I
sought an assignation
With Lizzy Bennett but Fate,
Pretending to have misheard,
Has sent a fog from which
Sparafucile, the assassin
In Rigoletto, has condensed.
He's trying his best but
The conversation limps.
I’ve no dukes I want killed
And Regency dress don’t suit him.
On December 1st, 1646, records show,
The Devil entered the church at Lustleigh
Taking a seat at the back. He conducted himself
Civilly, removing his silver-chased hat
And putting a coin -- two headed but of good metal --
Into the collection basket. He laughed twice
But quietly and without sneering. He didn't
Leave in a puff of smoke but vanished by degrees.
The next unusual visitor, in 1831,
Was a raven who perched on the altar
Nodding affably at those he knew. The Devil
Wasn't molested but the verger
Waved his hat furiously at the raven.
A reader in Big River, Ohio
Wants to know how dreams
Can be had before being born
As I understand it
It's more a matter of dreams,
Waiting for the right person
To come along and dream them.
Every egg believes wise
And wary eggs ruled for ages
Before chickens came
And ruined the happy world.
The first poem I remember hearing
Was The Train to Timbuktu
("From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo
Is a long way down the track
And from Kalamazoo to Timbuktu
It's just as far to go back"). The second
Was "Storm warnings
Have been posted
From Cape May
To Block Island."
I hear the first still when I borrow
My father's voice to read to a child.
There are storms nowadays but no one,
Can be bothered to warn Cape May
Or Block Island or the points inbetween.
Going through old boxes I found a dream
Of my father's from 1923. He wasn't born
Until 1926, making this an unusual item.
I can only suppose that, with so many dreams
Eager to be his, simple kindness required
He begin having them before he was born
And, perhaps, to continue having them
Even now, so many years after he died.
If it should please God
To not exist what
Stratagem of yours
Will avail?
Old and wary, He
Has for a long while
Been on to your tricks.
Between one day and the next
The old-model ones have been
Swept from the streets. Instead,
Extremely tall, extremely thin angels
Are on every corner, never singly
But in groups of two or three.
They take no bribes; they never smile.
My father died during a spell
Of terrible weather. It's no wonder
His friend Claude S., struggling
Through snow, leaning into the wind,
Needed to make up a minyan
Should outpace his shadow which
Had been dim anyway, cast
By two-fifths of a moon. Days later
It arrived, thin, tattered, dazed
With a pale, unseasonable flower
Pinned to its lapel.
He who'd been the poet Wordsworth
Woke suddenly and heard his talent
Scratching at the window
While his muse hammered her fist
At the front door. Escaping,
He faked his death. He is thought
To have watched his funeral from
A closed carriage, but after that
The trail grows cold unless
He was one of the deceased poets
Implicated in the theft
Of St. Oswald's uncorrupted arm.
The golem who occasionally
Brings me a poem is trying
To sell me one about when
She was a dancing girl
(She was a dancing girl?)
At the Ancien Eldorado
In Cairo. There's no story
Really; it's all atmosphere
Beaded curtains and jazz
Played by austere men in
Jaunty hats for other men,
Less austere, smoking
Thin cigarettes and watching
Women dance. She says that
The ghost of Konstantin Cavafy
Once bought her a dark beer.
When I object that Cavafy
Hated Cairo, rarely left Alexandria
And was, anyway, still alive then
She shrugs and does a few steps
Of what she says isThe Balboa.
The person I am in the morning
Sometimes listens to reason;
The one on the night shift is,
If anything, too accommodating
If we could just arrange a meeting
Their feud, -- the cause
Of so much bitterness and grief --
Could probably be ended.
When I returned
From the funeral
My father's reflections
Had moved out except
One, fallen asleep
In a mirror leaning
Against a wall.
"Warning!"
My tablet says,
"This website
Is not secure!"
I sympathize
But don't know
What advice to give.
Have you thought
Of being a different
Sort of website or
Not being a website
At all? You should know
That stealing passwords
Very seldom brings
Lasting happiness.
