The comic book villain, usually
More genre-savvy than the hero,
Thought the story would be longer.
Despite robbing bank after bank
He somehow has no money so
He checks the ads but they're all
For air-guns or x-ray specs,
For lovable sea monkeys or for jobs
Selling a newspaper called Grit.
("Everyone loves Grit!")
In time the ghosts lose hold
Of their names but remember
What they charged. "Five pounds
For a night in a well-furnished room."
"A half-guinea for an hour in a shed."
"Some pennies for three minutes against a wall."
The executors' inventory revealed
King's painter François-Hubert Drouais
Left behind an army of spoons each of which
Knew its place, as did François-Hubert.
Aside from a brigade of miscellaneous spoons
Willing to do almost anything there were
Soup spoons, table spoons, tea spoons,
Coffee spoons, dessert spoons, salt spoons,
Olive spoons, gravy spoons, sugar spoons
Jam spoons and one spoon that scorned
To touch anything but mustard.
My mother had a sewing box of some light-colored wood
Finegrained and with a slanted oval knot in its lid.
Opening the brass-hinged lid raised up tiers of spools
Arranged by thread-color, some with needles stuck in them.
(If there was no black when needed, dark blue could be used
But her conscience would be troubled.) There was a pin cushion
Made to look like a ripe tomato and three thimbles;
The heaviest one, dull silver, was never used except to distract me
If my mother needed to think and sew at the same time.
There were pictures on it, almost rubbed away --
A crescent moon, a long-haired woman with a spear,
Two cats, a boat being rowed through the air.
Over the head of the woman sleeping next to you
You see her dream; as in comics, it's in pastel colors
And surrounded by soft scalloped edges.
She and the last Ming Emperor -- Zou Youjian,
(1616-1644) -- raise clouds of dust as they argue
In an old-fashioned car racing down a dirt road.
Neither one of them seems to know how to drive;
You think about entering the dream before they hit
One of the frightened animals running alongside them
But can't remember -- in those dreams of yours
In which, but for a blown tire, you'd have won
The 1961 Indianapolis 500, have you learned
How to use a stick shift?
While Ono No Kamachi slept
The self she'd be in forty years
Rummaged through her closet
Looking for her old red dress
When it was still new
But other selves, getting there first,
Were using it to play Dragon Queens.
There is one particular ant whose purpose
Is to forgive you for the deaths
Of all the ants you've killed
By accident or design. Of course,
He can't spend all his time forgiving you
He's still an ant with all the responsibilities
Of his trade. Once in a while, he pauses
While lugging a sugar grain or digging
A tunnel and shrugs his six shoulders, thinking
"Such things happen. It's that kind of world."
"The thing about infinity," said Satan to Abetha Gill,
"Is that you can’t trust it. It's everything but
It's never stable and quickly splits in two
And both parts are everythings. This happens
Over and over and over and over and you find
So many everythings in your house there's nowhere
You can walk without slipping on a round everything
Or bumping into an everything with sharp edges
So you go outside -- feeding the everythings first
Since they'll get cranky if you don't -- and there's God
(Who's been driven out of His house too by everythings)
Pretending you're invisible; He knows this drives you crazy."
At his ease in Anne Milton's kitchen, Satan says
"It is a mistake to think God puts much labor
Into His creations. All of us -- human, demon,
Angel, cat, lizard, fish, ornithorhynchus or Mount Fuji
Were flicked into being by quick, nervous gestures.
More trouble, a little bit, is taken with shadows
Which God lets subcontractors like me make.
God's things come from immediate inspiration
But shadows -- I've made more than a few in my time --
Need planning -- all those subtle gears meeting at angles
And thin wire woven into fabrics that stretch
And shrink and never wear out until they suddenly do.
Yes, it's possible but quite rare to outlive your shadow
Much easier to lose one and have some patchwork thing
Tripping after you, getting under foot and not knowing enough
To discreetly vanish under a meridianol sun ."
Under the right circumstances any image of Shoki
Can turn into Shoki himself, all tensed and ready
To quell demons. It does no good for us to say
"We're respectable these days and have proper roles!
We are museum guards and small children
Pushing smaller ones in strollers! We are old men
Of no fixed address who sleep on the sidewalks
And occasionally turn into old women muttering
Of how nothing's gone right these forty years now
Or nearly so..."
"Demons, the lot of you! "
Says Shoki, and draws his blunt quelling sword.
On the last page of
A book by Katsukawa Shuncho
A woman lifts a tall lantern
To light your road as you leave.
Bored with her routine, your guardian angel answered
A subway ad in 1969 -- the one that said
"If u cn rd ths u cn mk bg mny!" She could read it
And made big money and in retirement,
Mildly curious about what happened to you,
Has her people set up a lunch meeting.
She seems disappointed you've never, in her absence,
Stepped into a manhole or off a cliff. You shrug
And console her with stories of the foolish, shameful things
She'd surely have warned you against doing.
Early each morning I lift
The blinds on the left
Hand window so the
Cat, dead for years, and
I can inspect the day.
The puppet knows it is part of her job
To mock the puppeteer. "Good people!"
She shouts in her tiny voice "Come buy
The very ordinary candy this man is selling!
He's not much but even he needs to live
And can't live on sweets -- they make him sick.
Also, he has debts. He gambles and never wins
Because he never listens to me." She pauses,
One hand raised, as if listening. "Did you hear?
The Angel of Death just flew by! Wait here a bit;
I'll protect you. And while you wait, buy some candy.
It's undistinguished but it won't kill you. Probably."
Had my Grandfather Max been a messenger
Who traveled like lightning, leaping
From dream to dream carrying vital news
Everyone would have known it. On Saturday mornings
He'd have worn his fulgin cloak and badge of office
In synagogue; he'd have told wonderful stories
Of his adventures, of things seen on his journeys
And of brave and savage horses, his dear companions.
If my Grandfather Joe had that job, though,
You'd never have known it. His great dark cloak
Would have been hidden when he didn't need it
And, careful man that he was, he'd have arranged
For his shadow to quietly tuck it into his coffin
When the corpse watchers weren't looking.
Just when your dream gets most exciting
Just when, say, you and Chairman Mao,
Having escaped the sheriff, are careening
Through a raging fire down a twisting road
In a brakeless Model -T, ignore the action
And look at the background. Someone is there
Trying to read a map in the fire's light.
It seems unlikely that in this life I will
Assume my place with the ragged men
Standing in the street and looking
Into the fire they've made out of boards
And boxes and anything that will burn;
My ghost -- as if he won't have enough troubles! --
Falling heir to this debt may spend some
Coldest night of the year dragging two by fours
(Stolen from an unguarded construction site)
South along Second Avenue
We're sorry, but Bentzen, the Japanese goddess
In charge of bringing you good fortune took off today
And is sitting on a high branch of a bare tree
Listening to the wind so that the luck we said
Would arrive this afternoon won't. We have no idea
Where she left it. In compensation, please accept,
With our compliments, this unlabeled package
We've had around the warehouse forever.
Sobek the Crocodile says that after an apocalypse
The great gods and demons generally stand
Or lie where they've fallen, trying to recall
Which side they were on. Harried ghosts
Circulate among them, passing out licenses
Perversely or at random which is why
He is currently run off his reptilian feet as the god
Of irrigation, plagues, conjugal love, marquetry,
Mondays from three to five in the morning,
And certain cereal grains while an Ohio woman
Has two gods and a demon assigned exclusively to her
One to grant her prayers, one to deny them and one
To remind her to feed the cat and check her mail.
While she's not my muse and I
Am not her poet there's a rush order
For six-hundred foot-pounds of poetry
By Monday so she, professional to her
Blunt fingertips, inspires me
As best she can and refuses my offer
To buy her afterwards. some coffee.
No one asks a yotaka for a poem
Or expects her to draw pictures;
If she walks by a screen painted gibbons
Do not hand her letters. No afterworld
Claims yotakas. Their ghosts rise at dawn
For long days riding the ferry
Back and forth across the Sumida River.
The left hand of the healing goddess Abiala
Holds a revolver. Use no extra words praying to her;
If she answers your prayers it is customary
To make her a small gift. A few chocolates
Will be sufficient. Never pray to her twice
On the same day. Do not give her bullets.
