12.23.14

Three poems by R.A. Villanueva


Archipelagic

Not vinegar. Not acid. Not
sugarcane pressed to mortar by
fist, but salt: salt, the home taste; salt,
the tide; salt, the blood. Not Holy

Ghost, but a saint of coral come
to life in the night crossing a
field of brambles and thorns, the camps
of pirates beat back to the bay

with hornets. Not Santo Niño.
And not a belt of storms, but this:
girls singing, an avocado
in each open palm, courting doves;

a moth drawn to the light of our
room you take to be your father.

Ditching


Lately it appears the water
has been waiting for us to keep trying

to make it across. The rivers
and trenches glossed with light

know we are so relentless as to plan
for catastrophe, layering backup

upon reserve. A pilot could suffer
an aneurysm mid-flight and pass

quietly without panic in the cabin,
his crew gathering themselves to

drape him across the floor. A flock
of geese might cascade into our engines

and still the plane will float its way
downstream towards the Battery.



Muse


Nightfall: pirate boy steps off the pier &
into the thick flashes of the newsmen

not at all like the others who hang their
coats from their foreheads or hood their faces

before hearings. He is smiling broadly
upon first meeting a mustered crowd lit

scattershot by the gaffers & grip crews.
Better to be here on this continent

of oaths & anthems & spit than a body
washed ashore, pockets stuffed with ransom?

is what they want to ask him as one, fit
voice—better alive, mocked by frogmen & our

sharpshooters than tagged & shelved in the holds
of a frigate moored off the coast of home?

I stole this biographical information from "The Best American Poetry", because no matter how I paraphrase it, the information will be basically identical: "R.A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the 2013 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. A founding editor of Tongue: A Journal of Writing & Art, his honors include the 2013 Ninth Letter Literary Award for poetry and fellowships from Kundiman and The Asian American Literary Review. His writing has appeared widely in journals and anthologies including AGNI, Bellevue Literary Review, The Common, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Virginia Quarterly Review. He lives in Brooklyn and is a Senior Lecturer at New York University."

Here's a great interview with the author about Reliquaria: article. His voice is intriguing.