Have a Good One by Anselm Berrigan

                                 Birdy shoots out from treetop

                            swallow pen

                                   laid down

                           leave them bugs alone boy

                sleep – dream back to

                     yourself – the you you

                       remember yourself to be

                 when I sleep                it takes

                             less from me than

                  I need it to

                                      I belong anywhere

                          want to belong to

                          no particular place

                                          but there’s              a city of

             strangers for me despite

                            my predilections

       mind invents or retrieves faces

                                                when I shut my eyes

                              my chest has been

                                  weakened by my own hand

                          am on a farm

                             writing             eyes closed

                                            back to grass

                          I don’t aim to kill anything

                                 but I will take responsibility

                                                  for thousands upon

                                        billions of deaths if

                                                         these bugs stop

                                                                crawling on me.

**

Have a Good One translated into a poem by Stacy Szymaszek

arcane bird slings

forth from branches

try to write with a neck

bone and swallow pen

swatch would be writ

skyline but for this

congress of bugs beneath

feathery arms a dream

bellows me back

to boy self slings

from a crack in voice

into oversleep

where I am more

alive in villa than

this time-shared

aggregate if

no one is in

the bramble I may

sit if no one is in

I am inclined

a city of unfamiliars

fine feathered?

to challenge me

an injured retina

to retrieve spectrum

of faces I invent

cast arm bashes

them into my chest

misjudged acceleration

flawed technique for 

panorama color mix

my farm toppled

fence back to burnt

grass never my aim

for my grasp to kill

but I will testify

against myself

if these bugs

leave my wings!

slung out into realms

of public catastrophe

in need of a public service

and then I may

speak pliable inclined

toward what I think

is your face

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