MAKING THEMSELVES USEFUL

 

One of the Japanese gods of thunder

Is a baby. When he gets in a temper other gods

Take turns carrying him up and down ladders

CRESCENTIA

 

Imaginary saints deliver miracles

Almost indistinguishable from those

Of real ones; they charge less and

Rarely brag about it afterwards.

1001

 

Because I once absent-mindedly asked

Teshub for rain he and the other Hittite Gods

Consider me a devoté. They turn up --

All thousand of them -- at the edge of my dreams

Or leave me flyers, offering to perform miracles.

Except for Tarhunt and Teshub, they've mostly

Forgotten who they were and what they did.

I plan just before I'm supposed to die

To slip in among them. Death's eyes aren't what they were

And acting purposeless? I've been practicing for years.

THREE PANELS

 

In the triptych's righthand panel

A tiny figure rows desperately

Across a broad summer's lake

If he ever reaches the shore

He'll cross into the central panel

Where a geisha, ten times his size,

Stands, wearing a shimmering kimono

With a blue-green carp swimming on it.

Boat and all, she'll lift him, 

And place him gently in the last panel

Where an umbrella with a traveler beneath it

Struggles through the snow.

ACT NOW -- SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED

 

Around five o'clock

A nonce god makes himself

From the scraps of winter light

For which the day found no use. 

Temples are thrown together; 

Miracles are distributed; 

Nameless sins are absolved.

KKEP IN MIND

 

Carnea, the Roman goddess

Of door-hinges, has 

A license to forgive sins so long

As they aren't major 

And involve hardware.

MUSETTE

 

My father's friend John Drachmann

Could've died several times in the War

But his musette bag -- a hardy confection

Of brass and canvas -- would have survived

Anything short of a direct hit by a shell

Or being doused in gasoline and set on fire.

He gave it to me when he gave away

Everything that reminded him he'd been a soldier.

My brother got his dogtags and bitterly regretted

Our mother not letting him have a spent bullet

On which John had scratched his initials.

COURT

 

Entering the courtroom you must

Be prepared for anything. You may

Be tossed a robe and expected

To sit up high, rendering judgments.

Equally, you may have to put on

Clothes that don't fit, a jailhouse pallor

And a look of anxious guilt as you mutter

"Not guilty, Your Honor." Or you may

Be left almost featureless prepared

To be the spectator who's wandered in

Since it's raining and he's nowhere else to be.

DREAMLIFE

 

When I was fifteen or so I had a series

Of the most boring dreams imaginable --

Worse, even, than Prince Genji's dream

About having fallen asleep. In my dreams

Quite ordinary things happened -- I went to school

And came home. The things I learned

Were plausible; I remained fully dressed,

Never found I had to take a test in a room

That hid itself. I did exactly as well on dream tests

As I did on real ones. My friends behaved

As they usually did. One of them told me

His sister was getting married. (If she'd been three

I might have said "I'm dreaming," but she was 26.)

Perhaps these dreams were rejected drafts

For my actual days. No harm was done; I just have

Clear memories of things that never happened.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MY GRANDMOTHER AND HER DAUGHTERS

 

Esther was an accomplished woman who could

Make noodles from scratch or learn a language

From her children's books or safely use for years

A kitchen knife that had a curse on it. When she died

Her four surviving daughters -- who got their noodles

From boxes -- decided the best thing to do

Would be to bury the knife and the second best thing

Would be to not tell their brothers where they buried it.

DUST

 

I don't know what Heaven's like

When you see it but my Heaven

Is filled with dust -- dust on the ground

And on the immortal wheels which

Turn and turn and must keep turning.

It slows-filters from the dusklit sky, lighting

On wings and halos, on harps and horns.

It isn't glorious (as many things in Heaven are)

Nor terrible (as some things in Heaven are);

It's the same dust you might see anywhere on Earth

Resting on the doorsills in an old house

Covering the floor of the box room

Hiding, almost, a small green idol

Lost long ago in another place entirely.

MAKING IT CLEAR

 

Under the former dispensation the Shadow of God

Was just that -- a shadow, though one of

Particular weight and substance not the one-ply

Sort of thing must people drag around with them.

It had free will and, when God wasn't using it,

A life of its own -- much of it, alas, spent 

Among alewives and tosspots and in places

Of low repute. People wary of approaching God

Would seek out His shadow who, for a drink

Or a meal or smile would offer advice 

Or, once in a very great while, a miracle.

Dispensations pass; the new one

Includes the Angel of Clarification whose job

Is to insert (in parentheses) explanations

That words don't mean what they say

As in "Safe in God's hands (not that He has hands)"

Or "Tremble before God's Wrath (not that He feels wrath"

Or "In the Heart of God (not that He has a heart)."

The Shadow of God resents this and every time

The Angel approaches him with parentheses

Gives him so fierce a look that the Angel,

Pretending he hasn't noticed him, 

Asks the nearest alewife for a stiff drink

(Not that angels have money).

AMONG THE IMMORTALS

 

The annual meeting of

The Thirty-Six Immortals

Of Japanese Poetry with

The Thirty-Six Female Immortals

Of Japanese Poetry always features

A baseball game after lunch.

Ono No Komachi is, of course

Both an Immortal and a Female Immortal;

Last year, she pitched for both sides.

Facing herself from the batter's box

She called "Umpire, attend closely-

There is bad blood between us;

Keep a sharp eye out for beanballs!"

GUARDS

 

Like the old, New Heaven 

Goes on forever; the guards

March through the dust -- 

Well, some of them march

Others amble or mosey or

Sidle or shuffle or breakdance or

Walk on their hands -- 

Looking for something

They can call a border.

Occasionally one of them --

Mutters "what made us think

'Center everywhere,

Circumference nowhere' 
Could possibly be a good idea?"

PREDECESSOR

 

Before Death was Death Death

Didn't ride a bone horse or

Carry a scythe. Instead there was

A ragged old woman who did the job

When she found time for it, stuffing souls

Into a patched coarse-woven sack.

Sometimes, she begged or told stories

To unseen audiences. In season

She'd pick hops or beans from dawn

To dusk; no one could die then until the moon

And stars showed themselves plain in the sky.

PART II

 

I'm not sure how Saint Jerome saw my poem;

He never reads anything now but newspapers and flyers

And food wrappers but somehow he knew 

I'd written about finding God asleep.

His swift-fluttering hands and expressive face

Told me to be careful; Jerome had once also

Come upon God when He slept. It was a winter day

In the 1950s, when Jerome found God 

Asleep on Jerome's regular sleeping space

On a grating outside Macy's. There was, in those days,

A delicate arrangement among the homeless men

Of midtown Manhattan. Your sleeping spot,

The cardboard you slept on, the dog or lion

With whom you shared your food or your wine

Was yours alone. Jerome and six others

Carefully carried God down the street

To Penn Station and left Him in the last car

Of a train to Montauk, an expired ticket

In His hand. They tucked a few nickels

And six dimes in His pocket in case

He was hungry when He woke up. 

The next thing Jerome remembers

It was 1963 and he was in the middle

Of hopping a freight train near the docks

In Puerto Princessa. It took him years

To get back to Seventh Avenue and by then

A saint he'd never heard of had taken over his grate.

PART I

 

Two days before St. Jerome intends to appear in a dream

His lion comes by to make arrangements.

Eccentric though he is -- homeless, speechless

And spending his daylight hours dozing in doorways

On Seventh Avenue -- the saint retains his self-respect

So you must avoid any of your sillier

Or more horrifying dreams -- no naked shenanigans,

No monsters, no jump scares, no fanged vegetables.

Since Jerome hasn't spoken since half-past

The Fall of Constantinople you must, as I am,

Be fluent in sign language in your dreams.

The day after your dream the lion returns

To pick up whatever Jerome left behind --

A comb, say, or some rusted keys or a red cardinal's hat.

DORMUS

Inside a minute -- an old one ,
Set aside for some reason that
Seemed important --  I found God
Curled  up, asleep. I suppose
I could have waked Him right then
But rushed off instead figuring
A saint would be useful if God
Woke up angry. There were three saints
Right outside, arguing. We hurried back
But the minute was gone. St. Crescentia
Said "Try shouting loudly," but Anthony's pig
Shook his head. saying "Suppose" 
We wake someone else entirely?

VISITORS

 

It's two in the morning and

Sweetened tea in a blue-glass cup

Is coming up the stairs to the attic

Where my father, years before

He met my mother, is awake

As always at two a.m. He notices

But mostly ignores me; spirits are

Nothing unusual to him. Lately

I've been joined by Irina, my great aunt

Who -- this is 1943 -- is recently dead.

Since I'm unborn the two of us

Are equal in this room. The rules require us both

To disappear just before the door opens

And the tea and my grandmother and,

Some nights, a piece of cake come in.

ON REFLECTIONS

 

All the vampires in town seems to think

They can park their unused reflections with me,

Crowding my mirror so I when I try to shave

I can hardly see my own face among

Those of the vampires all glittery-eyed,

Hoping this will be the morning

When my razor finally slips. Also, vampires

Are up all night and seem to think I like

Phone calls at 2 AM asking me to go check

Whether there's something caught in Nosferatu's teeth

Or if Vlad's hair looks better parted on the left.

CIRCUMFERENCE NOWHERE

 

Scuff your feet a while, every border guard knows,

And like as not you'll see an angel conjuring itself

Out of the dust you've raised. Angels can make bodies

From anything -- air, leaves, regret, unpaid bills --

But in this part of Heaven they're partial to dust.

Other angels, especially the heavyweights with names

And attributes, think this foolish but they're

At the center of everything and don't care that Heaven,

Is illimitable and has no border so the guards

And angels charged with guarding it 

Must amuse themselves as best they can.

SAINT

 

It's not hard to find Saint Jerome

Most days he makes his slow way

Up and down Seventh Avenue wearing

The ragged remains of a cardinal's outfit.

You'll know it's him -- he still looks pretty much

As he did when El Greco painted him

In 1609. Saints can bilocate so if he wished

He could visit the Frick Museum any night --

It's just two avenues over, on Fifth --

And look at himself while getting his rest

Asleep in a doorway, out of the wind.

His lion, who worries about him,

Has often urged him to do just that.

POSING

 

By some error, though we were

Seeking to summon the

Thirty-Six Immortals of

Japanese Poetry so we could

Paint them for the Shogun, we

Wound up with Thirty-five Immortals

Of Japanese Poetry and a bear.

There's no time to try again;

Assistant! Get that bear a writing brush!

Bear! Do your best to look immortal!

Ono No Komachi! Stop laughing!

ALWAYS WHEN WE'RE IN A RUSH

 

By some error, while we were

Seeking to summon the

Thirty-Six Immortals of

Japanese Poetry so we could

Paint them for the Shogun we

Wound up with Thirty-five Immortals

Of Japanese Poetry and a bear.

There is no time to try again;

Assistant! Get that bear a writing brush!

Bear! Do your best to look immortal!

Ono No Komachi! Stop laughing!