James Capozzi

Nimrod in Hell

asleep in a room with no windows or walls
basted by the city’s voice

from the agora’s fugue one rawdog appears
to stab you with a screwdriver
or crumple your skull with a spade
because of your dialect, politics, face

it’s that other face, the cotton one, wheels
toward shore-of-the-bathers
surrenders to sun

until features, idiom        hair burn & peel off

& your shadow version rises from its cot
with a claw where the hand was
to kill Time flying in the palms

with jetties beneath
the creature of your being

momma named you after a king

so you remain for good in this
volley of bats, threat-admixed-with-pleasure
sum rhythm of women beating laundry
power washer roaring on your hovel

all for you, the murderous fist
the assassin’s face like a shovel

La Reconquista

el division
is certain . the cristians
abandon . all intent and the other
hired men had enough

they lose their nerve in this
valley where the castle burns
a sham heaven is all
they defend

if so . then
hoorah for the moors
the bosk smells like sugar . no vaca no cactus
torched earth poses

troubling questions
of what things are in the forest

James Capozzi is the author of Country Album (Parlor Press 2012), which won the New Measure Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in Poetry, New Republic, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere.
This entry was posted in Poetry and tagged , by Posit Editor. Bookmark the permalink.

About Posit Editor

Susan Lewis (susanlewis.net) is the Editor-in-chief and founder of Posit (positjournal.com) and the author of ten books and chapbooks, including Zoom (winner of the Washington Prize), Heisenberg's Salon, This Visit, and State of the Union. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Walkers in the City (Rain Taxi), They Said (Black Lawrence Press), and Resist Much, Obey Little (Dispatches/Spuyten Duyvil), as well as in journals such as Agni, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions online, Diode, Interim, New American Writing, and VOLT.