke can

Spewed empty—

After the divorce

First published in Mouse Tales Press, Nov. 2012

Use Your Head?

Heard the old saw,

“Use your head”?

Why? When you could

Cut ahead of others--

Like Cromwell while singing psalms,

Heedless of kingship;

Or the Jacobins’ reigning Reason.

Was that Fouche or touché?

Yes, the “Feast of Brutus”;

The eastern samurai and their slow bamboo saw

--Heads up,

And don’t forget to cut the White Rose

Of Sophie and Hans;

Rather germane…

By all means

Decapitate Nablus;

Be so whole-wall hogged

The heady exuberance of hubris.

Or like the Frank Crusaders of old,

‘Goading’ everyone with crosses,

Downright upside down swords,

Lobbing heads of Muslims

Over the heights of Nicaea,

Blasted walls! All ‘preys’ to All…

Heedless to others,

And horse racing Afghans clubbing

Another trunkless pate

Headless to all,

Across a rock-strewn mountain meadow,

Or one goading Palestinian playing bloody soccer

With a Jewish soldier’s fleshy skull in Gaza.

What a cut-up!

Ah, the place of Golgotha;

It’s all a heady, mindless gas.

First published at Unlikely Stories, Sept. 2012

Brief Bio: Daniel Wilcox's wandering lines have appeared in many magazines including The Danforth Review, Word Riot, Write Room, Camel Saloon, and Unlikely Stories IV. Three large collections of his published poetry are in print, Dark Energy, Psalms, Yawps, and Howls, and selah river. The books of published poetry and his speculative novel, The Feeling of the Earth, available at Barnes&Noble, local bookstores, and Amazon in the United States. 

Before that, he hiked through Nebraska, Cal State University Long Beach (Creative Writing), Montana, Pennsylvania, Europe, Palestine/Israel, Arizona...Now he resides with his wife on the central coast of California.