PERSONNEL I

Abetha Gill, Anne Milton’s servant,

Is about 40 and has red hair.

I wish I knew what she did

Before she appeared one day

In a poem I was writing.

She does not approve of Satan

But once gave him a scarf.

INTERPRETING DREAMS

For a while, a character from an unwritten book
With a degree in sign language interpretation
Would translate from the lower left  corner

Of my more important dreams. She grew bored
And began doing quick summaries of the action

 "He is having another long conversation
About bears. Now he is being chased by the sink
From his apartment on Cottage Grove Avenue.
He's talking again but it's just blather.

Wouldn't you rather watch me dance?"

I admit she dances very well
But she was distracting, making me ignore
My dreams and they resented it.

She comes by still from time to time
If it's rainy and she needs a place to sleep.
When did my dreams become a refuge
For imaginary folk without homes?

WHY THERE IS NOT A POEM

The golem who’s been serving as my muse

Stays up all night reading and making

Enormous heaps of cornmeal pancakes.

Despite the pancakes, I have been resisting

Her latest idea which is to write about

Sainte-Beuve’s mistress –  the one

Who wanted him to believe she was Spanish

And so slept every night with a dagger.

ABOUT A.W.

Blind Anna, Sam's housekeeper,
Could not tell when dust
Had turned the rugs grey
But Sam never minded.
When she made him tea
Her finger at the rim
Warned her to stop pouring.
Her temper was bad.
Nights he couldn't sleep
They might talk until daybreak.
Dying, she asked him to provide
Some words appropriate

For a conversation with God.

PICTURES MY FATHER HUNG TOGETHER

Lost in their music, the horn player,
The fiddler, the straggle-bearded flautist,
Look down but see nothing.
Over in the next painting, men dance.
Two of them hold hands; another
Has just leapt in the air. An old woman

Wearing  a faded red kimono
Is standing on her porch, watching.
If time moved for them, if the song
Could go on, just three notes more,
The woman would smile.

KEEPING CONSCIENCE

The keeper of the king's conscience
Has horrible dreams. Everyone
Wronged by the king turn up there
Weeping, shouting, shaking their fists.
Who can sleep with such noise?
Sometimes the King's mother --
Bored with being dead -- comes by,
Dressed in rags, her crown askew,
To ask the crowd if they're crazy
"Can't you see this isn't the King,
But just some poor functionary?
Do you think the King lives in a cellar
Which floods every time it rains?
Does he eat only crusts and soup
Because he has no money?"
"No money? Doesn't his position
Come with an enormous salary?"
"Of course it  does. But it's never paid."
"Believe me," says the Keeper
"I feel extremely guilty about that."

SMOKE

Some mornings I wake up thinking

“The Egyptian was right! Heaven

Is surely made of smoke!” But then

I start wondering, After all, the Irishman

Saw a cold and rook delighting Heaven

While the Bible builds it of gold

And pearls, jasper and crystal –

A vast Faberge egg, lovely but not

Much use if you’re hungry. Perhaps

The American soldier had it right

Saying Heaven and Hell and Hoboken

Have much in common.

PLAYING IN THE MINORS

Hortense Flexner says a minor poet
Can be told by his or her lack
Of invisible banners. Also, she says,
Words never choke him.
I was set upon by words in Chicago
In late 1974; they left me bloody
But didn't try to choke me.
I'm pretty sure a gang of words
Stole a bag of raisins from my desk
Some time in the late 1990s.
These probably don't count.
Also, I have searched my house
From attic to cellar without seeing
Any invisible banners.

MUSE OF THE DAY

The very old muse who usually fills in
Is on vacation and my muse is ill.
I have just landed a rush order
For 1500 foot/boards of poetry
By next Thursday so the agency
Has sent me a temporary muse.
I think she is a golem.
Her long arms end in huge fists
Her iron grey eyes rarely blink.
Her forehead hides under lank bangs
But I suspect "emet" is written there
As with all the best-made golems.
When she speaks in her deep voice
An echo repeats her words
But with slight differences in tone
And odd hesitations. Her shadow
Is almost ludicrously too small for her.
We have produced three poems so far.
The first, on a stone lion who becomes
Mayor of Cincinnati, is amiable enough.
The second, about the sadness of pottery,
Drinks beer after beer and sleeps all day.
I'm not sure what the third one means
But it seems to be wanted by the police.

VISIT

Li Po came by last night
To tell me he was still dead
It was close to three a.m.;
His shadow poured wine
Into jelly-jar glasses.
We spoke quietly,
Trying not to wake the baby.

LOSING GRAVITY

My ancestor from Karlin
Wasn't mad so it must be
He was brave, not caring
When gravity, in one of her moods,
Released her claim on him
So, in the middle of prayer,
He started towards the ceiling.
Witnesses report he continued
Without losing a syllable.
Services over, the congregation
Watched him treading air
Until he washed against a pillar
And climbed down to join them.
The chazan handed him rocks
(Rocks? What were rocks doing
In a synagogue? Praying, I guess
Or perhaps dozing. Hard to tell.)
Which he put in his coat's pockets
So he could make it back home
Even if a vagrant wind thought
Wouldn't it be rare fun
To blow Reb Aaron to China?

DRINKING WITH REALITY

It was no night to be outside
Unsympathetic rain pelted
On hard-looking dreams who
Seemed almost everywhere.
Reality and I took refuge in a bar
Which is where sensible sorts go
On days like that. I don't know
Why it's said reality is harsh
Or stern or that she casts cold light;
She has her human side, especially
When she's been drinking.
She stopped in the middle of a joke
About three farmers and a c.p.a.
To tell me It's them damned dreams
That causes all the trouble.

MEMORIAL AD

You can see from the photo
That he regrets being dead
Not that he doesn't appreciate
His colleagues -- his ex-colleagues --
Buying a quarter page
In The New York Review of Books
To say they'll miss him.
(You would think he'd be beyond
Caring that the picture
Shows him hung-over
With a ragged part in his hair.)
He supposes -- you can see it
If you look at his eyes --
That time will make death
Seem natural, even easy,
But he's pretty sure he will never
Make a list titled "Ten Reasons
I'm Glad to Be Dead."

REMEMBERING L.D.

The other Larry in my class
Was smart and broad and black
And kindhearted. His car
Was ancient and he
Would drive a friend
Anywhere.
He could look fierce
For only a few seconds
And then he'd laugh.
On the spur of the moment
He would invent histories
For his friends. I owe to him
My college football career
So surprisingly cut short
By my arrest for treason.
A classmate became a prince
Because Larry said he was
And damned if there isn't still
Something royal about Tony.
Larry died so obscurely
That my law school --
Which keeps careful track
So it can dun us for donations --
Didn't find out for years.
There is no trace of him
On the internet, so I
Must tell you about him.

REASON WHY

When the gods deserted Anthony, the Sphinx
Heard their music two hundred miles away
And caught a few notes, clapping  them under
Her left forepaw. There they still rest
Buried deep in the sand. Their loss
Made heaven unbalanced, it's harmony
Less rich, less subtle. Miracles still happen
But they are often perverse or lop-eared
And inflict themselves on atheists and folk
Who worship things that are not gods.

MECHANICAL POETRY

I wish to talk of archives
"Arctic ivy," my machine suggests
I type again: archives
But my machine will not have it
It wants architects or arsenic.
Desperate it asks
Archibald venture?
Or do I want arpeggios
Until I am ashamed of thwarting it.
Perhaps archy the cockroach
Has reincarnated as a spell checker
(He wishes to receive carnations).

SUM

Fourscore and ten years ago my grandmother

Brought forth on this continent a new baby

Who’d have been called Naftali Meyer

In Lvov but here was Nathan Martin

And married my mother

And flew with angels

And talked with cats

And earned a death

More gentle,

More kind.

PERHAPS

If we can make it across the day

Make it past the smiling priest

Make it past the jade-hilted knife

Whose blade is curved and black

If our tongue speaks no treason

Against the sun then it may be

That night will give us shelter

Wrap us softly in shadows

Put us gently in a drawer

With bright pebbles and feathers

And lost cogs and the things

She means sometime to fix.