Two Poems

1 March 2004

Buffalo Report home page

James Reiss

Two Poems

TEX-MEX

Like, duh, the word mata means "bush,"

as in "Build a missile shield & see a burning Bush."

Like, duh, mata also means "He kills,"

as in a TV spot about the tundra
wasted by drilling rigs & oil spills.

Well, how's about learning some more: how

-when the president's pooch, his amigo,

goes jogging with him on his ranch

past bush beans & creosote shrubs-

his running dog barks, "Adios."

Like, duh, the word zorro means "fox,"

as in "Wily Vicente drinks Coke.

He lives in the Mexican White House.

It's known as Los Pinos, The Pines,

as in 'Way out on a limb Fox meets Bush.'"

SPEECH TO THE VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS

My fellow Americans, why mispronounce it Eye Rack,

as in "I rack up three-pointers"

or "Please place the Indiana Jones DVD on the I-rack"?

What if Iraquis called us the "Un-Eyéd States,"

as if, without eyes, we were blind?

What if fig growers called us the "You Needed Dates"

or if gay Arabs called us the "Benighted Straights"?

I rack my brain to think we've gone to war with Eye Rack Keys

when we might just as well have bombed that axis of cowards, Eye Ran,

only to see it run away.

James Reiss's most recent book is Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems (Salt Publishing, 2003).