THE TWO OF THEM

 

The summer replacement muse has come a day early,

Settling herself in the kitchen where I find her

Eating a mayonnaise and cracker sandwich

She nods to me, brushes crumbs to the floor

And says “Good news! I’ve just found out that

In 1877 Sarah Bernhardt and William Ewart Gladstone

Had a long conversation!”

                                 “About what?”

                                                      “No one knows!

The field is wide open for you!” If I could draw this might

Be useful information – something Beerbohmesque

With the thin actress spiraling about to explain life

To the appalled and fascinated prime minister

But I lost my ability to draw years ago.

Words are what I have and a small repertory company

Among whom Sarah and William will have to wait –

I fear for a rather long time – until I write about them

If he’s impertinent to her, Baba Yaga may turn Gladstone

Into a crane but Bernhardt – a dab hand at almost everything --

Will probably, after a while, turn him back into a man

And possibly one much improved over the original.

TENANTS

The girl in Poem 432 has sent a note

Requesting a meeting. Apparently

The ghosts in Poem 433 have been

Playing loud music all night and

Throwing shoes at passersby while 

The deaf painter in Poem 431

Refuses to return her shadow because, 

He says, it will be happier with him. 

CRITICAL

Since she is, after all, a goddess,

The Diana drawn by Francesco Albani

Can read upside-down letters and 

Has ill-advisedly read the caption

Running beneath her. It complains of

Her "somewhat mannered elongation"

And claims she is the dull result

Of "rather dry penwork." If she's somehow

Read the next page she's discovered

Her figure is brittle and spidery too;

Do you wonder she looks upset?

COLLEGE TOWN

It was the custom of students who'd lost their shadows

Through improvidence or drink (whether theirs 

Or the shadows') or had them stolen at knife-point

To find what replacements they could so that

No one wondered to see a lamp-post at a man's heels

Or a tree or a chair or, in one memorable instance,

Three pillars from Stonehenge and a sleeping cat.

REPLACEMENT

If my usual shadow quits as he's been threatening to do

Since he grew proud and began casting his own shadow

Baba Yaga has promised me a new one made of smoke

Or of powdered glass and dried tea leaves but

Perhaps it'll be best for a while to just be shadowless.

Besides, the oddsmakers claim it's not unlikely

That Baba Yaga will soon be the Acting Goddess of Love

And won't have much time for shadowmaking. 

A fine fool I'll look if she should send instead

An armed baby to flutter at my heels!

VISITORS

Lately people I don't know have been

Turning up in my dreams. Their papers

Seem to be in order but I think

They were meant to haunt the thoughts 

Of people who've forgotten them.

Once strangers, they've begun

To resemble each other a bit. For now

They've set up camp in a Memory Castle

I built years ago then never used.

A FIGURE

He knows the tall hat has conspired

With the coat to imagine him, starting

With burning eyes and indistinct face 

Then working their way down. Last of all

Fingers flexed in torn gloves and shoes

Thought of feet a bit too large for them;

He's  not grateful; couldn't they think

Of a fat wallet in his pocket or at least

Some coins and keys and a rabbit's foot?

CHARACTER

An old man stands in the middle 

Of one of Sebastiano Ricci's figure studies

His right arm is half-extended;

Two, maybe three, fingers are raised

In what could be a blessing 

But might mean he wants directions

Or is signalling he'd like a ride.

Meanwhile, the surrounding figures 

Snub him, stare at him, talk to him,

Or pretend they don't see him because 

They're inexplicably fascinated by

Their own feet which probe the shallows

Of a wide and invisible river.

He's not sure who he is but is willing

To be a Greek philosopher or Time or Moses

Or your grandfather's father's ghost who,

If he can only find you, will offer

Some bits of really useful advice.

BASIC

This wind last blew

In 1917 in Arkansas

Near Little Rock.

Joe, my grandfather,

Was being trained

To be a soldier.

There's a photograph 

Of three men fastened

By innumerable buttons

Into baggy uniforms

And this very wind

Shoving leaves about.

Joe is the one standing

With a straight back

But tilted 15 degrees.

Look at his eyes --

He's wondering if

He can remake his rifle

To keep accurate time.

REVENANT

She's found the most bitter part 

Of being a ghost is not transparency

Nor lack of color. Indeed, her faint outline

Grants her dignity her living husband lacks as,

Capped and tight-buttoned into his frock coat,

He stands beside her, his right hand

Clutching her arm. No; what troubles her

Is that he still keeps a shadow as if

Having a ghost-wife isn't enough for him.

ORIGINALS

According to the books

Arcadians turned up

Before there was a Moon

But the Welsh arrived 

Before there was an Earth.

For ages there was only Wales

Until the rest of Creation

Slammed into existence. 

When the Moon (late as usual)

Finally appeared

The Arcadians pretended

They'd been long expecting it;

The Welsh sent a welcome basket

FAMILY MATTERS

Suppose the poems I write are true;

God worked for a while for my Grandfather Max

Who'd somewhere acquired a banshee who,

After he died, shared my grandmother's house

With her and a shifting number of my aunts

And occasional uncles who did no housework.

My Grandfather Joe, losing his shadow because

The Army didn't keep track of it, made do

With a government-issued replacement.

My Aunt Edith both lived to be

A humorous old woman who looked good

In hats and died as a baby. She shakes her head;

"Are we, then, to have no secrets at all?"