AXE

It's hard to imagine he's courting her but

My high school principle Leonard J. Fliedner

Seems often about when I dream of Baba Yaga

(What? You think you never dream of Baba Yaga?

The last time you woke up in wondering tears 

Perhaps it was because she'd looked at you or

Some smoke from her foul pipe was in your eye.)

He is stick-thin still but looks a little healthier 

The other night when I stopped by he had an axe

And was splitting wood for her. He was wearing,

As always, a grey three-piece suit and a blue tie,

His long, thin fingers holding the axe just so.

16 GAMES OF CHESS

When his wife died in childbirth

On February 25, 1927 my grandfather Joe

Felt his heart stop and then contract

Until it was small and hard and round

And cold as a marble. Ase, his brother,

Brought him home and sat with him.

Joe's deft fingers shook. For three days

He sat in the dark. On the fourth,

My great aunts Jenny and Lena

Brought his chess set from the apartment

Joe never visited again. Jenny opened the blinds

While Lena set up the board. She won

Fifteen games in a row.

She thought she was winning game sixteen

When Joe's eyes narrowed. "Mate in five," he said.

"So you remember how to talk?" said his sister.

FAITHFUL SERVANT

My shadow thinks to himself

“It would be pleasant to stretch

Over several squares of the sidewalk.

And bask in the afternoon sun” and there I am

Casting him exactly as he wishes.

He regrets that whatever plans I had

Have been set aside. Deeming me faithful,

He sighs over how I’ll miss him some day

And means to remember me in his will.

THE REFLECTION

Some observant folk thought my grandfather Joe 

Was a vampire because his reflection usually arrived

A few minutes after Joe had passed by. Reflected Joe 

Would shake his head in disgust or shrug.

Folks were surprised to see in the mirror

The frowsy image of a man who'd left the room.

I imagine the two had once been indistinguishable 

But while Joe remained upright and dapper

His reflection grew his hair long and wore

Old clothes,with cigarette holes burnt in them.

At Joe's funeral, his reflection suddenly appeared,

Red-eyed and distraught, in the tiny mirror

Of my Great-Aunt Mabel's face-powder compact

Until she closed it with a snap.

AN UPTOWN SCHRAFTS, 1956 OR SO

Through the mid 1950s afternoons

Were still in short supply. You’d take

What arrived without looking too closely

At the deliverymen. Sometimes

There might be a bespoke hour or two

Found after the war in storage depots

They were sold by weight.

Sounds during such hours travelled

At a civilized pace; questons

Would hover patiently in the Schrafts

That used to be on 114^th Street

Allowing you to sip a cup of chocolate

And eat half a buttered muffin

While you assembled an answer,

Wound it up and set it going

Click-clack-click around the table.

SMOKING MIRROR

On nights when no one's in the mood
To answer prayers, the gods on late shift
Slip one by one out of the office
And drift into their usual places
At the all-night bar and diner down the block.
The office boy and the girl from I.T.
Amuse themselves by shuffling files
So your desperate plea for understanding
Is  answered by Tezcatlipoca
With visions of storms and jaguars.

PERSONNEL

The Archangel Corelli could be seen sometimes

As a shadowy figure on the edge of a crowd

Huddled around a winter's night fire

Burning in a trash barrel. It was known

That he and God were no longer speaking.

He could never be seen whole. You might

See two eyes glitter and then turn dark

Or a hand reaching from a coat's ragged cuff,

Prestidigitator's fingers spread wide. Once,

I saw a sword, or at least a scabbard,

Dangling at his waist and thought I heard

The blade begging to be set free.

                                                    It's been years

Since I've seen a street fire and years

Since I've seen the Archangel Corelli.

NOVEMBER SNOW

Crow time comes; November snow

Sifts down; the sky is monochromeous.

River birch waves his arms, thinking 

I should be warned, not knowing

What I should be warned about.

My hand rehearses warding gestures,

The wrist turning just so, the fingers

Twisting and untwisting in rapid sequence. 

Things invisible to see strain to hear

Night’s dim heart, knocking irregularly.

A VISIT FROM JC

Jesus came one night

To Lizzie Croucher

With a chipped blue vase.

"Heaven," he said 

"Would like this vase

Mended and washed."

Miss Croucher did her best

But couldn't quite match

The shade of blue.

She reported this 

To her niece Bettina,

Who expressed surprise

That Heaven had vases

And that these vases

Could be chipped.

FROM THE GREENROOM

Rachel Baptiste, an African woman who sang

In Dublin in the 18th Century, has been waiting 

For me to write about her. To pass the time, she

Has struck up a friendship with Daniel Wildman 

A Jew who washed up in Georgian Devon;

He could talk to bees and also listen. (Bees

Took Wildman seriously but were never,

Despite general opinion, bound to obey him.

They just liked him.) 

When Plymouth farmfolk died, Wildman 

Would pick the best time to inform the bees

Who, everyone knew, resented not being told.

If my father were alive I'd tell him of these two:

Ms. Baptiste, standing  on the stage at Smock Alley 

The guttering candlelight making her yellow silk dress

Seem to flicker while she sang "Fair Kitty,

Beautiful and Young," and Mr. Wildman wondering 

If he and nine bees could pray as a minyan.

Some time later the yellow dress and the singer 

Might have appeared in a story my father told 

Or it might turn out that in Devonshire certain bees 

Still rest on the Sabbath. 

AND THEN WHERE WILL YOU BE?

Line by line

You add detail.

Shadows turn up

Claiming you

Have cast them.

Be cautious; the unwary

Believe themselves real.

MONDAY

Don’t tell him but

My reflection

Is looking grey.

Perhaps he worries.

WE VALUE YOUR BUSINESS

The god you are attempting to reach

Is not in service. Please stay on the line

And the next available god will take your prayer

Or, perhaps, totally ignore it. Even a default god

Working the phones on a holiday night

Will do what she wants. Take my advice:

Hang up now. If it's been a rough shift

She might technically grant your prayer

With results coming down anywhere between

The mildly amusing and the conditionally tragic.

QUANTUM

In our current iteration God

Is approximate, something like 

An electron that's here or there 

And both and neither. Having no place 

He is a cross between possibility

And vicinity. This has put him

Thoroughly out of temper. Now

Is not the time to mention we took

One of His hours and put it in storage 

Then ignored six months

Of angry demands to be released.

NOVEMBER 1

We shuffle in,

Drinking coffee and shivering

This cold November night --
Martha with her dragon,

Brendan with his whale,

Barbara with her cannon.

Tired monsters,

 Going off duty, casually wave,

Nodding to those they know.

As usual, Anthony

Has to warn Francis

Not to go with the monsters.

MINISTERS

My friend the Comtesse, some say,

Owes her success to her intellect

Or her charm or to the fact

That she works next door to St. Brigid

All these help, as does the odd

Heaven-sent chocolate cookie

But mostly it's her guardian ninjas.

She was born in the very midst

Of the Great Guardian Angel strike

Which paralyzed the East Coast,

Convulsed the West Coast

Made the South Coast mad with grief

And convinced the North Coast

To quit and return to dental school.

Faced with this, her parents took

What measures they could.

They tenderly mailed her middle name

To Samarkand, lest some foe

Use it against her. (If you know how,

You can find it down by the docks

Dancing.) Her father and mother

Were, as we all were in those days,

Well acquainted with ninjas

Who used to parade down Fifth Avenue

On Mt. Fuji's birthday. (Everyone agreed

It would have been more impressive

If any of the marchers had been visible).

Fifty six dollars and a Captain Midnight

Decoder ring and whistle later

And the deal was done. All her piety and wit,

The cut and thrust of her conversation,

Even her ability to render herself insensible

Would go for naught but for benign assassins

Attending upon her every whim.

ONCE MORE, THERE IS NO POEM ABOUT NATHANIEL JOHNSON

You know how it is; an indefatigable bird

Decides 4 a. m. is the very time to pour out

His profuse strain of unpremeditated art

While sitting in the river birch under my window.

There's nothing to do but shrug on a torn robe

And struggle downstairs to try to write.

"Muse!" I say, "there is a poem I wish to make

About Nathaniel Johnson, Samuel's brother,

About whom almost nothing is known except

That he died at 24, perhaps by his own hand.”

"Sorry," the Muse says. She is the very old one,

Filling in for my regular muse, who is on vacation

Wandering in Calabria. The old muse offers me half

Her cheese sandwich. "What of Peter, Erasmus' brother?"

She says. "I can probably inspire a sonnet on him."

I refuse; we compromise on Stanislaus Joyce

Who, she says, used to take her dancing in Trieste.