2 Poems by Mark Irwin

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Goes by Mark Irwin

Goes the jet laying down its shadow, grazing

rapid ground. Goes the clone undoing species. Goes

the email’s whoosh alone to others. Goes the boy abused to field. Goes

his kite skyward-torn, agape. Goes the clouded mind. Go the soldiers

to Iraq. Go the drones dispatched far before them. Go the blown-out

walls in Raqqa. Go bags of flour among rubble. Go the refugees

broken to Jordan. Goes their God to whom they pray. Goes

ISIL deeper. Goes the orphaned child, othered over

the border. Goes the homeless girl back under the boat’s hull

on the LA river. Go the gangs, the Bloods, Crips. Goes the meth,

smack, from Compton to Tallahassee. Goes the OxyC from big Pharm

to door. Go the migrants toward that tear-gassed border. Go

their kids, toddlers too toward their cots in detention centers. Going

with space blankets and without parents. Going strange and long.

1937 Indian Head Nickel

Flipped into the air & now catching 

Sun in the palm

of one Hand, there, its aura—rainbow-hued, as above 

that Mesa after rain.

Buffalo 

shot from a train. The coin’s small 

tribunal, envoy. “You might as well expect rivers

to run backwards 

as anyone born free to be 

content…” Each 

buffalo’s mass the weight 

of place & hole in the air.

*quote from Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

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Mark Irwin is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including Joyful Orphan (2023), Shimmer (2020), A Passion According to Green (2017), American Urn: Selected Poems (1987-2014), and Bright Hunger (2004). Recognition for his work includes The Nation/Discovery Award, two Colorado Book Awards, four Pushcart Prizes, the James Wright Poetry Award, the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, and NEA.

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12 December 2022