MEETING

For years your ghost has been watching,

Making notes, measuring your footprints,

Interviewing your cats (who've mostly lied)

Now, she's decided the moment has come

To talk to you. Some things she finds

Difficult to reproduce: the changed angle 

Of your tilted head when feigned interest

Suddenly turns real; the sound of the double m

When you say the word "commemorate;"

A sort of clawed gesture as you pull a thought,

Unwilling and bitter, into the light.

Her people contact your people; arrangements

Are made, unmade, remade. You're there 

Ten minutes early -- your grandfather would approve.

Your ghost, though, has had to deal with

Some spectral emergency and gets there 

Thirty years later, with a cake.

UNREAD

The library was the sort

Often found in old places 

Where people temporarily live 

Furnished mostly with books

Lost or left behind. Chairs

That had grown old

Waiting to be used; light

Heavy with dust. Because 

I am who I am I sometimes 

Poked around there but

Not often and never for long.

To the left as you entered 

Third shelf from the top

Was a copy of a novel

Unread since 1934. Between

Pages 54 and 55 an envelope 

With a few words on it which,

Had I found them, had I read them,

Would have changed things.

GOING TO SEE THE EYW

Down three flights

Cross the lobby

Up five flights

For luck, on the way

Give a coin

To the shadow

Waiting to be claimed

 

FUJI

Before the beginning of the world Mount Fuji
Roared up from nothing, billowing smoke
And throwing boulders just because it could
Imagine its disgust at finding it was too early
With no witnesses to its rivers of molten lava
Except Wales, of course which, from the other side
Of where the world might someday be
Shouted encouragement, suggesting
Some snow to really pull the look together.

REHEARSING

In the yard a grackle practices

Sounding like two grackles,

Arguing. Well, one voice –

Bitter, angry, disappointed –

Argues; the other is calm --

Irritatingly so, trying

To make sometimes a small joke

That lands flat

SUITCASE

Start with this: an old man

With a heavy suitcase 

Appears unexpectedly 

The suitcase is filled

With silver things

Mugs and teapots;

Sugar bowls and creamers

Tongs and fruit knives 

Spoons with filagrees

Spoons with crests 

Souvenir spoons

Spoons specially designed 

For eating grapefruit.

Every object here must

Have a history. The old man --

His name is Daniel -- 

Tells none of them.

He'd promised his wife,

Recently dead, 

To give these things 

To my mother. Having done so

He drinks some water

And walks off.

Long ago I decided 

He was on leave from the story

To which he properly belonged 

And needed to get back.

Somewhere there's a poem

Beginning "An old man

Carrying nothing arrived

Just as I expected him to."

THE FIRST OF THEIR MEETINGS

My great grandfather Juda walking

Across a moor. To him, three witches;

The youngest one is seven but, bolder

Than her companions, she pokes him

With her right thumb saying "Hey!

It is not often such as you are meet

With such as we and in daylight, too,

When our powers flicker. Come;

Would you know your fortune?"

He might say yes and 

Afterwards go off with a life

Meant for someone a bit taller

And less shrewd but the oldest witch

Who looks to be fourteen or so

Shakes her head slightly and he declines

But shares with them the four coins 

Burning a hole in his pocket.

ACCOMODATIONS

The first thing Ida does when 

She finds herself in a poem

Is to measure it and see if 

It's big enough to take in a boarder

Maybe two when times get hard;

She turns on taps, knocks on walls,

Looks for east-facing windows

Where her plants can watch the sun rise.

Then she demands to see the landlord.

I hadn't planned for this and

I'm wearing green pajamas but 

I've seen her picture; Ida has wrestled

Death to a draw; I enter the poem.

"Yes? You wanted to see me?"

"Of course. I want to see the lease."

"Lease? This is a poem, Ida, not an apartment!

And how could I charge you rent?

You're my great-grandmother, dead

Since 1943."

                      "Still, I'll feel better 

With a lease. If you decide to throw me out

I'll want warning."

                                

"Who's throwing you out? Why would I do that?"

"Maybe you'll find a better ancestor. Jenny, say,

Or Zlotte or even Taube (maybe not Taube;

There's nothing much to say about her).

Then whoosh! I'm back in the grave

And Lena Lemport is watering my Boston fern."

"Fine. You can have a lease." "Alright.

Was that so hard? Sit. I'll make tea

And we'll talk about the plumbing.

(I ran a bathhouse; I  know from plumbing.)"

HOUSEKEEPING

 

The pseudo-lion of Pseudo-St. Jerome

Whom I've ignored since 2017

Has a contract with what seems

To be my signature obliging me

To write about him every five years.

He's put on substance but 

Still looks like what a child who's seen

Many dogs but no lions might imagine.

Pseudo-Jerome, he tells me, has established

A media presence (I haven't the heart

To admit I'm not sure what that means)

And now casts a shadow on sunny days

Or even two of them or three.

THE FIRST OF THEIR MEETINGS

My great grandfather Juda walking

Across a moor. To him, three witches;

The youngest one is seven but, bolder

Than her companions, she pokes him

With her right thumb saying "Hey!

It is not often such as you meet

With such as we and in daylight, too,

When our powers flicker. Come;

Would you know your fortune?"

He might have said yes and 

Have lived afterwards a life

Meant for someone a bit taller

And less shrewd but the oldest witch

Who looked to be fourteen or so

Shook her head slightly and he declined 

But shared with them the four coins 

Burning a hole in his pocket.

CONFIRMATION

It's true that one of last summer's thin gods
Spent weeks as a bookmark in an old copy
Of The Frogs. He amused himself by translating
The play into Japanese. It now ends with Dionysus,
Drinking wine in a Ginza cafe, surrounded by cats.

REPAIR

Something infinitely small 

Comes to my grandfather 

And points to its wrist;

Time's watch has stopped. 

Joe has sets of tools meant 

Just for this but chooses

To use a bent needle 

And the tip of a key

Last used in 1926.

LUIS DALMAU — VIRGIN OF THE COUNCILLORS

Through two open windows saints,

Crowded together, peer in. None

Look at the thin-faced Mary or the

Exuberantly kicking baby she holds;

They look at us looking at them. 

One holds music,  her mouth open;

She isn't singing. She’s distressed 

And shouting a warning.

SOME MUSIC

There's a war on; a sailor
Who'll not return is sitting
At a piano, playing Ravel's
Bolero the notes tumbling
Over each other. I could say
Death turns the pages or
Life nods in appreciation but
I'd be lying since Death is
In another bar entirely flirting
With the cigarette girl and Life
Has fallen asleep under a table.