NOTA BENE

If you'd ask a favor of Libitina, the new-made Goddess of Corners, you need to stand where two things -- streets, walls, index fingers, destinies -- meet at any angle between 45 and 135 degrees. Prayers made at angles that fall outside this range will be answered, if at all, by either apprentices or felon gods performing their community service. All answered prayers are non-returnable and sold without warranty.

ANNIVERSARIAL

This day has had nine chances

To bring you back but instead

Returns some of the strays

Who never deserted you

Every time since six this morning

I’ve tried to write about you but

Ming the Merciless -- unshaved

And looking glum. since that

Is how you drew him -- has stood

Before me. My computer

Thinks any word that starts with m

Or even n means I mean

To write about Ming, erstwhile

Ruler of Mongo, whom you knew

When he was broke and living

On the streets around the Cathedral.

PROOF

The Lvoviner's shadow 

Was furiously occupied 

Trying to prove he was

Just an absence of light.

The fire used up it's fuel 

But dared not go out. At last 

The shadow altered a symbol

In a long equation and cried 

That his own non-existence 

Was now unquestionable. 

Congratulating him, the Lvoviner 

Poured tea into two cups

Both blue, one slightly chipped.

BD REVISES

In his brown study the Blue Devil has stayed up reading

Le Rouge et le Noir for the sixteenth time. As always

He hopes for a new ending; this time the arc

Of Julien Sorel’s life may alter. He’ll board a ship, say;

Arrive at Newark and travel by stages to Cincinnati

Where he’ll tend bar, develop a sense of humor,

Marry a milliner who will cut his hair

With pinking shears. Leaving the book open,

Fifty pages from the end, the Blue Devil

Whistles his black dog out of the corner,

Dons a scarf, checks an address; walks out the door.

IN MOONLIGHT

It's surprisingly easy to dress my father's modest ghost

In a cape, a tabard and a broad-brimmed hat

He moves confidently in long boots that rise

Almost to his knee; one hand rests on the hilt 

Of the sword he rightly expects to hang from his belt.

He seems not at all nonplussed at finding himself,

Nine years dead, on a snowy morning, a member

Of a squad of musketeers. The other ghosts 

Are less clear, less sure of themselves 

They shuffle about uneasily and mutter words 

Meant to indicate they speak good French

But all they speak about is umbrellas and coffee

And the pen of my aunt's friend, dancing under the moon.

LETTERED

Though she woke up one morning 

With the ability to type rapidly

The last public letter writer avoids keyboards.

If you insist on a typed letter she will --

Reluctantly -- ask a passing cat or a dog 

To type it for her. All the cats 

In Constantinople are expert typists

But the dogs hunt and peck. They,

However, will faithfully transcribe your words 

While cats always reserve the right to improve them 

Or to insert insults, scurrilous and witty, 

Writ in bad Poulter's measure to which they are addicts all.

CLIMB

At 4000 feet the shadows mostly 

Stood upright but by 5000

Every one of them was lying flat,

Hugging the ground and urging us

To proceed with caution. At 6000

They refused to go on; we left them 

With the ghost of a farmer who promised 

To shelter them in the ruined barn

He'd been haunting for decades. 

When we returned, our shadows

Refused to rejoin us; we spent weeks 

Finding more and patching them sufficiently 

To last through the long journey back.

POEM FOR WEDNESDAY

For ten years El Cid's cinnamon-stuffed body sat

In an ivory chair in Saint Peter's monastery.

Some monks called it "Senõr Cadaver." When

It started strutting about in their dreams

They laughed, though not unkindly. Assume

The world is to be made anew; what of this 

Should we try to keep -- perhaps the chair 

And some of the cinnamon-stained bones? 

At least one of the monks' dreams, surely. 

Perhaps two.

IT IS RELIABLY REPORTED THAT

On the 20th of January 1869, 

California larks sang “Queed-lix boodle,” 

Repeating it with great regularity

For hours together. Two days later,

In a sillier mood, they all sang

"Chee chool cheedildy choodildy.”

If the world is created again from scratch

Be careful to get this part right.

DISTANCE

If you wish to send a message

From one imagined corner

Of an infinite universe to the other

You must win the favor of the angel

Who stands there, trumpet at the ready,

And bored almost to extinction because

His sole function until just now

Has been to mark a corner which,

Strictly speaking, does not exist. You

Will doubtless have a plan; some words

To assuage his loneliness or perhaps

A series of savage blows and kicks.

Those who've given thought to the matter --

There've not been many -- recommend

Small feats of intimate magic involving

Three Jacks of Diamonds, a gudgeon,

A scarf and a handful coins so old

That their faces might show anyone.

Having won the angel's favor you next

Must ask of him some birchbark,

Oakgall, copperas and a tall feather.

Think well before you write; your message

Must be able to endure innumerable translations

And transformations without betraying itself

And, should it succeed in traveling

The uncrossable distance to the next angel

At her imaginary corner and arrive there

As a ginger-colored cat, anyone seeing it

Must know it for a cat who's come

As a message from infinitely far away.

NOMENCLATURE

Hirundo Domestica was the name of a cat I once knew

Though he answered to it seldom. His owner thought

It sounded rather Japanese and imagined her cat

Wearing elaborate kimonos while writing extremely short

But meaningful poems or else pursuing a vocation

For sumo wrestling. The cat, though, classically educated,

Knew his name was Latin for "barn swallow."

Barn swallows are the national bird of Estonia

In heraldry they signify landless younger sons.

In these facts the cat found no comfort whatsoever.

ARCHANGELS

Some say just four of the angels
Have names. Michael and Gabriel
Are in the Bible; Raphael turns up
In The Book of Tobit with crucial information
On curing blindness caused by bird poop.
Uriel apparently named herself and then
Bargained with writers for a mention
In a variety of books that did not
Make the Bible’s final cut.

A GENUINE INCIDENT ON THE ROAD TO SAINTHOOD -- A FOUND POEM, ALMOST

The monks found it 

Hard to decide;

Drown him in a sack?

Stab him with knives?

Sell him into slavery?

Or axe him in the head?

PYE

God wills Himself into being

Now and then and summons up

The shade of the late laureate 

Henry James Pye. If You're God

No one dares say "For God's sake!

Why Pye? Tennyson would bring You 

Better poetry. So would Dryden or  

Betjman or even Nahum Tate. Old Cibber,

Leaning over to whisper in Your Ear,

Might make You open Your Eyes and laugh.

But, of all poets, Pye? Why Pye?"