FLUTE

 

Silence is, of course,

Silence so when I ask

What's with the flute

You're carrying

She says 

Nothing but points

To the small drum

She has strapped to her hip 

Which I suppose

Wanted company.

ACCESSORIZING

 

1918; Max reads Charles Reznikoff's poem

About the shopgirls leaving work

So the rats and roaches can begin their shifts

Reznikoff's family makes hats. Sometimes

Reznikoff sells them. Max makes coats.

On her day off, a shopgirl -- I see her

As tall and thin and talkative, moving

Rapidly or not at all -- could wear

A Reznikoff hat and a Max-made coat;

My other grandfather, Joe 

Could make a watch for her. No;

It's 1918 and Joe is in the army. His father

Juda will have to make it and sell it

From his shop on a street that will disappear

Thirty years later to make an approach

To the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Still

We in 1918 could care less; we're thinking

Of that tall shopgirl and wondering

What, if anything, she's wearing

Besides a coat and a hat and a watch.

PRAYER

 

I have sinned, Saint 467 --

Intercede for me and I

Will build for you an altar

Between those of Saint 394

Who once lent me ten dollars

And Saints 606 and 909

One of whom gave me a cat.

PLAINSPEAKING

 

If it thought you'd understand, your shadow

Would say "Those birds in that tree over there

Are planning something -- it is urgent

That you stop and listen to them!"

Later, it might wake you at midnight

Saying, "The ghost who owes you a favor

Is at your door -- she cannot stay long --

Go let her in!"

MAKER

 

When there is one God, says Sobek, 

Holding a beer in his thick-clawed hand,

It is His nature to fill everywhere,

To be everything. This leaves no room 

For anyone else. Think how lonely that is!

You try to amuse Yourself; You invent Time

Hoping something will happen; nothing does 

Until there is something else. Usually a dog. 

Someday, though, a crocodile. Just wait

And see what sort of universe God will make

When He has a crocodile!

ROUTINE

 

If/When you find yourself

In Schrodinger's Box remember

To feed and not feed 

The cat before changing 

And not changing her litter.

Then, let her sit

On your lap, purring

And not purring until 

She falls asleep with 

Her green eyes wide open.

COMMUNAL PRAYER

Perhaps God is a bit deaf so that
Ten men must talk together
To make Him hear and, even so,
He often misses some fine nuance
Or misunderstands us entirely.

NOT BUILT TO LAST

Named angels last but
Nameless ones flicker
In and out of existence
So when God told
A nameless angel
With a long nose
And lank red hair
That He, due to His nature,
Was the only being able
To know both the location
And velocity of a particle
At the same time the poor thing
Had just time to say “Ah”
Before vanishing forever

FANNY AND JENNY AND MY MOTHER

 

My mother's stepmother Fanny

Did not, every witness agrees, love her

But kept her marriage bargain and

Taught the child all manner of things

Such as how to fold contour sheets

How to sew a dress from a pattern

How to buy meat, vegetables, fruit

How to bargain and not be cheated.

In the kitchen of her house her mother Jenny

Spent her days -- a woman so powerful

That I know many stories about her

And only two about her husband and both of them

Are mostly about Jenny anyway. She ruled the kitchen

But where her husband spent his days

Who knows? Perhaps to spite her daughter 

Jenny was madly in love with my mother

And taught her that opals and peacock feathers

Bring bad luck and that a knife must never

Be given to a friend; demand something for it --

A penny will do -- or it will cut the friendship.

TRANSCIENCE

 

For nine hundred years

The blue vase has warned

In black Persian letters

That nothing lasts.

It looks water-tight;

If the museum allowed,

It could hold flowers.

TRUE STORY

 

The rare illness that was supposed

To finish off my mother's stepmother

Found her a very tough customer

So much so that one of her doctors

Meeting her in the street said

"Mrs. Lemport -- you're still alive?"

AGO

 

There's a picture of Death

Taken when he was young

And still feeling his way.

He's in a boat, leaning back,

Looking into the sky. A woman

Sits opposite him with the oars

Doing all the work.

HOW IT WORKS

 

At various points in the sky there are

Rabbits posted. Every so often they leave

Their holes (you cannot imagine a hole in

The sky because you are not a

Rabbit) and see the Sun barreling down at

Them. "You again!" they mutter and give it a

Hard kick to speed it on its way.

HESITATION

 

The crow flies off.

A moment later

His shadow follows

LOOKING FOR RELIGION

 

Every now and then Cotyto,

The Thracian goddess of immorality

Leaves a pamphlet in my mailbox

Or a flyer under my door handle

Advising me she's still doing business

At the old address -- the one

I never could find fifty years ago.

ANGER

 

I read that one overmastered by anger

Should pray to St. Jerome. Having no reason

To walk down Seventh Avenue, where he sleeps

Most nights in doorways, I haven't seen Jerome

In years but, being angry, sought him out.

We sat together, not speaking, being angry together.

MIRACLES

 

As if she didn't have enough on her plate

She wakes to find she's become a saint

With unlimited access to the illimitable Grace of God

She slams her coffee mug down, breaking it

Then irritably makes the pieces reassemble.

MONUMENT

 

As everyone knows, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio

Led the French invasion of Milan in 1499

And later commissioned Leonardo da Vinci

To build him a tomb which -- no surprise! --

Was never built. His tombless ghost haunts

Leonardo's designs, frightening no one

WORKMANSHIP

 

If we did our job right you'll scarcely hear it:

Just a very soft click when twilight starts

If we were in a hurry, though, there might be

A rasp or a shrill squeak. We've an arrangement

With certain corvids for such occasions.

Who make themselves conspicuous so you'll think

It was just a contrary grackle or some angry crows.

OUT

 

When he was a clothing cutter my grandfather Max

Didn't go home during busy season but slept,

As did the other workers, on the cutting tables

Or on piles of fabric. At the beginning of the season

Their dreams expected to find them in their beds

And, disappointed, might be seen moving slowly

Through the late-night streets, cursing their ill-fortune.

Max's friend Shepsie -- his real name is lost now

And may have been lost then -- had just one dream

It was ragged from having been dreamt so often

And though the tailors did their best for it,

Sewing up holes and patching it with remnants,

The police sometimes arrested it for vagrancy.

BLAME THEM IF THERE'S NO POEM TODAY

 

I was trying to write a poem

About the crooked and crabbed ghosts

Who haunt Vincent Van Gogh's picture

Of the Church at Auvers when

The Academy of Moral and Political Science

Without so much as knocking came in

And made themselves at home. "We've come,"

They said, "to live with you as you are 

The newest member and we mean

To teach you everything we know about

Moral and Political Science. To begin with

Morality is not a science. Nor is politics.

But enough of that for now! What do you plan

To feed us? And do you happen to know

The Female Poets of the English Language

Arranged in Chronological Order? We're told

They're well worth meeting."

YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE CAREFUL

 

One day you find a  thick envelope

With a letter inside, on parchment,

Telling you you've been elected a member

Of the Academy of Moral and Political Science.

Worse, the vote was unanimous. You protest

But there's no avoiding it. You must buy 

A monocle and a sash and learn at last

The proper use of the passé composé .

FLOWERING

 

According to legend, Clytie

After staring at Apollo in his chariot

As he each day rode through the sky

Became a sun-staring flower

Either a marigold or a sunflower

Or, some say, a purple heliotrope

Given how myths work I'm sure Clytie

Didn't get a choice or she'd have said

None of the above and stayed a nymph

Gods, though, do what they please

Most likely they were reassigning

Redundant nymphs so Echo became a voice,

Arethusa a fountain and Clytie put down roots

If the gods had asked me I'd have advised

Letting Clytie be or, if they were set on 

Her being a flower, I'd say marigold.

My father's gardens always had marigolds

Usually around the edges.

SIDEWAYS THROUGH THE PARK WITH WITTGENSTEIN

 

Whereof one cannot speak

Thereof one must shout

Or whisper insinuatingly.

Perhaps Truth will slam by

To see what the noise is about.

NB

 

Praying to a wine god is always

A chancy business but, if you must: 

Smiling Dionysus wins all hearts;

Angry Dionysus burns down houses

Not caring who's inside;

Faceless Dionysus is too drunk

To remember who he is. (Scholars say

He's the one who thought hitching panthers

To a chariot was a really good idea.)

PAINTED MUSIC

 

In Guercino's drawing of Mary Magdalene 

She lies on a beach, plainly troubled.

God or someone with the authority

To dispatch angels has sent her three;

Two of them loll on clouds. The third,

Wings outspread, hovers above her

Playing a violin. She looks surprised;

This strikes me as a fair reaction. 

(I've no good reason for my belief

That the angel is playing Stardust.)

APPEARING TODAY

 

You've rented an elephant and a giraffe,

Put Silenus on a donkey, hired sturdy Bacchantes

To keep him from falling off. You've a chariot

With panthers hitched to it and any number

Of gleeful drunken folk one of whom

Is blowing a long horn. Bacchus, though

Isn't here; drinking glass after glass won't bring him. 

Propped in his cart, loosely holding

The panthers' reins, is some local god

Without even a face yet. How beautiful he is!

How extremely terrifying!

SURVIVOR

 

This is possibly the worst scarecrow 

In the entire world:

An old hat and some ragged pants

Hanging on a cross with a long stick

Leaning purposelessly next to it. 

The farmwife throws up her arms

Telling the scarecrow it's all

A matter of attitude.

ATLAS

 

One day the authorities come by, saying

You've been selected to carry the world;

Atlas is forgiven at last and while they've nothing

Against you they've nothing for you either.

You protest, saying isn't Atlas huge, a very giant

And strong as a mountain? A common misperception

They say. He's actually small and frail;

A pipsqueak any wind could carry off. No one

Has the strength to carry the weight of the world. 

Atlas did it for the same reason you will: 

We're telling you to.

EDITOR

 

I've been trying to write a poem

About the Death of Dido but my tablet,

Having no respect for the classics,

Keeps  changing it to the Death of Fido

Which would be a different thing entirely.

AN ENCOUNTER

 

A stone in the middle of a sidewalk square

About an inch and a third long by three quarters

Of an inch wide. A little scuffed; if a rock

Can lead a hard life this one has. I pick it up

Of course -- I've been picking up rocks for most

Of my life. When I was a kid I'd bang them open

With a bigger rock not because I'd the makings

Of a geologist but to see the inside and to smell

The gunpowder smell two rocks pounded together make.

A grey stone, flat on one side, rounded on the other.

It can't have been on the sidewalk long; someone

Would have kicked it into the grass or the street.

Waiting for me, then. The round side fits

Into the hollow of my fingers, the flat accepts

My thumb rubbing it. A worry stone, perhaps.

I put it in my pocket. It may be that this stone

Was meant not for me but for Rebbe Aaron

My ancestor who was kept from floating off

By the stones in his pocket . He died in 1772 

But stones, notoriously, have only hazy notions of time.