Homage to Muriel Rukeyser
Michael S. Begnal
Whose language is in the ascendant
whose content film poetry
happens out of bodies’ ideologies
after the belt goes
and the holder
whose ideologies’ language
changes on the tongue
or really never was what
but was new/s,
breath within the swelling chest
“my” cat breathes it
just as much as I do
has dreams as I do,
we twitch and snarl our fangs
as the mastiff clamps hard our neck/s
upon waking,
conspire under the moon’s blood red
to seize control of the means
of experience, the productio poetica,
apartment by apartment
~~~~~
Michael S. Begnal has published the collections Future Blues (Salmon Poetry, 2012) and Ancestor Worship (Salmon Poetry, 2007), as well as the chapbook Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005). He teaches at Duquesne University. His blog site is: www.mikebegnal.blogspot.com