PROPERTIES

 The outfit which provides
Props for my dreams has
Three of the bottles
Where Elisa Verlaine
Kept her unborn sons
(There used to be four
But one bottle broke;
Two of the boys
Room together now.)
The director insists
On renting them often
Even for courtroom scenes
Or those set in the desert.

NEW POLICY

As a courtesy we've begun

Looping our dreams so that 

Characters who appear 

Partway in can sit comfortably 

And watch from the beginning.

There may be a small fee but

We promise to spend it 

On genuine butter

And imaginary popcorn.

 

CATS REVIEWED

 

Lembergoise cats never hurried.
Gossiping idly in the sun
Exchanging barbed stories
About the folk who fed them.
(When I find a cat from Lemberg
He will remember things I forgot
Years before I was born)

Some sleepless Lvov cats always
Padded along the wide streets
While the others slept uneasily
(My father spoke the language of cats
With a heavy Lvov accent.)

In Lwow, the cats learned
To walk upright and to open jars
When war came, they vanished
Through tunnels they'd secretly built
(If I meet one of their descendants
We'll exchange complicated signs.)

A Lviv cat is simply a cat.
These days this is more than enough.

QUESTIONS

 

The bell rung

Long ago -- why 

Listen for it?

The advice of

The painted man -- why

Suddenly heed it?

The hand gone 

To dust --why 

Reach for it now?

The coin spins

In the air; call it!

Harp? Or hen?

STATUE

The label says "A god.

Possibly Zeus or Jesus." 

The Buddhas in Hall VI

("Art of Southeast Asia")

Advise him: "When asked,

Stay silent; learn to smile

Enigmatically." He listens

But occasionally turns water 

Into lightning or warns a guard

To embrace a holy life or

Sacrifice two unblemished goats.

DISTANCE

Before you were born someone

Was searching for you urgently

On dark nights they'd sometimes 

Ring a bell in case you were lost.

There's no moon tonight. Far off 

Carried on the river, can't you hear it?

CONFERENCE

There may be a picture of

Seraphim sitting in the kitchen 

With my father, everyone looks serious.

One, grasping a glass of hot tea 

Leans forward, the fingers

Of his left hand flung wide;

He is explaining they may 

Leave abruptly since they exist 

Provisionally. Or perhaps there's 

A poem or a barely-intelligible tape

Or no record that the meeting

Ever took place.

PURCHASES

Some have said that the obol

I had and lost was probably a fake 

Good only for a clay jar 

Half-full of adulterated wine or 

A ride with some Charon wannabe

To an imitation of Hell run by

A subsidiary of the Disney Corporation.

 

COINS

An obol would buy

A large jug of wine or

A basket of pomegranates or

Four drachms of olive oil or 

Good bread for a week or

One third of someone

To have sex with or

Passage to the Underworld.

I had an obol for a while 

But lost it. I now carry

A 1941 Irish penny --

Athena's grim-faced owl

Replaced by an overweight hen

Whose chicks run after her.

It will buy, at best, passage

Halfway across the Styx;

From there I'll have to swim.

HEIRLOOM

 A silver teapot isn't practical since,
Filled with hot tea, it's untouchable.
Anyway, this one -- mine from her mother
And hers from her Aunt Jenny -- is haunted.
One of its ghosts is complaining that
I seldom call on her to appear in poems
And never credit her when I do
(The other ghosts are family, or claim to be,
But she seems only vaguely human
And is no kin of mine; she was in the teapot
When Dan, Jenny's widower, gave it to my Mom
Along with a suitcase full of strange cutlery, saying
"Jenny wanted you to have this.")
She's not star material -- useful as staffage
Or in minor roles. She last appeared weeks ago
Assisting King George III
In a poem where he, old, mad and blind
Played Handel for days on end. The King
Also has requirements. No poem
About him may feature America, France,
George IV, or ormolu clocks. Though blind,
And playing from memory his dignity
Requires I hold a candle while he plays
And someone turns the pages for him.

RETURN

 Coming back from Brooklyn
My mother's ghost tells my father's
"That is the best baby, ever!"
"Patroosh," my father says,
"Don't you always say that?"
"I do. And I am always right."

TASKS

Esther's ghost has set out
Towards Lviv which she knew
Back when it was Lemberg,
Saying the new-made ghosts
Will need comfort and assistance
Defending the town.

She left behind her apprentice,
An inexperienced spirit who
Spends her days reading
Shadowy old newspapers.
When she comes by she talks
About the Brooklyn Dodgers
And says she can't believe
What a dollar could buy in 1936.

MOMENT

If no madmen live here who
Driven sane, will save the city
When the great fires come?