AUBADE

The old god shrugs and decides today 

He will exist between seven and two

And answer fourteen prayers, nineteen petitions

And all questions clearly worded and asked 

At least fifteen minutes before closing time.

He creates a valet to help him dress,

And a cook to make him breakfast 

As usual, when he leaves his house, angels 

From a previous dispensation are waiting 

To ask him for work. He creates a secretary

To write down the names of those

Who have them and descriptions of the rest.

AVOID THE COFFEE

The cafeteria where I eat sometimes is generally

Filled with the ghosts of old lawyers and clerks.

It has gradually climbed since I first saw it 

From ground level to the seventh floor 

Of a five story building. It's  clock 

Always shows it's half past 1937. 

FAMA INTERIM

God's marble palace is always cold

And very seldom used nowadays.

Once in a while there's a ceremony

Or it's rented by a filmmaker requiring

Illimitable space. There are an infinite number

Of basements but only one attic. Since He retired –

Which was at about the same time I did –

God has taken to spending much of His time

In that attic. Some say He's working on His memoirs

Others insist he's building a new sort of universe

Intended to work on different principles.

Whatever He's up to, He and Lucifer have reconciled.

Fallen angels have begun filtering back

Into Heaven, taking odd jobs or rushing about

Carrying great baskets of feathers and pins

Or blueprints or buckets of tenpenny nails

Or leather portfolios filled with shadows.

ON POINT

The point of angels
Is to dance. Granted
They can destroy cities
Free prisoners
Blow horns stop
The Sun from moving
Carry news or threats
And make bodies
Out of almost anything
Including air, time and something
Called subtle dust
Which you can’t buy these days.
All this they do because
Someone had to and dinosaurs
Weren’t good at it
But the reason for
Having angels
Is to dance.

RHYTHM

Claude Hopkins is playing

I Got Rhythm, ignoring the circumstance

That he’s been dead since 1984

Where he is, it’s 1941

And he’s in a Brunswick studio 

Where the Muses, looking for inspiration,

Have dropped by. (He’s aware

They visited Art Tatum first

And that Tatum chased them off.)

Crowded into the small studio 

Are Hopkins, his piano, the equipment 

An engineer and nine muses. Making it worse 

Erato, an incurable romantic, has invited 

The Muses' estranged cousins, the Furies

To accompany them. There are only three Furies 

But they take up a lot of space. Perversely,

They've started jitterbugging though not

In time to the music, ignoring Terpsichore's pleas

That they stop. The engineer is falling in love

With the youngest Fury, Tisiphone;

Her name means "vengeful destruction;"

It will probably not go well between them.

Hopkins is not worried. It's 1940;

It's now; he's alive then, dead now

And either way he's playing I Got Rhythm.

WITH A NESHNABE

When they met again, many years 

After his death and a few weeks 

After hers -- contrary to the last,

And after the last, she'd taken

The long way round and arrived 

Riding behind a handsome Neshnabé --

She returned to him the piety

He'd thrown off in 1914 and which

She'd picked up and preserved

Tending it until it became a puzzle

To her and all those she lived with.

He returned to her her habit of smoking 

And certain memories of her father 

For which there'd been no room

Among things hastily packed

And carried across the ocean.

SALTED

The channoards of Paris
Had the right to salt
And boil the King
(After he was dead).
It’s been some time
Since they last exercised
This ancient right but,
If you’ve woken up,
Again, with a royal corpse
And an indescribable
Tattoo you could do worse
Than look to the saltbreakers
Perhaps the techniques
Has been preserved.

LICENSERS

The ghosts of Kamianka 

Strumilowa sometimes,

For my father's sake, allow

A dream of mine to

Take place there. Of course,

It must first be licensed 

And the script approved 

By the town's synod

Three men, three women,

Two ducks and a cat

Who acts as chair.

Occasionally, they demand 

Some rewrites. One of the ducks 

With ties to a community

Of nondescript ghost dogs

Often requests that a dog

Be given a role. I always 

Agree. In my recent series 

Of dreams about my office

(Translated almost intact 

From Brooklyn to 1904)

All the senior managers 

Are dogs or ducks or

Luchadores willing to work

For very small amounts 

Of ghost kronen.

SCHOOL

The Taganrog gymnasia stood 

On the highest point in town 

When the headmaster was fired 

He found a new position

As an insane tramp. Records show  

That Parunov, the new headmaster, 

Paid for the old one's burial.

This story is, perhaps, improved 

Though made less interesting 

If you believe the old headmaster

Was dead before he met

Three big men with shovels.

BROKEN WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

The Assistant to
The God
Of Broken Things
Is frustrated by
His employer's
Inability to keep
Promises or
Appointments.

One does not pray to

The God of Broken Things

To be made whole but

To be made broken

More interestingly.

BEING OTHERS

We are, they said, tired 

Of being Byzantines; let's 

Be Turks instead so when Mehmet 

The Conqueror and his soldiers 

Reach the City's walls they'll find

Another Mehmet at the gates

And themselves already inside

Dowsing fires and making whitewash

For the mosaics in the Hagia Sofia.

TELLING STORIES

Lately it's begun to irk God

That He is impeccable

And thus incapable of lying.

Trying to amuse the ghost 

Of a pale girl He used to meet

In the old church in Haarlem

He spoke of a thing with 

A beaver's tail and otter's feet

And a venomous spur. Only

Frantic signals from St. Baavo

Prevented the world being filled

With disturbingly clever platypodes

Spiraling on batwings and breathing 

Multi-colored gouts of fire.