HoboEye Poetry:
Daniel McCann, Montana, USA


RESEARCH PARK

Those were the days
of rapid involvement
with invisible things,
of secret codes and geniuses,
but for some reason
we couldn’t see the world properly,
the windows were blinding
in the sun of boulevards,
and every second of the day
we could hear the machine
with its corrosive snout
foraging through data
like it were dried leaves
trapped between panels.
All things were talking
in the garden, wherever
one was installed,
so that we could return
to the same sunlight
in a different world
centuries ahead of time.
One afternoon
With my eyes closed,
half-asleep at my desk,
I imagined a slow giant
swaying over the fields
and felt the terror
we would feel, knowing
that we had worked all day
perfecting its intellect.





MARENGO

We were listening to the recording
Of an American melody “The Wind Subsiders.”
We had hopes and often strong voice would emerge
Leaving its parachute over the listeners.

The result was a long intermission.
Several of the speakers whose topics had been rejected
Spoke freely and wrote down our addresses.
We couldn’t for the life of us explain what the lecture meant.

Everyone spoke of the center.
They measured levels of activity with a square.
After the final discussion, we decided on one story.
That became the mainstay; we stuck with it.

It began in a field, and was concerned
With the tail end of the Diphtheria Years.
Now electricity flickered in town bulbs,
And no one could understand the discolored snow.

It began in a field. It was thought
That there could be no voice without the hazel tree.
At the top of the hill, hours were spent
Consoling on another with the content of the verses.

It asked the same question of every one
Using many variations. It was hard for families to take,
And for different reasons they didn’t want the day to end.
Soon the small figures became the color of ink

Against the ascending yellowness of the hills.
It’s difficult to understand the illustration, yet
I am prepared to listen to everything, as though
One new word would make the difference.





PRISONER ON MOTHER’S DAY

There is no end to civilization as long as love exists.
So the wind strikes the saplings along the boulevard.
This is God’s work. Ask a prisoner
Recently released and you will know
Suddenly how absolutely nothing
Matters more than cloudlessness
And a new pair of Chinese tennis shoes.

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