Levelland
we impose stark beauty
potluck of words
to shut your mouth
realign velocities
our open mouths
bless your heart
pull up a chair
here for your
smart phone
cotton hoe
social media whatever
let’s explode
the sun everyday
cash in on
methodist hands
warbling poetics
of hearing nothing
my first day i
hold my chest
wind, wind wind
scolds the tiny prairies
perforates a secret of gunfire
my first day i want to hold my breath
i imagine it’s
still a weight
whatever
silence is part
of sand and
heat, lint, oil
i imagine
boys still
stare north
and fathers still
boil and guilt
but i’m polling
the dunes
and their velocity
pushing my palms
to you saying:
all i am is daughters
and father
and this ceaseless longing—
can we play here?
in secret places
we baptist
with mouths
and legs
in secret places
i throw rocks
against a wall
in my palms
i church and
weaken, weaken
smoke fire
and a hymnal youth
here is a place
of mothballs
and lord’s prayer
let’s run
and be shamed
a boy he’s
afraid of the lamb
blood of the lamb
power in the blood
of the lamb of
lamb of god
a boy he
cuts his finger
and pretends
to be a lamb
and is ashamed
a father can’t sing
so he baptists
and prays with
open eyes:
our heavenly father
we are gathered
here
today
bless us
this
day
in secret places
i look at maps:
i point my
body in any direction
what i got is subtle
leaning my fingernails
against the backdoor,
quiet sigh of a sunset
making out with roses
and white winter thighs
such subtle nights come
languishing in after planting;
i admit i get emotional when
children run in dresses
i admit a certain amount of blood
are we being punished?
i had a dream we were chasing
sunbeams thru concrete sidewalks
and you were laughing but far—and sand
everywhere was sand and a subtle
what’s the word—incarceration? infarction?
no—encapsuled
like clouds with edges and knives
in drawers with a simple omnipresent fear
are we simply going to stand here?
i’ve never felt so alien as when my
daughter’s were born
so here is a subtle confession:
birth is a water magic
and i am a desert creature
the sun is pearling the sky
let us tremble hands and
lead each other in prayers
here we are
put my eyes in your mouth,
between your legs
we can’t eat grief
but we’ll hide it in our mouths
i think there’s a secret here
are we being punished?
take this rose from my mouth
this crown of thorns from between my legs
we’ll hide it in our mouths
and who is it will take this burden?
who will fold our legs apart
into such sculpture?
marx reading maybe not
WE ARE BUT DUNES WE ARE BUT PRAYER SHED BLOOD AND DROUGHT
circumstances demand we witch wells
with locks of hair and a reading from 1 john
throw a handful of sand
high enough it feels like rain
it’s hard to write about family
but it’s easy to stand in a drought
and toe out a well—
slit my throat and water water water
while we’re confessing our sins
my blood is a magnetic sand of
the fantasies of the old testament
and the gentle lies of the new
but maybe you knew that
and prayed for us anyway—mercy
what can you confess that the drought won’t silt up or mother won’t bless you out for
circumstances whisk up clouds and seduce
us with blowing winds and dust skirts
it’s hard to write about family
but sometimes daddy will push you over a cliff
and that silent answer is just a sunday morning snuck up on us
but y’all can still pray if you want to or even better come hoe the garden
I ALWAYS RESIST IT’S ALWAYS KIND OF GLORIOUS
let us then concentrate
on the slow line
of seasons and the ancient predications
of milk,
bullets,
thunderstorms, and subways
where can we dictate leisure?
we weave new year into whiskey and possession
bake a bread of years
plow us up
a new millennia
beside the red mud,
sorghum skeletons,
native blood and plains tears,
naked graves, naked oppression,
our heads buried—sand, hands, thighs, water:
this year i want to be present. this year i want to read everything you write
this year i want to let my heart break. this year i WANT to.
maybe i won’t find the silence so frightening in the creak of your floorboards
or the perennial peal of your moaning
i won’t cater to a fire, but neither will i deny its simple demanding touch
Mini-interview with Kirk Keen
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
KK: I would like to say that there have been several moments that shape how I write, that, like most Serious Writers, I comment on moments in my life and those moments shape me much like a river shapes stones or wind carves cliffsides. But in reality, the one moment right now that is shaping my writing is the death of my father, and has been for the past few years. I told my girlfriend that my biggest regret is not reconciling fully with my father before he died. It feels like a wound I can’t stop picking at. Like all poets (probably?) my best therapy is myself and a notebook (or my notes app on my phone) and most of what I write is trash but the act of writing things down, demarcating a time or a feeling, then being able to re-read it, feels like something tangible I can put my finger on and say “this is a Real Thing that happened in my life that hurts, it’s right here for me to look at.”
HFR: What are you reading?
KK: I’m revisiting Ginger Ko’s Motherlover. I come back to this book often. Ko has a way of shoving heartbreak, disappointment, and love into a human body that seems both effortless and bloody. It is a goddamn pleasure.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Levelland”?
KK: My father passed suddenly in March of ’22, and we quickly had to make our way south to Levelland, TX, for his funeral from New Haven. The trip down took three days, and I began the piece at hotels or in the car. It initially began as a thought exercise/way of dealing with thoughts on where I grew up and my relationship with my father, but it quickly expanded into something more. You know that feeling when maybe this thing you’re writing is more than a journal entry, like maybe it’s a coalescing cry for help or something? It quickly became together as a piece on reconciliation between a father/son and how that can be reflected in the town and dirt you grew up in, reflections on poor decisions and broken relationships, and reconciliations with yourself—forgiving yourself for being human and impulsive. Throughout writing this poem and finishing it up several years later, I’ve remembered that love is something that’s given. It’s funny what we forget.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
KK: I’m working on myself. Sometimes that’s with writing, other times staring at deep water, other times holding hands. I reckon poetry got me into this, maybe she can get me out.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
KK: I want to share that love is never what we think it is. I want to share that we will be ok. I want to share that I see you. I want to share that I love you, even when it’s confusing or hard to say. I want to share a positive moment. I want to share my lunch with you. I want to share a hard time, an argument, a glass of water. I want to share a blanket with you. I want to share my bracelet with you. I want to share my books and my coffee. I want to share my hands (I have two hands). I want to share my stories. I want to share this world with you.
Kirk Keen believes it is important to hoe the row in front of you. He is lucky enough to have other poems published by horse less press, Sundress Publications, persephassa, Shirtpocket Press, and others. Fine people. Good friends. Kirk currently lives in New England.
Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Heavy Feather Review 