Occasional: Owen Marshall

I thought Owen Marshall only wrote short stories, but I happened upon Occasional: 50 Poems, his 2004 poetry collection. He has a trick of being brutal, plain-speaking, and lyrical, all at once. I don't know how he does it. Try this, from "Marlborough":

"Were we ever told of a great duke and a famous victory? If so we soon forgot them in that burning present which is the only tense that childhood knows. The sky was dizzying then, like a great blue book opened till its spine was broken, and the perpetual, golden-maned sun roamed so fiercely from east to west...."