CAPTION

Three giddy angels are holding a sign announcing that

G. Frederick Handel of London,Gent., has written

An opera called Julius Caesar. One angel

Wishes you to note the fact that this

Is an opera. A second points to G. Frederick's name.

The last blows a trumpet because what

Is the point of being an angel and being able

To fly if you can't blow a horn just because

You happen to feel like it? Below the angels,

A cellist tries to read the music; the harpsichordist

Is trying to determine whether she's bored or in love.

STORE ROOM

It was a hard year and God and I

Were selling brooms, or trying to.

We slept in a hospital storeroom

Whose key I had inherited. Most nights

The dreams patients had left behind

Would drift in, sitting on the floor

Or leaning against the shelves 

That reached to the high ceilings.

The very highest shelves 

Had families of bats living on them.

When they squeaked God 

Would gesture and the card games

And storytelling would pause.

I never knew if He was getting messages --

But what would bats know that God didn’t? --

Or just enjoying the squeaks as music

RECURRING

Edward Johnston often dreamed  of a boat filled

With samurai and women of the floating world. Asleep,

He knew every language in the world so when

They invited him on board he would accept

In confident Japanese. Always the cruise

Was a merry one, filled with jests and wine

And impromptu poems of refined bawdiness

Until a night when every samurai seemed downcast

And the geishas trailed long sleeves in the water

Looking anywhere but at his face and he knew

They were sad because this was the last time

He'd ever dream of them

BOAT IN THE MIST

When Arthur dies, of course, a boat

Conjures itself out of the mist (always

There is a mist)  on the lake which seems

To have no other side. In the boat are

A variety of women and, for this  day’s death,

The God of Calligraphy, the poet Kan Shojo.

 In the bow, three Japanese demi-goddesses

Are crowded together, getting in the way

Of Morgan Le Fay, who is trying to steer.

The hand that reached from the water

To receive Excalibur has returned swordless

And apparently conducts an invisible orchestra.

The goddesses sing; Morgan swears; Kan Shojo

Makes notes for a poem which will not mention

Goddesses, fey queens, swords or kings.

He will call it Boat on a  Misty Day.

TENTH

It was a good thimble though the magic

Had almost run out before we made it.

Useless in a fight unless your foe

Was very small – a mouse, perhaps

Though why should you be fighting mice?

There was, too, a needle. Our stored magic

Was quite gone by then but needles

Generally have their own. (Just try

Making a shirt or mending a coat

With a sword!) It takes nine tailors

To make a man but what do suppose

They could make if a tenth joined them?

INDEED

Suppose every person is,

As some have said,

A gesture of God. 

"Gesture" shares a root

With geste or deed

As in "The Gestes

Of Sir Lancelot du Lac,"

And also with jest.

We are the motions of God

We are the deeds of God

We are the jokes God tells

In the Platonic ideal

Of a smoky club

With no cover but

A two drink minimum.

Some nights the audience 

Sits on its hands.

Some nights, though,

God absolutely kills.

DOUBLES

The doppelganger fears

He might some day turn real,

Take a job, tell jokes,

Fall asleep or in love.

He whirls suddenly

To see if someone's shadow

Has started to follow him.