I am a highly naturalistic depiction
Of a goldfinch who, for no good reason,
Perches on the hand of a Byzantine Madonna.
Neither she nor her stiffly painted son
Can figure me out or predict the moment
I'll fly off. Though her wonderful blue robe
Is filled with slowfalling stars the donors --
Two tiny men, one in red, one in black --
Stare at me, willing me to stay.
Before time begins, Time reaching way back,
Kicks his foot high over his head as if
He was Juan Marichal having a good day
At Candlestick Park. Whipping his hand forward,
Walloping his foot down, his hard throw
Sends God tummulting through space
Desperately creating itself ahead of Him.
Barry Gifford said there are
No birds in Hell. Plainly
He’s never been there
Around 3 o’clock
On a Friday afternoon.
My green Buddha, who is almost
Five-eighths of an inch tall, is considering
Taking the place of his 180 foot tall brother
Who was destroyed in 2001.
"I will sit up very straight," he says.
Abundance left hastily,
Rolling off in her chariot
Just before she could be arrested.
An old peasant woman
Plods along, quietly cursing
Every stone in the road.
She carries Abundance's luggage --
A bundle, balanced on her head,
And a small basket.
Although he's politely translated the Ten Commandments
Into Dutch only one person -- a woman
Holding a tureen the same green shade
As her blouse -- is glancing at them. Otherwise,
The huge crowd is dreaming,
Chatting, joking, balancing vases
On their heads or looking out at us
Thinking "Well, you're not reading the words either,
Are you?" Also, a quiet satyr has slipped in
Wearing a laurel wreath in his hair.
For Rembrandt's engraving of Death
Rising From The Grave To Greet
A Newlywed Couple, Death posed
For almost seven hours and was
So exhausted when it was finished that he
Drained the cup of wine he was holding,
Waved a vague blessing and fell asleep.
The moon is, of course,
A lifeless, spinning stone
But also of course
An old woman whose feet
Get tired, a rabbit
With a mortar and pestle
And a lantern Osiris
Hangs from a nail
Sobek pounded into the sky.
Baba Yaga, barging into
A poem where she doesn't belong,
Runs into my father who
Is looking to slot in a reference
To his sister Edith who, dying as a baby,
Hasn't featured in many poems.
Baba Yaga complains that she lately finds
Her chicken-legged hut cold at night
"Alt ist kalt" my father sympathizes.
He says the warmest blankets
In the world were those his father
Sewed together from scraps.
Blankets like those don't just vanish;
They're no doubt still somewhere.
The god Sobek arrived tonight
From Port Mahon aboard The Charming Betty
Which brought also barrel upon barrel
Of ammunition. The Lord Chancellor
Was rowed out to greet the god and,
After a lengthy meeting and an on-board dinner
A joint communique was issued. Sobek
Said he knew that many were surprised
That a male crocodile had been appointed
Goddess of Love but, given a fair chance,
He might surprise us all. While seldom
In his long career associated with love
He had, after all, invented backgammon
With which, as he understood it, love
Had quite a few things in common.
If you dream of Wislawa Szymborska holding a stick
In her right hand it means “This year
You will once again not win the Nobel Prize.”
A stick in her left means “Stop watching your phone;
The Committee hasn’t even heard of you!”
Sticks in both hands means “I’m busy right now;
Why not go see what Czeslaw Milosz is doing?"
The shadow quietly walking behind me
I found carefully folded -- left behind
As a debt-pledge and then forgotten.
I use it when I'm trying to look important;
It's the sort of shadow who knows five languages
Or how to quell thunderstorms with gestures
And the rattle of coins in a silver box.
At some point it must have occurred
To certain schools of Japanese monks that
Wearing a large basket on one's head
Makes it difficult to see. Why, then,
Did they start doing it? Perhaps to have
More drama in the world, allowing
Those moments when the basket
Is flung aside, revealing the demon lover,
The avenging son, the faithful monster,
The ghost with promises to keep or
A monk who tells of a sleepless night
On the roof of an abandoned temple
While spirits snarled and snapped below.
