DAVID WILLIAMS - Mister Rogers Raymond Chandler Carver

Mistranslation of the Cascajal Block

I work the garden by windowlight. Harvest, plant. The stars overhead are sacks of vermin and dead birds.

I forge, dig, cut. Square the spaces for seeds. I am a bent flower under

the pandemonium of stars, wings howling in flocks above the house. Harvest, plant. Live another day. Water the vegetables with metal tears and the pillars will pierce the sky. I work until the stars spill their guts out to fertilize my garden. And my garden grows. It grows.

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David Williams

Mister Rogers Raymond Chandler Carver

Neighborhoods of employment Neighborhoods of Army Training Neighborhoods of details for pay Neighborhoods of grief for free Official neighborhoods of Officials policed by opulent, sophisticated plain clothes coppers coming n going while the neighborhood watchers speak of anti-gang initiatives, just so Crafty, Arty, Gewgaw, Doodah neighborhoods Neighborhoods where they’re better than you if you’re me—

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maybe even better than you— if you’re just you— and shy a few millions, or the right melatonin or the right vocabulary or the proper dogma— Mister Rogers Raymond Chandler Carver neighborhoods And the police la la la

are their friends

and they all sit and watch— day after tomorrow— without the ittiest itch of irony— Upstairs Downstairs-Downton’s Abbey together on the couch once they’ve turned off all the lights n locked all the jails and the Lions have laid down with

and eaten all the Lambs— and then: exterior shot of the house on a hill that looks like a planetarium

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