HYDE PARK

The princess was real enough 

But her tower was just a round room 

Perched towards the top

Of an ordinary house. Ghosts

Passing by seldom paused

Or thought they heard echoes

Of music they once knew.

The tree beside the house

Had not appeared suddenly from

A piece of stone or seed slipping 

Through a hole in a magician's pocket

(What sort of magician has pockets?)

But over many years. Given how often I 

Visited it you might think I'd know

What kind of tree it was but 

I'd no idea at all then 

Nor have I learned since.

NEWS

Exactly one hundred sixty-three years

Before my father's birth James Woodforde

Gave his sister Jenny four hundred needles,

Four papers of pins and two steel-top thimbles.

Such facts come by from time to time

Thinking I might make some use of them.

If only whoever told me this had gone on

To say Jenny had used her needles to sew

Pockets in shrouds and her pins to torture 

Wax figures of her unfortunate lovers 

We'd have a poem. As it is, I  can only thuink

Four hundred sounds like a lot of needles.

SOLAR

It was felt that giving Baba Yaga a defined set of duties 

Might make it easier to keep her under control.

The Horses of the Sun were tracked down and harnessed. 

For an old woman, Baba Yaga leapt pretty gracefully 

Into the chariot, her short pipe held firmly in place 

Between her toothless gums, and set off furiously.

Several days went by or at least they would have

If the Sun hadn't gone missing; we ran 

An old day, built before the war, over and over

Until Baba Yaga returned without the chariot 

And just one limping horse, painfully dragging  

Ra-Harakhty's boat across the sky.

PRESENCE

My mother's death, almost 15,

Says she wants no gift this year.

I always deny I want things too

But am pleased to get them.

Three photobooth photographs 

Of my mother at 15

Show her head a bit tilted 

With one eyebrow arched

As she auditions versions 

Of a small and world-weary smile.

Her lipstick looks very red

(A nice trick since the photo

Is black and white)

Her friend Estie dared her, I  think,

To put some on and then 

Loaned her a tissue to remove it

Before they went home.

PERFORMANCE

A Chinese poem made Latin

By a Jesuit in mandarin ‘s robes

Then Englished decades later

Has filed for repatriation.

The ominous nightingale

Which appears in the last lines

Says it's grown too old

For another translation

A young grackle, eager 

To break into poetry,

Will serve in its place.

BUZZING

You'd think, said the bee,

They'd have mentioned

The one sting then 

You die rule.

But if they did

I missed it.

Really, if I'd known 

I'd have stuck with

Rude noises or

Sarcasm.

 

GOD CONSULTS HIS ATTORNEY

To be one with the universe is,

By the terms of this contract,

To be stretched to the limit

Of endurance. If You

Could extend any more 

The beginning would be farther 

From the end. Time and space

Are racks on which You'll hang.

The job is no sinecure.

MATERIALS

The Evening Crow sits down

To write a poem praising 

Himself but finds that 

The Morning Crow -- 

Inconsiderate as ever! --

Has used up all the adverbs

And left only three adjectives

Shriveled, bent and blemished.

DIFFICULT COMMISSION

The ghost of former Governor 

Thomas E. Dewey has submitted

A proposal that he be the subject 

Of a poem or at least a poem-like

Assemblage of words. It would be

Easier to comply if he would consent

To being called something

Other than the ghost of former 

Governor Thomas E. Dewey. 

Also, time has left of him

A well-trimmed mustache,

A throughway, a medal

Given to outstanding assistant

District attorneys, and a white-shoe

Law firm now gone bankrupt.

 

NOW AND THEN AND NOW AGAIN

Waking up from our unexpected nap

Time panics since he no more than I

Knows how long we've slept. He selects

An hour at random -- 10? 1? octagon? --

Throws in a handful of minutes and 

One for good luck. Occasionally

He decides we've woken up

Before we went to sleep. I say nothing

Not wanting to irritate an old man

And certainly not one who has 

Such a sharpgleaming scythe.

TRANSIENT

Old Man Regret, evicted 

From Plato's boarding house,

Sleeps most nights unlovely

And unlovable, stretched out

On the seats of a subway car

Parked at the Transit Museum

On Schermerhorn and Boerum

(The guards occasionally 

Blow dust off him.) Sometimes 

He stands in the line waiting

To go through the metal detector 

At Family Court. He lives on

The small fees due him as

Patron saint of those who 

Don't believe in patron saints.