POEM AND REPLY

When it was time to bring up his bones someone knew just where to look:

An old family secret of the key to the door of the room with the trunk

Or the ancestral memory of the great-grandson of his faithful dog

Or he himself in a dream or a vision: “Remember my bones.”

(Something my father wrote)

What need will arise that we'll need the old man's bones?
Will they be properly buried or in a battered trunk
Covered with faded stickers? Perhaps they'll be
Leaning casually against some wall, waiting to be noticed.
It may be that they've been busy in the world,
Catching eels and elves and elvers, making lanterns
So small as to be of no use to anyone larger than a mouse.
Must the old man's soul be conjured up or has a new one
Been traveling herewards for some time, walking some days
And others taking the trains wealthy shadows use
When they need to suddenly leave town forever?

BALFOUR AND A FOX

1935, and Patrick Balfour is not Lord Kinross yet
He is on a trip, taking a Rolls-Royce from England
To India. Walking through Tehran with a friend
He sees a fox and immediately runs after it.
That night, the fox visits Balfour's dreams
Talking to him urgently in Persian which the man
Doesn't know, though one day he'll be fluent.

GREY

The shadows are on strike;

Management has trucked in clouds

To screen the Sun, hoping

To ease fears of the light

Judging us while its mood

Is thin-mouthed and mean

The Moon has urged both sides

To return to the negotiating table.

SHELVES

On shelves in the Church of San Domenico Maggiore

Are the corpse of every Neapolitan king

Who reigned between 1441 and 1502.

(My shelves are ashamed; they have

No kings at all or queens; nary a  duke;

Not even a small auxiliary archbishop.)

One of them – Ferdinand I – hasn’t been returned

Since being checked out in 1947;

Someone owes 22,326 dollars and 18 cents.

NUMBERS

Glancing at a column, my grandfather Max

Knew instantly what they’d add up to.

My grandfather Joe could play chess in his head
And once forced the ghost of Paul Morphy
To accept a draw. My brother at ten
Half invented calculus before finding out
Leibniz and Newton had beaten him to it.
Once, because I missed you greatly,
I discovered a way to square a circle
Which, unfortunately,  I have forgotten.

IMAGINARY

Gucko I still see, mostly for coffee
But sometimes for a beer or two.
Fufu, my brother Jean's other imaginary friend
I haven't seen in years. He was always
An elusive sort and contrary. Jean
Inherited him from a friend. I was jealous,
Having then only an imaginary fire truck
And a totem animal, a solemn bear
Who spoke without contractions.
Gucko gave sound advice given his age
Which was about four and a half; Fufu,
Even then, was no one you'd want
To meet beneath a moonless sky.

WALKING

Max and God walked home from work some nights

Talking about their jobs -- they were in the garment trade –

And my grandmother Esther, a mystery to them both.

The walk was long --12 miles or more from 39^th Street

To Snediker Avenue. Two dogs walked with them

Until they crossed Grant Street. A block or so later

A grey and white cat would appear and pretend

He just happened to be going the same way.

Max had gradually stopped being a believer

But never said so, lest he hurt God's feelings.

ANOTHER

I'd hired a space for the poem. Its personnel –

The poet William Cowper, Bill Monroe, a raven –

Would arrive later. I thought Monroe, who was ornery,

Might get along with Cowper, who was mad

And also -- for no particular reason -- eternally damned.

I still think that poem might have been good

(There'd have been some slow bluegrass music 

And the raven had agreed to dance a few steps).

Then Cowper got lost on the way, ending somehow

Hunched miserably in a corner of Valhalla, and Monroe

Refused to do a poem co-starring a raven.

The raven took a rain-check and, in the end,

We used God, my grandfather, two dogs and a cat.

DOUANIER

Yadwigha in a long dress
Having sent the tiger on his way,
Having eaten the snake's apple,
Having disappointed the moon,
Looks over the painter's shoulder
Waiting her moment
To step from the frame.
Seeing me watching her
From eighty years away,
She shakes her head

ALSO, A LENS

If my grandfather is recalled into being
By some fine watch that wants a maker
Or if a shadow, needing someone to cast it
Causes him to gradually cohere, midstride,
On Second Avenue, he will likely want
His watchmaker's hammer returned. Tell him
I have it hanging on the wall and that
It's willing to go back to work

OF THE DARTH, DARTHY

"The poetry of the Darth" the paper says;

A misprint, I suppose, but what if it's not?

What sort of poems would Darth Vader write

And when would he find the time? Not an easy man

To have in your writer’s group: "I find 

Your metric failures disturbing." Still, 

One can’t always be making a billion voices 

Cry out at once and then fall silent. 

Sometimes, one needs to make villainous puns

Or laboriously rework the last four lines

Of a mournful villanelle.

LONG WAY ROUND

The mailman sometimes delivers dreams
Meant for her other self -- the one who never
Learned Spanish but has heard Virginia Rails
Complaining of the impudence of jays.
Her friend in Caracas is a marvelous woman
Who can translate almost anything.
The Ohio teacher's misdelivered dreams
Now speak Middle Church Sclavonic. One day,
She'll set them to music and remail them
So you can dance with your old dreams
In a language you don’t know.

PIECE WORK

In busy season the cutters didn't go home.

Food was brought in -- thick slices of bread,

Wheels of cheese, apples, radishes,

Urns of sugary tea with lemon but no milk.

When the men slept for a few hours

They stretched out on the work tables

Sharing dreams, bright-colored but patched

With rags held on by tiny, even stitches.

 (What am I if not one of those dreams?)

H. M.

What an outrageous bit of snobbery!

The rest of the world has to share

But Handel has his own Messiah.

Worse, he trumpets his good fortune everywhere –

In ads, on billboards, on the radio.

His messiah seems at least to be a humble chap

Not above working for a living. "Handel's Messiah

Will be heard at Town Hall; there will be performances

Of Handel's Messiah at Rockefeller Chapel."

What will the two of them find to chat about

When it's just them in Handel's exclusive heaven?

Perhaps they will disguise themselves and mingle

With the unwashed, though saved, masses

In the Paradise of common folk.

TO MYSELF

I've been sending notes to myself in a language

Neither of us understand. No wonder seven years

Couldn’t teach me French; many decades

Haven’t taught me what my own words mean.

Perhaps like Emerson at Longfellow's funeral

I will rise shakily at my own and say

"I shall miss my old friend! I so much wish

I could remember who he was!"

ATHANATOS

As my father grew old God
Became restless. He'd rise from bed,
Clap on any sort of hat 

(God and my father were of a time
When hats were worn outdoors)
And walk the streets until dawn,
Finding worlds He'd forgotten
Glittering feebly in the dust.
Some He'd gently start spinning
With a slight flick – just so.
Just so do I remember my grandfather
Making a half-dollar coin dance
With three Indian-head pennies.

hake-like

a cartilaginous fish,

two feet in length,

and of somewhat

elongated and hake-like form

arrives in chapter 14

and drops its card:

Chimæra monstrosa

but soon,

to its disappointment,

makes way

for a ringworm cure

SAME RIVER

“You cannot,” said Heraclitus,
“Step into the same river twice.”
“You’re on!” I said and so
We spent the rest of the night
Jumping in and out of rivers;
We both caught colds.
Turns out he was right
Though some of the rivers
Were quite similar the second time.

Heraclitus, though, after a few drinks,
Can never leave well alone.
“If  horses,” he said, “had a god,
He would look like a horse.”
“I’ve got you there!” I answered
“The God of Horses is my fifth cousin.”
(Due to an unwise bargain I have
An uncountable number of cousins;
They're like the pillars at Stonehenge)
“He looks nothing like a horse.”
There was no choice, of course,
But to visit my cousin who lives
Some versts north of the last subway stop
In the Bronx. For my mother’s sake,
Pitr welcomed us warmly
After innumerable cups of tea
He showed us around. Though as a god
He has access to infinities, his apartment
Was small, and crowded with the ghosts
Of horses. Horse angels were constantly
Coming and going and horse prayers
Were piled so high that miracles were needed
To keep them from crashing down.

"Alright then," said Heraclitus, "you try
Coming up with something pithy and memorable
Which wittily illuminates the human condition!"
"How about 'The weed of crime bears bitter fruit?’ "
"Wasn't that The Shadow's motto?"
"It was. You didn't ask for originality.
And didn't Xenophanes say that horse thing?"
Heraclitus shrugged and thought for a moment.
"You know," he said finally, "the weed of crime
Is, properly considered, a vegetable."

TWO

My father wrote that while
Most men look up for salvation
I tend to look down. This is so
And one of the things God and I
Have in common. Think about it;
What direction else can He look?
Some days it seems salvation
Is slow in coming or wastes time
Amusing small things by the way
But God and I can be patient.