Friday, March 30, 2018

VISITOR


Because I am my father's son, God
Sometimes drops by, usually late at night.
He never says much; time makes no sense
To Him, of course, since He is everywhen
He has promised to tell me if He finds
A road whose bend He cannot see around.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

WORLD ENOUGH

Where’s the world today? Not here;
This is hasty work, never meant
For close inspection. A property mistress,
Competent but overworked, ran it up
For a performance  -- one night only --
In some rural place where farmers
Will not demand perfection.
The grey light touches things glancingly,
Knowing its full weight
Might make everything collapse.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

TURNS


St. Phocas, the encyclopedia says,
May have been a gardener. Then again,
He may have been a bishop who didn't know
A mangel-wurzel from a maple tree
A third school suspects he was a seal.
Perhaps all the theories are correct
And the three work shifts. If you've a mind
To pray to him, check his schedule.
It's no use asking a seal for help
Because aphids are eating your roses;
Even you throw bits of raw fish to him
Bishop Phocas won’t perform tricks.

Monday, March 26, 2018

AT THE LAST


No one ever doubted my father
Was a Jew. He’d met God
In a synagogue and posses of angels
Had flown him about when he slept.
(Once, when they were running late,
The angels dropped him the last few feet
So he woke as he was falling into bed.)
On his last day, though, Raven the Trickster,
Whose stories he knew well, sat nearby
Singing him to sleep with the adventures
The two of them had shared

Thursday, March 22, 2018

PROBABLY ONE OF AESRED'S


One match must do for all the fire in the world
The ocean must be contained in a blue cup
Brought home by one of my aunts; no one
Can say which one it was, though it wasn't  Edith
Who only lived a few months and probably
Never saw a movie. Back to our business –
A key, a cat, a raven, another cat who won't
Be left out, and a 1938 season’s pass
To
Manhattan Beach. With a little luck
One might start a new world from these
Or build slantwise a very old one

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

TIME


Not as we’ve known him --
Old and strong and implacable
Striding endlessly with even step --
But young Time, something small
And fearful -- a white mouse, say,
Holding very still in the shadows,
Or running when he hopes the great owl
Who'll someday be called God
Has lofted off on His horrible silent wings

Tuesday, March 20, 2018

STANDING


The podiatrist’s eyes are round with wonder –
Never has he seen a foot so flat, so archless.
I don't know if this calls for shame or quiet pride.
In the museum they may put my skeleton
Next to Australopithecus; I’ll hear
Stories of the old flat-footed gods
Who walked when the world was new.


Monday, March 19, 2018

TESTIMONY


The stickman's ghost on the road
To a two-dimensional heaven
Worried that his sins would reach it first,
Implacably barring his entrance
But, his turning missed somewhere,
He went wandering in large circles.
So his sins, impatient, shrugged
And testified against a random stickman
Who had led, in fact, a blameless life.
To sins we are all pretty much the same.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

11,000


The eleven thousand virgins of St. Ursula –
Each and every one of them a saint
Entitled to unlimited withdrawals
From God’s illimitable grace –
Have seldom accomplished much;
No one prays to them though Ursula,
When she remembers, passes on
A few of the prayers she gets
From archers, orphans and schoolgirls.
One of the eleven thousand – Sukey
(The virgins were originally just numbered
But over time some picked up names) –
Answers almost all of them. Most
Spend their days hanging about
Or making care packages for the damned.
Some have jobs. In Heaven
You can still pass a virgin
Sweeping the streets, nod to a virgin
Directing traffic, on your way
To drink coffee next to a table
Where three virgins will be discussing
The best way to make origami cranes.
Attempts to form a union have not,
Up to now, met with success.

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

STEEL



There is, there was, a metal bird
That wants me to remember it.
It was part of a balance toy
Of a sort once popular. A touch
Would set it moving. Sometimes
It moved when no hand came near
And no breeze blew. Memory,
Reaches for it, asks it to trace
One more perfect circle on the air.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

FROM THE CATALOGUE



Defying the spectral code,
The ghost of Madame Homburg
Wears pink. She is willing
To be conjured up Thursdays
And alternate Mondays.
She coalesces by degrees,
Weeping. To dismiss her,
Play Mozart's Mass in C Minor
Or talk about politics.

Monday, March 12, 2018

GREEN JADE



A Buddha I once lost turned up twenty eight years
And eight hundred miles away. He seemed
Unsurprised to see me again but I suppose
Such reunions are all in a day's work for him
I keep him now in a small cabinet on the wall
Next to the ivory horse who's been looking
For his mates for decades and cater-corner
To a tired pewter frog. We all know the Buddha
Will take up his journey some time, perhaps
Taking along the frog. Maybe I'll go too.

Friday, March 9, 2018

CONJURING R



Need, if sufficient, or faith unfathomable
Can conjure up God, but never for long
The weight of thinking about forever
Is too great and God winks back
To wherever He is or isn't when not
Being conjured into being.
 
                                     Some 
Don't conjure but, looking around,
See two trees, a surly cat, a bus
Whose driver is disputing the fare
God offers for a ride downtown.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

MING R



For some while the ghost of Zhu Youijan,
Last emperor of the Ming dynasty
Has held court in the shadow of Coal Hill.
This fact was little known in the West
Until my father (fl. 1926-2011)
Visited and later published interviews
With some of the ghosts who’d drifted
By ones and twos to see the Emperor until
They found they constituted a court.
One of the lesser officials was or is --
It’s never clear which -- a rabbi
Who, not knowing he’d died on the road,
Came to petition the Emperor for relief;
His synagogue and congregation’s homes
Had been swept away by an angry river.
The Emperor has been mulling over his response
Since 1647, three years after his death.
Meanwhile, the rabbi has been taken on 
As a deputy in the ministry of works. 
When the Ming dynasty resumes he intends
To present the Emperor with his plan
For a comprehensive system of flood control.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

STAVES



The first staff was prentice-work,
Set aside when he became a master.
The next, showed the good still in him;
It exploded when he asked too much,
Scudding him years ago and miles away.
The third was strong but coarse-grained
Able to level a house but unable
To clean a dish. Cats stole it away.
The fourth staff was subtle and careful
Able to take his place for months at a time
Until it grew tired of being him and left.
The last staff is the one he made
When he was an apprentice. He uses it
To go up and down stairs.

Monday, March 5, 2018

ADVICE FOR THE BEGINNER



It's a mistake to start by infiltrating Gainsborough's Blue Boy;
People will notice, even if you pretend you've been there always
We recommend something smaller; say a man with a straw hat
One of those on shore not watching a small boat in a Hiroshige print.
If you find Hiroshige's staffage too etherial for your tastes
We can fit you into a townscape seen through a window
In a hasty sketch thought by some to be a late Tinteretto
You'll have your back to the viewer but your right hand
Will wear a tiny gold ring and be raised expressively.

Friday, March 2, 2018

AS IT WAS

Some nights when everyone is gone
My old office remakes itself.
The cabinets burst with files;
Smoke from a pipe lost since 1986
Dances in the air. A scarecrow
Sits at my desk, writing letters,
Making phone calls, turning to the window
To watch the new moon setting,
Though this, he knows, brings bad luck.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

FILLING IN



I called in sick yesterday so
Default processes and subroutines
Performed my functions. Interns
Ate lunch for me; a scarecrow
Sat with his back to my desk
Watching the sun go down.
Three unusually large ravens
Rode the train home in my place.