Two Poems by Mark Hendrickson

 

THE RIVER HAS A BUCKET LIST, TOO

 

I wished to see the Taj Mahal before life ends. 

I am not alone in this:

I’m told eight million of you visit the shrine each year. 

Graves are for tourists.

 

You honour yourselves in rock and stone,

engraved by tears. 

Carved marble grieves your favourite wives

and the children they carried.

 

Less warm, perhaps than the ashy pyres of heathen kings,

or patron saints, or witchy Massachusettsans,

yet some still draw a throng.

Most of the Seven Wonders are tombs.

 

Humans use such markers to keep spirits in place,

but this effort quite often fails.

Ghosts keep on repeating the motions of life,

refusing to believe that was what killed them.

 

There is a strange story that within the Taj Mahal

there is an image of itself.  It is rumoured that

if one punches the image in just the right place,

the action will bring forth water.

 

I am here.  The violence of Man has summoned me.

I have come to the mosque to pray.

I kneel before the walls and touch my forehead to the ground.

Even now, I begin to rise.

 

The monsoon comes, each drop of rain a second of time

built upon the smallest speck of memory;

but always too much, and too quickly,

before it has a chance to sink in.

 

You have made of this world a grand mausoleum,

and cut the blue marble with severed hands,

but She never desired her body be cremated.

I honour her last request: to be buried at sea.

 

 

BARBIEHEIMER, THE SUMMER’S HOTTEST TREND

 

the movies Barbie and Oppenheimer have opened on the same day for decades now. too much or not enough, like gender or sex. before we won the right to choose between duck and cover. microplastics coat my tongue, but none of my thoughts sound appetizing. the sky glares white again today. entropy follows the prevailing winds. I scrunch my eyes to find a pattern in the bruise, but sometimes a wound is just that. favourite colours grow ugly in mixed company. bombs are for sissies, and boys don’t get to play with plastic dolls until they are old enough. we disgust what we can’t outgrow. war is always and never cold, but remains platinum blonde, especially in Malibu. the only thing we know for sure is that by the time we leave the theatre our souls will be struck dumb.

Mark Hendrickson - is a poet who recently relocated to the Des Moines area. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Synkroniciti, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Honeyguide, Dark Onus Lit, and Swing. Before becoming a poet, Mark worked for many years as a mental health technician in a locked psychiatric unit. He has advanced degrees in Music, Health Information Management, and Marriage & Family Therapy. Visit his website at: www.markhendricksonpoetry.com.