The Vandals

The vandals stomp "inoutinoutintoutinout" of these poems, emerging–as if on cue–to toss monkey wrenches nto the machinery of life. The result is occasionally disturbing and often hilarious, a mirror held up to our culture of excess. "Thirty years ago when Dylan told us 'the pump don't work 'cause the vandals took the handle,' who could know they'd be reconstellated here, with all their sweet weirdness and fierce wisdom, in Alan Michael Parker's remarkable and brilliant new collection of poems. When these vandals amd this poet sing, I make myself stop to listen." –David St. John

Vandals, Horses

The vandals are dreaming, wolves are dreaming,
The horses are staked to their deaths.

In the poem of the vandals dreaming
A word bites through a lip,

Drawing blood. (The poem is in ruins.)
The vandals dream that their arms unseen,

Dream themselves buried in the belly
Of the birthing mare, as a foal is

Torn to life. (The poem is banal
As the barn is bloody.)

And you and I, and you and I, we steal
Each other's blankets, wrap ourselve

s In darkness, wind, in anything
The night will let us, to feel safe.

Do you feel safe? (Soft,
The vandals sleep.) Because a word

Is a dream of its meaning, you and I
Must dream the vandals dreaming:

Soft, the horses nicker in the barn.
(Soft, our poem begins as vandals dream.)

© BOA Editions, Ltd 1999

Available editions:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paperback ISBN: 1-880238-74-8
Price: $14.00
Publishing Date: May 1999