Wyndred is the patron saint
Of half-smoked cigarettes,
Drinks ordered but never tasted
And people who have no patron saint
To keep her license she performs
A miracle every thirteen years
Usually something unsettling.
Once, when her regular bartender
Was sick, she made a new one
From smoke. Visible
Only from certain angles
He made impeccable gin sours.
For days now Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Has spent his afternoons on his back
Staring at the Sistine Chapel's ceiling
Through opera glasses. He is now thinking
Which of the Sibyls might be worth flirting with
And has decided the Libyan might be the best
Of a very rugged sisterhood. However, it isn't her
But the Cumaean who has now begun
Casting glances at him. He wonders: would it be politic
To refuse the advances of an ancient seer who could
Crush boulders into sand but she nudges an ignudi
Who drifts to the floor and whispers to him
"God is soon going to notice you. Leave the Vatican.
Leave Rome. Leave Italy; if you have a name, change it.
Also, the Libyan Sibyl wouldn't have you as a gift."
The death mask of James Ensor
Is paying a call on the death mask
Of Joseph Mallard William Turner
Turner is bored and is trying to grit
His last four teeth as Ensor
Recites the plot of The Scale of Love,
A ballet-pantomime he wrote. It's just one act
But has enough plot for seven and two interludes.
Thank heavens the death mask of John Keats
Is using Turner's only guest room! Ensor
Will have to sleep elsewhere.
When the female poets of Great Britain,
Chronologically arranged: with copious selections
And critical remarks came to town I of course
Went to the parade and the reception afterwards
Hoping to see Stevie Smith or at least a Bronte
But no one was there from after 1849. Julia Berners
Came first and then came Anne Boleyn
Looking sad and pretty but giving no interviews
There wasn’t much food but lots of wine;
Hester Thrale Piozzi gave me her autograph and
Aphra Behn sold me state secrets and
Towards the end of the evening I remember giving
Amelia Opie seventy-five cents for reciting
One of her poems; it was about a man named Henry
Who was dead. She regretted this and when she thought
About the grass growing over his grave it made her
Feel considerably blue.
The first thing God does when He
Decides to be you for a while is
To straighten up your apartment.
After making your bed, putting clothes away,
Vacuuming, dusting and then vacuuming again
He opens the paper bag that's been sitting
In your living room since Thanksgiving
Removes the baking pan and sets it to soak.
He decides that you're the type of person
Who keeps old bags because they might be useful
Someday so He makes birds under your window
And shakes the crumbs to them before
Carefully folding the bag and putting it
In a pocket of your three-piece corduroy suit
Along with a note that reads "No one
Besides you likes this suit. Get rid of it!"
The mother of our country’s father
Didn’t like him even though he
Paid her bills and wrote her letters
That began “Honoured Madam.”
Clorinda killed Archbishop Adhemar
Outside the walls of Antioch but
The joke was on her; he returned
From the dead with three squadrons
Of combat angels. There!
You are now no longer required
To read Jerusalem Delivered;
It's pretty much all like that.
One thing about hangmen's beautiful daughters
Is that they're all fearless so when God
Flings open the door and shouts "Yah!" at her
She just nods and holds up a basin
That had been at the bottom of a cupboard
Until she'd rummaged it out (I really
Should write something for her so she'll
Stop hanging about, getting into everything)
The basin is silver chased with enamel
Of the precise green robins' eggs would be
If they weren't blue. It's filled -- it always is --
With cold water. We stole it from someone's poem
In 1981; God made a disturbance while I
Slipped it into my coat. (I miss that coat;
Its pockets could hold anything.) I thought
I'd be able to use it myself some day but it
Is too solid and too vain, insisting
That any poem it's in be really about
A heavy silver basin, chased with green,
Filled always with cold water
The old king is plagued by dreams
That he is more real than not
Trying to shoo them off with fly swatters
Only angers them. Yesterday
The throne creaked when he sat on it;
Today, six of his fingers have fingerprints.
Abaddon is the angel
Of the bottomless pit
Abambou is an evil spirit
And keeps always a fire going
Abananad is just a boy
Who steals handkerchiefs
By the Lord of the Alphabet's will
They travel together.
Sometimes Abaddon and Abambou
Worry about Abananad
Who has fallen in love with Abiala
A married goddess with a gun
Always in her left hand.
The hangman's beautiful daughter
Came by to remind me that I still
Haven't written a poem about her
I tell her I've tried but, after rewrites,
The part meant to be hers was filled
By Sobek the Crocodile God who received
Strong reviews for his portrayal
Of a reptilian god looking for love
Or a meal, depending on whom he finds.
Disapproving of her determination
To break into poetry, her father
Has turned the hangman's beautiful daughter
Out of his house. For now
She's in an old draft sonnet written
On the back of a math-tutor's card
About some underemployed gods;
One of then has promised to teach her
How and when to use a revolver.
