FIVE FLOWERS

In the Painted Map of Macuilxóchitl

A bull and a horse stand on a riverbank 

(The horse has his front feet in the water)

They both look pleased yet there is 

Something sidelong in their gazes.

Indeed, all the pictured animals 

Look knowing except for a bird

Resting near a hilltop cross,

Trying to decide if he is an eagle 

Or a crow or, just possibly, a dove.

He's been thinking about this since 

1580 when the artist invited him to sit;

What need of haste? When he knows

What sort of bird he is, he'll fly off

VISION

During his first session of madness

George III often played the flute.

In his last -- which went on for years --

He switched to the harpsichord

Playing Handel's keyboard pieces.

Harpsichordists sometimes dream 

Of Bach or Handel or Jean-Philipe Rameau

Stopping by to approve their playing.

More often, though, they catch glimpses

Of an old blind king, unshaven and mad,

Holding closed a shabby robe

That's lost its tie.

CAUGHT IN THE EDDYS OF HISTORY

Whenever Bishop Proterius

Is martyred he is replaced

By Timothy the Cat.

After all these years, Timothy

Has grown weary of this.

Also, he feels it's time 

Scholars stopped noting

Many considered him 

Not a cat but a weasel.

FOR ALDUS MANUTIUS

 

A semi-conscious semi-colon half buried

In the dust -- take it home, nurse it

Back to health and put it

With stray bits of wire and keys 

And small marbles kept in case

Despair insists you atone for your pale sins

By mastering Chinese Checkers

And restarting life from when you were six;

There is always a use for a semi-colon;

Besides, bent and old as it is, it adds

Some dignity to a drawer otherwise filled

With wire and keys and small marbles, 

Some of them chipped.

In the morning

Bombs fall on

My imagined city.

Survivors emerge

By ones and twos 

From the ruins 

Of improbable

Beaux Arts buildings.

Standing so silently

They might be real.

The next day

A picture shows

Long-dead Esther 

And longer-dead Irina

Covered in dust

And holding hands

ABSENCE

Doors slam

Leaves fly up 

An empty bag

Take wing.

For whom

Does the wind look?

TEMPORARY

Sometimes a nonce god springs

Into being. For a moment

He's all-powerful but then 

His followers lose interest.,

With luck, He finds a paying gig

As god, say, of mixed-blend fabrics

Or illegally-downloaded music.

Without it, He willy-nilly joins

The down at heels gods

Watching for the faded men 

With battered trucks at dawn 

Near the corner of Bell Boulevard

And 206th Street.

SHALL WE?

When Li Po asked his shadow to dance with him 

It sometimes consented and sometimes excused itself

Politely, pleading the amount of wine recently

Consumed by one or the other of them. Mine, though,

Stares at me, wondering if I've lost my wits entirely.

TAKE FIVE; TEN IF YOU WANT

Just then the music says

"Hey, you fellows working

So hard to play me: relax! You're 

Most of you quite dead; this is

A recording  or perhaps

Just someone's memory 

Of one." The conductor quells it

With one of those stern glances 

For which he was so well known.

EXCURSUS

 

Suddenly someone from

Quite a different book 

Rides through. Now you're 

Unable to even listen

To your plot's demands.

The very punctuation 

Reproaches you, saying "Idiot!

Why didn't you go with her --

We'd have helped! As it is,

We're putting you in brackets -- 

Double ones -- where you

Can beat your foolish head in vain."

WORKERS

In a drawing of the Italian School

Hate, Horror and Infamy 

Shuffle into a castle just as

Love, Honor and Civility 

Are leaving; everyone

Looks a bit tired.

Civility is waving to Infamy --

Perhaps they'll meet later

For some wine and a bit

Of talk about old times.

TAKING LEAVE

On his last walk his shadow

Walks dutifully behind him

In a store window his reflection 

Says farewell. Things he knew 

Alone in all the world 

Prepare to disperse and become

As if they'd never been. On behalf

Of all things living a cat

Allows itself to speak to him

Without irony or condescension.

REFLECTION

If God is feeling

Particularly probable 

He conjures himself 

Into being. The moon

Has seen this often.

Tonight she mutters

That the universe

Was much better 

In the old days

Before quantum physics.