Although he's politely translated the Ten Commandments
Into Dutch only one person -- a woman
Holding a tureen the same green shade
As her blouse -- is glancing at them. Otherwise,
The huge crowd is dreaming,
Chatting, joking, balancing vases
On their heads or looking out at us
Thinking "Well, you're not reading the words either,
Are you?" Also, a quiet satyr has slipped in
Wearing a laurel wreath in his hair.
For Rembrandt's engraving of Death
Rising From The Grave To Greet
A Newlywed Couple, Death posed
For almost seven hours and was
So exhausted when it was finished that he
Drained the cup of wine he was holding,
Waved a vague blessing and fell asleep.
The moon is, of course,
A lifeless, spinning stone
But also of course
An old woman whose feet
Get tired, a rabbit
With a mortar and pestle
And a lantern Osiris
Hangs from a nail
Sobek pounded into the sky.
Baba Yaga, barging into
A poem where she doesn't belong,
Runs into my father who
Is looking to slot in a reference
To his sister Edith who, dying as a baby,
Hasn't featured in many poems.
Baba Yaga complains that she lately finds
Her chicken-legged hut cold at night
"Alt ist kalt" my father sympathizes.
He says the warmest blankets
In the world were those his father
Sewed together from scraps.
Blankets like those don't just vanish;
They're no doubt still somewhere.
The god Sobek arrived tonight
From Port Mahon aboard The Charming Betty
Which brought also barrel upon barrel
Of ammunition. The Lord Chancellor
Was rowed out to greet the god and,
After a lengthy meeting and an on-board dinner
A joint communique was issued. Sobek
Said he knew that many were surprised
That a male crocodile had been appointed
Goddess of Love but, given a fair chance,
He might surprise us all. While seldom
In his long career associated with love
He had, after all, invented backgammon
With which, as he understood it, love
Had quite a few things in common.
If you dream of Wislawa Szymborska holding a stick
In her right hand it means “This year
You will once again not win the Nobel Prize.”
A stick in her left means “Stop watching your phone;
The Committee hasn’t even heard of you!”
Sticks in both hands means “I’m busy right now;
Why not go see what Czeslaw Milosz is doing?"
The shadow quietly walking behind me
I found carefully folded -- left behind
As a debt-pledge and then forgotten.
I use it when I'm trying to look important;
It's the sort of shadow who knows five languages
Or how to quell thunderstorms with gestures
And the rattle of coins in a silver box.
