Three Poems by David Oliveira   audio

Citation

Of course, the injury was in the line of duty—even so, had the officer not
been standing at the brothel door where clearly his duty lay, but back,
say, at the police station where the fruit seller was reporting the theft of all
her night’s receipts by a gang of street toughs, or at home roundly
snoring beside his wife at 11:30 p.m. as in the days prior to his friend
opening the modest establishment to which the invitation that evening for
a late night pick-me-up had obliged him to wait outside (albeit
impatiently) to thank his host, he would have missed the bullet entirely
from the disgruntled customer with poor aim; but then, of just such luck
are heroes made.

Morning

Morning is an old sow starting the day
with swollen teats and tiny snouts drooling
at her feet impatient to start chewing
those sweet nipples still sore from yesterday.

It's her lot, these loud, rude, children who play
with their breakfast—selfish piglets dueling
for sole possession of mother's fueling
stations by poking each other away.

And what might provoke a suckling to bilk
brothers and sisters of a rightful place
at mom's bounty, so careless of its ilk?

It's just poor training and talk of a silk
purse that starts every meal without grace,
and pigs' unquenchable thirst for pig milk.

 

Walking
            for William Stafford

The sky waits.  I lean forward and write —W.S.

We come into the world out of breath,
swimming hard through the blood
of the family gathered to meet us.
They see none of this struggle on our faces
nor remember when their own bodies
climbed above the current.
They forget how the effort
depletes untrained muscles, how hunger
claws at young bellies, how we never quite
catch our breath after the first cry.
Requisites of living shift what energy
is left to the mastery of walking.
Soon we watch our shoes
to know where we are going.
One morning, if we are lucky,
we might find a bright penny on the sidewalk,
and, if it's shiny enough,
all the luck won’t rub off before lunch.
Some will stay with us when
we lose the reason we come into a room,
or start looking for keys we just held in our hand.
Some will still be there as we put off
a visit to our friend in the hospital
to decide the exact word for a poem.
And after night comes,
this good fortune could be all we have left
to make our way home in the dark—
tucked in a corner of one pocket
as we walk through the front door
and turn off the yellow porch light behind us.

David Oliveira is the author of In the Presence of Snakes (Brandenburg Press), and coauthor of A Near Country: Poems of Loss (Solo Press). His poetry has been published in many magazines—e.g. Americas Review, Art/Life, Poetry International, and Prairie Schooner—and several anthologies: California Poetry from the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University Press/Heyday Books); The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place (Heyday Books); In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (University of Iowa Press); How Much Earth: The Fresno Poets (Roundhouse Press). He is co-founder of Mille Grazie Press, the creator of Poet Cards (trading cards featuring poets), and a founding editor of Solo, an award-winning national journal of poetry. Mr. Oliveira received an Individual Artist Award from The Santa Barbara Arts Commission. He lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he is an English professor at Pannasastra University.