Sample Poems by David Semanki

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Biopic, Daddy

teutonic wolves march through a ukrainian border town.
my father is slapped across his seven-year-old face
by a nazi soldier for failing to salute.
the black-capped officer in charge does not touch anyone;
he wants to keep his claws clean.

from the heights of a top bunk, i hear the television score of the world at war.
the sober narrating of laurence olivier

becomes my father’s voice. i fall asleep, straining
to listen.

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Allegory With James Dean As Cal And Richard Davalos As Aron

dean sits on the edge of a turned-wood bed. his white shoes cast off to one side. shirtless, hunched over, he absentmindedly blows into a recorder. the mouthpiece parts his delicate lips. seven of his fingers and a thumb are arranged to correspond with the air holes along the red cedar shaft. davalos is stretched out in the room’s second single bed. his arms disappear under a filmy cotton sheet. his bare nipples and muscular chest remain uncovered. davalos watches intently as dean fools with the woodwind instrument. a california breeze teases the half-drawn window shades.

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Inheritance 1

something is here with us, not kept at bay.
something moves just beyond, in corners.

fear as sickness.

intensity as revelation.

chase comfort in the near-human warmth
of towels removed from the dryer.

family is the accepted forum
for critique.

growing up with breaking glass.
uncles, aunts, cousins feeding on
past deeds. traumas. a shotgun in the mouth at fifty-nine.

another bakery birthday cake.
polaroid camera flashes
so bright,
blinding us to our places.

sage this house.
salt this stone land.

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Nocturne

of winter minutes—

walking home. the promenade at midnight.
others had gone.

left empty

by the taste of
his mouth.