According to Werner Herzog

To become a great filmmaker
one must read The Peregrine.
                 —Werner Herzog

I know a falcon can dive
200 miles per hour just

as I know I cannot fly.
I have seen feathers flutter

on highways as cars race by
at 70 miles per hour.

A falcon’s eyes are telephoto
lenses surrounded by bony rings

that hold them in place.
How little I have seen.

Knowledge has not made
my life better or happier,

only more grounded.
Falcons mate for life,

yet they hunt and die alone.

*

Werner Herzog and The Child: A Triolet

I do not know when or how I will die.
“You are cowards,” I said. “Leave it.”
Heartbreakingly beautiful, it made me cry.
I do not know when or how I will die,
my being reflected deep in its black eyes.
It’s a phenomenal technological achievement.
I do not know when or how I will die.
“You are cowards,” I said. “Leave it.”

*

Werner Herzog as Eulogist: A Nonet

Please ask Werner Herzog to narrate
my end of life and all my dreams.
He will say, Life is chaos.
He will say, Life is pain.
We will all vanish
not with a song
but with screams
like ripped
seams.

*

Dana Knott’s poems have appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, Bitter Oleander, Emrys Journal, and Parhelion. Knott currently works as the Library Director at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio.