O Hollywood (3)

by Matthew Dickman

BUSTER KEATON

All the homeless on my street
are falling one half inch

above the ground. Fist in mouth,

life is always physical first.
There is always at least a sound.

When the men in the black
sedan drive by laughing it

is just begun

to rain. All the worms are pushed
up from underneath

the ground.

The celluloid of our silent
film burns up and all around

the world is just
                                  the body

seven days before it is found.

 

Matthew Dickman is currently a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas , received the 2000 C. Hamilton Bailey poetry fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts, and has recently been published in Tin House, Clackamas Literary Review, Poet Lore, and Rhino.