CORVID

 

The Midnight Crow feels no duty

To pay the Morning Crow's debts;

The Morning Crow sometimes resurrects

The Midnight Crow's victims

With an ill grace and afterwards 

Struts about, intolerably smug.

DISPOSSESSED

In the city's great need

The madmen went sane

And saved it. Afterwards,

They went back to the asylum

To find their places taken.

REGRESSION

Tutankhamun's mummy wears

A necklace with a figure of 

Vulpine Nekhbet hanging down.

That figure has a necklace

From which a tiny Tutankhamun 

Dangles. There's no telling

How long this joke might go on.

ESCORT

After he died, the Emperor Franz Joseph

Detailed two running foot men 

To attend my grandmother's dreams.

They were tall and their heavy staffs 

Were made of silver-chased oak.

Every night they'd race through Lemberg

Shouting "Make way for the dreams 

Of Esther Gossenbauer!" (The Emperor

Always addressed my grandmother

By her maiden name.) Unemployed now

They've pawned their staffs and become

More circumspect. When a dream

Takes me to Lemberg they politely

Ask other dreams to let us by.

COMMONPLACE POEM

The Misses Trusler of Bath

Were celebrated for making

A peculiar sort of cake.

Extensive research indicates

It was a plumcake but  

I have no idea what

Made it peculiar. Still,

Why would Michael Kelly,

A tenor who played billiards

With his friend Mozart,

Lie to me about this?

GODDESS

What I like about Inanna 

Is that she isn't proud. 

Though goddess of justice 

She's a skilled thief

Taking Enki's mes and

Usurping An's temples.

Her original remit

Was to be goddess of 

Whatever had no god.

Her priests were men

Or women, depending 

On their moods

Her vizier turned herself 

Into two quarrelsome men.

The easiest way 

To worship her is

To bake a cake 

And call it Inanna.

EPIC

My first real job in the business

Was with a small place that did

Bespoke work -- epigrams, mostly,

And short lyrics. The timekeeper

Rang a bell when we finished a sonnet

And the staff would applaud.

We were, in our way, respectable

And could rouse a small muse

To show the licensing authorities.

There was, of course, a back door 

Where we took deliveries 

And sold dubious incantations.

It was madness to take a contract 

For an epic and madness twice over

To promise it on a short deadline.

No one went home for weeks; the old witch

From next door brought us cauldrons

Of strong coffee; the young witch

Who lived with her watched our back door

And dragooned surprised customers 

Into helping out. Retired writers,

Two of them thought dead and three 

Actually so, returned to work.

The poem itself? It could have been worse.

Not much plot: six and a half brothers 

Seek their lost birthright; five sisters

Go hunting in an ensorcelled woods.

(The remaining half of a brother

Enrolls in business school and does

Quite well for himself.) We had some luck;

Inanna, an Akkadian goddess of all work 

With concentrations in sex, war, 

Justice, knotwork, and political power 

(Between engagements for two thousand years)

Came with her lion and her complete set

Of symbols and attributes: hook-shaped reed knots, 

Eight-pointed stars, horned helmets, rosettes, doves,

Ring-headed doorposts, 

And the Planet Venus. I still see her

Occasionally; she's promised me her help 

If I leave poetry and take up war.

PARCAE

It's boring being the Fates;

From time to time they'll

Throw down their scissors,

Break their spindle, bury

Their measuring rod and

For a while, every doom

Becomes uncertain. Eventually,

They're found, usually 

Buying drinks for the house.

Sometimes, Clotho goes missing

For years and is replaced 

By a sullen terrier who has 

A terrible time spinning.

ARISE

Awake, O Muse! Come on; get up!

I know times are hard and you

Work three jobs and worry

That you don't have a green card,

But how long do you think I can vamp

Before some squinchy-eyed reader says

"There's no poem occurring here?"

How much better things used to be!

Old Milton, leaning on a daughter,

Would hobble in and rap a coin

Hard against the polished oak counter

Saying "Muse! I wish to justify the ways

Of God to Man! What d'you have in stock?"

"Very good, Sir. Are you justifying God's ways 

To a particular man or to humanity at large?"

"At large, I think; no sense being stingy."

"And would you be thinking of a sonnet

Or perhaps a villanelle? We've some nice material

Just in from France."

                                   “None of that; I’ve decided 

To write an epic."

                                      "Congratulations!

My word! We haven't done one of those 

In years! Will you be inspired here 

Or should I send the boy around?"

DEVELOPMENT

Whatever you've read, good mirrors,

Tired of waiting for someone

To develop the technology,

Invented themselves in 1296.

They walked about, at first, looking 

For customers but folk were unnerved 

By products trying to sell themselves

Also, of course, these early mirrors

Captured souls, but not many,

And some of them were let go 

Miles and years away, unable to tell

Right from left but otherwise fine.

THEM

When Authority sleeps

She dreams of silence.

When Dominion sleeps

She dreams of water 

When Power sleeps 

She dreams there are no dreams.

HOROLOGY

So, it happens I run into God

Who has a clock under His arm

Which He asks me to look at.

I assume God knows that I

Am not my grandfather Joe who

Knew everything about clocks

Nor his father, Juda,

Who knew them even better.

I peer at the clock a long while 

Then give it a tap with 

Joe's smallest hammer.

"This clock," I say, as if

I  am someone who can tell

A waterclock from a sun dial,

"Keeps perfect time."

"Yes," says God, "it does.

Do you think you can fix it?"

I'VE BEEN THERE

Those demons who cannot

Afford Hell's rents often

Perch in trees, spending

The long nights quietly 

Sleeping or composing 

Interminable poems

At dawn, hooting angels 

Roust them with sticks.