Digging in the Wrong Place
Compromised, they call the card. My 16 digits mined
by algorithm or bunker genius fiddling,
for $1633 at Best Buy; the robbers have
all my numbers save the back code to complete
the inspired transaction, the Take back one kadam
& so they are. Far enough away from the Nazis for now,
Boston thinks it’s annexed the assholes today
in a gazebo. Nazis in a gazebo?! Only Indy could flip
his revolver & trusty whip into a suitcase, beeline
a passenger plane & catch ‘em sneering in their insignias,
gathered like poison in standing water. In the film,
the strong backs open empty sand while our hero squints down
upon the twisting floor, asking Why did it have to be
snakes? Don’t waste breath waiting for a revelation
of perfectly directed sun. The diorama is none,
& we can’t count on the wrath of God to gather
His phantom forces to melt their brainwashed
faces one at a time, down to the skulls.
Miners in Taijuan
—from photographs by Stan Grossfeld
Perhaps brothers, these two pitchy
instruments savor warm water
in a metal bath. Beers at arms’
reach, a coal accord for labor.
In the outsider’s monochrome
any untarnished aspect of
the image is silvered. Sympathy
is less than the universal,
but still the color of deserved
rest, arms that rip the underground
asunder, later burn chunks to
boil rainwater from the sky’s well
while factories feed, the country
busy raising a colossus.
If Providence doubts its welcome,
these two tender invitation.
Max Heinegg’s poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, The Pushcart Prize, and been a finalist for the poetry prizes of Crab Creek Review, December Magazine, Cultural Weekly, Cutthroat, Rougarou, Asheville Poetry Review, the Nazim Hikmet prize, and the Joe Bolton award. Recent work appears in Thrush, Nimrod, The Cortland Review, and Love’s Executive Order. Additionally, he is a singer-songwriter and recording artist whose records can be heard at www.maxheinegg.com
