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Joanne Kyger

M A N

"Oh Man is the highest type of animal existing
     or known to have existed
                 but differs from other animals
          more in his extraordinary mental
     development than in anatomical
structure . . ."

                      Well when I think of men
            I think of them in a sexual manner
Otherwise, I don't notice the difference, you know

being absorbed as being    one just thinks people
and not male and female so much as someone
to talk to. And how men are all

the same being born from Man and Woman and out
   of a woman's body commonly known as Mother.

"And God said let us make MAN in our own image,
   after our likeness and let them have dominion."

            And "Nature may stand up
                        and say to all the world,
                               'This was a MAN!' "

                  And then "I pronounce you MAN
             and wife."

                         Daddy you is dandy
when you're here. Shrill and soft old Autumnal

     winds blow       and we are tucked below

the shallow soil where seeds spring
                                     up and wither quickly
                         flirting madly.

                                                 I've got him now,

   the beautiful one for my part

of the year here in my dark
                       and expensive underground
             all mine before he is shared

and killed again by the fearless boar
                                    he is hunting and torn apart
and his blood runs out and red roses and anemones

bloom     and it is spring     and
                            he is gone again

That man about town gone again . . .

Reprinted with permission and thanks, from: Man by Joanne Kyger and Women by Michael Rothenberg. Two poems. Illustrations by Nancy Victoria Davis. Big Bridge Press, Pacifica, CA. 46 numbered pages with six illustrations. The page size is 7 X 10. Printed by Peter Rutledge Koch in Centaur and Arrighi types on Mohawk, hand stitched into Twinrocker wrappers. Limited to 50 copies signed by both poets and the illustrator. 1988. The book can be ordered direct from the press, via http://www.bigbridge.org/bigbridge.htm

 
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