DISTANT SOUL

 

Suppose your soul, missing the years

It belonged to a magician

Who hid it from his foes 

Within an egg, inside a nest,

Under a bird, on a tree branch

Growing at the top of a mountain,

Gets tired of city life and withdraws

To a small town in a distant and

Possibly imaginary country. Birds

Carry messages concerning you

But the distance is great so Lapwing

Passes to Falcon passes to Merganser

Passes to Albatross passes to Tsuzume

Who, if she isn't eaten by an owl,

Instructs your soul to behave in ways

Appropriate to your condition. "He is fearful;

Tremble! He is confused; leap aimlessly!

He is complacent; fall into a well!"

ADVICE TO SOMEONE AWAKE ALL NIGHT

What you’d ask of the moon
Ask early; by morning
Her heart will be cold.

REASONS

 

The dog who now lives here,

Bred to live in palaces,

Asks why I am not an emperor

Ill-fortune, I tell her, flaws

In my character and reliance

On amusing but unwise ministers

THREE LINES

 

I explain to my cat that she

Has been dead for a year

She seems unimpressed.

Here, for one night only, Maitreya,

Buddha of the Future,

Dancing his fool head off

A dog so small she's

Just a breath away

From being the idea of a dog

Your shadow, knowing

Everything about you,

Remains anyway.

CLIENT

 

One of the things about Maitreya,

Buddha of the Future, is that if

He asks you to write about him

And you say you will someday

He nods, perfectly satisfied.

SADNESS

 

When Baba Yaga weeps each tear

Is a different color. By the time 

They've trickled down her nose and

Over her lips and paused on her chin

They're solidifying so that they make

Small sounds -- clicks and clanks, mostly --

When they hit the floor of her hut.

After a while you'd think someone

Had upset a jar of marbles.

THE DEAD -- HOW WILLFUL THEY ARE!

 

When I urged Principal Leonard J. Fliedner

Back to life I thought he'd settle in Lower Manhattan

And find work, perhaps at a Spanish restaurant

On Seventh Avenue where dignity and a degree

Of cadaverous thinness are the usual marks 

By which the waiters know themselves. At worst 

I'd give him a guitar and a hat and send him busking. 

What, though, has the madcap old man done but set up

As a minor god, promising the devout

Success in love or with dice or a perhaps a talent

For finding, in utmost need, a silver coin 

Or brass dagger in your hand.

HERSELF

 

Kali, though a death goddess who wears

Human heads as accessories, wants to be loved

Not for her incomparable ability with weapons --

Though master of all she is, and inventor of several --

But for her delightful sense of humor.

Any goddess can kill but who else

Can do so while telling jokes and dancing

On two of her four, or up to eleven, hands?

MAKING PICTURES

 

Old Man Anonymous 

Sets up an easel, lifts a brush

But finds he has no paint.

Ah, no matter; this one

Gives him half a tube

Of Prussian Blue; that one

Gives him some ambiguous greens,

Blacks and yellows

Smeared on an old palatte;

The other, in his princely way,

Gives him thirty shades of white.

(Red, of course, 

Can always be found)

And, if there's nothing else

I'm always willing to put on a hat

And pose for a portrait.

AN EGYPTIAN IN NEW YORK

 

Every few centuries Sobek renews

His license to be a crocodile. If being a god

Becomes impossible, he'll still be able

To make a living. He finds the city cold

Though he's been stranded here for years. 

Having nowhere else to be an hour

After the sun's abandoned its responsibilities

I watched him standing by a Christmas window 

Spellbound by the clever automatons.

A NEW YEAR'S POEM OR: HOW YOU NARROWLY ESCAPED FALLING IN LOVE WITH ME IN 1975

 

I don't really recall much of it but

Li Po tells me there was a night in my life

When I was irresistibly charming and

Also quite drunk so he and Basho

And Henry James Pye propped me against

The candy machine on the third floor landing;

Everyone who passed had no choice but

To acknowledge how charming I was. You,

Unfortunately, took the elevator that night and

Never saw me at my most enchanting. Li Po

Shrugs and says it was too bad and Basho tells me

That this world of dew is, after all, a world of dew

And Henry James Pye, who put me to bed,

Says the bitter sorrow of finding he was,

Bar one, the very worst of all poet laureates

Was somewhat mitigated by the generous salary

Parliament had attached to the position.

BACK

 

Conjure up Joe my grandfather:

Small, sharp-eyed, good posture,

A well-trimmed mustache.

Set him down some place

A city will do; so will a village

An encampment, a hamlet,

A berg, a settlement, a prison.

(Do it at dawn or dusk 

So few people notice his arrival)

Done? Good -- my thanks to you!

He's shut his eyes for six seconds,

Casually shaken his clothes 

Into perfect order. 

He's setting his rectangular-faced watch

Exactly five minutes fast

Now he starts walking steadily

Towards a place where people

Are playing chess. There 

An opponent will be waiting.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Since before there was Time

The King of Infinite Space

Has always had to accept,

Along with magnificent perquisites,

Being bounded in a nutshell;

No one remembers if

This is law or simply custom.

Most modern research

Focus on two questions.

One: What sort of nutshell?

Two: What happened to the nut?

 

A RELATIVE

 

What do I know of Great Aunt Lena?

I can make a list. Oldest, I believe

Of many children; my grandfather Joe

Was youngest. She was sharp as a needle;

She taught Joe chess; she goaded him

Back from madness after his first wife died.

Later, she decided she'd gone too far,

Leaving him too sane by half.