To My Grandfather

You were ten feet tall.
I, in your shadow, felt
No fear of the road beyond

The amber field
You reaped, I watched the sun
Blazing your back beneath

The rotting pear
Tree, beneath a sky
I thought you could reach.

Now, you lie in my shadow
In the field, in the sky.

The Irishmen

At the Alpine Pub
snow slides down
windows, spying
on grave men
drinking dark ale.

Slurring green
voices wilt in
March, waiting
to fill their fathers’
flask of dying
dreams, to sing
of burning white
lace, red tresses,
whiskey-washed
skin, black eyes
of children

starving in a snow-
laden grave of dead
drunks dying still
for stillness.

by Jaime Lang