WISLAWA

 

Szymborska, I cannot read Polish

But I have a fat volume of your poems

Translated into Portuguese

Which I also can't read.

PERSPECTIVE

 

If Mount Fuji said

"I am tired

Of being here;

I want to be over there"

Who would dare say no?

(Probably a cat.

Cats are not impressed

By mountains

Or anything, really.)

NB

 

There's no reason you need now to know 

But someday it'll be useful, maybe, to've been told that

Three or four or seven blocks away from 

Your starter house (where you've been 

For thirty-two years because it's

Sometimes hard to get started and there

May be no good reason to since if destiny's

All this while been desperately looking for you 

What hope it'll find you if you blow along

Before every stiff wind?) there's a storage room where

Unemployed shadows, some in almost mint condition

And others with the ragged look that comes from being

Too long on the run from their enemies, gather.

Perhaps you'll have sudden call for a new shadow

That can't be traced or possibly you'll be looking

For advice on entering the shadow trade 

Or maybe you'll never have call to remember

That to find your new best friends it's important

To turn left then right and don't look back.

SMOKE

 

The first time you smell it

You think " There;s no mistaking it;

That's the smell of burning bone."

BELONGING

 

My Grandfather Joe was a changeling

Small and precise and wary and 

Out of place in a large, vague family.

His brothers and sisters wore glasses;

He could count the feathers on a bird

Three miles away. (I started to write four

But his ghost shook its head at me).

He was not one to forget an injury

Over time he found that the grudges

His soft-natured kin couldn't keep

All came to live with him. 

Through intermediaries

The demons who'd left him as a joke

Offered to take hin back but his family

Refused. He knew this because Lena,

His sister, told him during a chess match,

Hoping to put him off his game.

AFTER FIRE

 

Suppose for just one day

Iron's child knows how to burn 

Sunset makes things as before 

Except the world's full

Of drifting steel ashes

SUPPLY PROBLEMS

 

Thx for yr order

Regret infrm o/o nightingales

Cn supply nightmares, nightjars, nightrobes,

Martingales or gallowglasses.

Lightning rods on order expect soonest

We appreciate yr bsnes 

SUBSTITUTION

 

During the present

Emergency my great uncle

Dan has agreed, grudgingly,

To play Hermes but only the

Psychopomp bits. Caravans to

Hades will leave each

Afternoon at 3:45 and arrive

By 11 the next morning because

That's how long the Twentieth

Century train took to get from New

York to Chicago when Dan

Rode it in 1938. Those wishing to book

In advance are advised to purchase

Tickets from Dan's wife Jenny and

Not from Jenny's brother Joe.

 

BREAKING THE LAW

 

The purpose, old Ruskin said, of Art

Is to arrest a sunset. Never mind the charge;

We'll figure one out later. Mixed, unlicensed colors

Have smeared streaks across the sky?

Rely on it; something illegal's happened!

ACTOR

 

An ancient Greek actor, if he'd read the manuals,

Spent hours before performing lying

On his back, summoning the voice

Of the character he was going to play. 

He'd lie down again afterwards,

Letting the voice and character go.

This was a dangerous moment; 

An interruption might leave him half Orestes

Or two-thirds Queen Jocasta.

 

AVE

 

His wife had little money so the tombstone 

Was roughly made and the lettering's uneven.

After two thousand years, though, it still

Wishes you well, passerby, and wants you to know

That Stracco the gladiator fought fairly, won eight fights,

And would've won nine but for a treacherous judge.

Inter Deos Minores

 

Portunalis was the god

Of keys. Or, some say,

Of harbors or gates

Or perhaps the warehouses

Where the Romans kept wheat.

There's no record of anyone

Ever praying to him nor 

Sending him thanks for 

A found key or because

Their stored wheat stayed dry.

Forget about sacrifices! His flamen --

The Flamen Portunalis -- 

Had only one job which was

Once a year to ceremonially grease 

The weapons held by a statue

Of Quirinus, a more important god.

That a poem's now been comissioned

For Portunalis puzzles me but,

Though I write poems, I don't know

Why most of them are written.

PARTNERS

 

When I was in college I wrote

Any number of poems in which Death and I

Were close friends. In some we rode motorcycles;

(He'd trouble keeping his robe from getting tangled;

The wind blew his cowl back as we sped along.)

In others we wandered or looked for work 

Or called each other on the phone or had fights.

I haven't written like that in years

Content to deal with younger Deaths,

Either children or young businessmen

Who'd feel ridiculous holding a scythe. 

REMINDING

 

Ono No Komachi, standing by the river,

Informs the air that the spring rains

Are three weeks over-due.

The Master of Rain smacks his head,

Saying "Fool of an Immortal!"

SHADOW TALK

 

My Grandfather Joe returned

From the Great War with a stranger's shadow.

It mimicked him fairly well but sometimes.

Lost in thought, would keep on imitating

Some gesture after Joe had finished.

It didn't speak a word of Yiddish until Mabel,

Joe's sister-in-law, taught it a few commands

Nemt di fis arop funem tish! Take your feet off the table!

Es nisht di kats esn! Don't eat the cat's food!

Her aoyf tsu pruvn makhn di tsayt loyfn tsuri!

Stop trying to make Time run backwards!

PRODUCTION

 

At sea, the galley slaves were fed

But on land they fed themselves

Hauling, lifting, pushing or selling

Things made from broken oars --

Jacob's ladders, spheres, lidded boxes,

Model ships or joint-limbed figurines

With expressions that changed 

Each time you looked at them.

MARTYR

He sits down on a log that will,
In a few minutes, be part of the pyre
On which he'll burn and takes off his coat .
After shaking out the wrinkles
He folds it neatly  and sets it down.

CORVINE

 

Corvids or corvidae are

Oscine passerine birds including

Crows, ravens, jays, grackles,

Rooks, magpies, jackdaws,

Treepies, choughs and nutcrackers

And, on certain days, me.

I then speak grackle flawlessly;

Get by in crow, raven and jay (I have

Only a few words of treepie but who

Wants to talk much with treepies?)

I display, sometimes, an almost human intelligence 

And the ability to use simple tools.

CHECKING IN

 

My father had three jobs so he rarely

Had time to watch an entire ball game;

He'd turn on the tv late to watch an inning

Or two, reassured that the great game of which

Every game was a part continued.

APPEARANCE SAKE

 

Since Old Man is deaf

His shadow's begun

Covering its ears

Against thunder.

CRITIC

 

The wind says it doesn't really mean

To be rude but it's noticed that you

Are doing a very poor job of impersonating

Yourself today. Your right eye is two or three shades

Too dark. You've combed your wrong-colored hair

Unbecomingly. You're should be

Pulling on your beard while trying to think

Not scratching your ear. Go on like this

And you won't fool anyone, not even 

Virginia McC., who'll believe anything.

SOME CORRECTIONS

 

An obituary last Sunday about the poet Mark Strand referred incorrectly in some copies to his survivors. He did not have any brothers; he is not survived by a brother Thomas.

From the November 19th, 2014 New York Times obituary for Mark Strand

The poet Mark Strand had no brothers

He especially had no brothers

Named Thomas. He also never

Owned a dog and certainly not

One called Rusty who chased cats

And was a pale yellowy-red.

Rusty --not Mark Strand's dog --

Never caught any cats including

Farfel who didn't live next door

When Mark Strand was six.

Mark Strand was never six;

He was five and then he was seven;

Then he was 65 and being given

A Pulitzer Prize. He had no brothers

So none of them sent him a telegram

Saying "Nice work, Bro!"

Thomas, Rusty and Farfel are not among

Those who survived Mark Strand.

 

GOING AWOL

 

It's cold and windy in the harbor and the Statue

Has deserted her post, walking the length of Manhattan

To Grant's Tomb. She cannot stand up in it

But fits if she leaves her torch outside

And scrunches, resting her head on her knees.

Occasionally, she drinks from an enormous bottle

Of Mad Dog 2020, frustrating the teetotal ghost

Of General Grant who says she can stay for

A little while. Tomorrow, she promises,

She'll start looking for a new job.

SLOW DAY

 

No one's in the market today 

To be haunted. The ghosts

Crowd together, perched

In trees or standing

Under wet awnings.

From my father's pocket

A ghost-kitten pokes its head.

ON THE STYX

 

Though the weight of a ghost is slight it isn't

Nothing and 175 entering at once have made

The boat ride low in the water. At first

The children are impressed by how serious

It is to be dead, looking over the edges

("They're called gunwales," says Dina)

At the skeletal fish or up at the grey birds

Hovering in the windless sky but then

Laila makes a face at the other Laila

And they both start giggling helplessly.

MEETING AN ANGEL

 

My father knew the languages of men

And ducks and cats and dogs and would surely

Have spoken to an angel outright if he met one

Afterwards, my mother would have said

"Nat, what was the angel's name and why

Was he standing in the rain? Does he like

Being an angel? Does he like his boss?

Does he get lonely?"

                                        My father would've answered

"Patroosh, we didn't talk about any of that."

"Tchah! He was waiting for you to ask;

Next time, I'll go with you."

TWENTY-SEVEN

 

The old moon's attendants roll her out

From the storage shed and, not without effort,

Hoist her back into the sky

PARKWOOD

 

An angel has been hanging about Parkwood Cemetery
For weeks now, standing by this grave or that
Occasionally doing absurdly small miracles --
Coaxing a dead weed back to life, fixing a gravestone's crack
Or inserting questions marks at the end of epitaphs.

Sometimes he choreographs the rain
So it falls in checkerboard fashion
Or only on people born in years ending in 6.
There’ve been complaints but the superintendent
Says he's powerless unless the angel violates
Rule 713(h), governing unlicensed resurrections.

TRANSLATION

 

My machine, set to the task of translating

Joseph Roth, sends me a note that Roth's ghost,

Currently haunting the rooms he'd have rented

If he'd fled to New York in 1939 instead

Of staying in Paris to drink himself to death,

Has offered to do the job cheaper and better.

APPARITION

 

The ghost has arrived on time or almost

But seems in no hurry to begin his routine

He blinks a few times, stretches, looks out

The open window at the night where a bird

And a bat are hospitably sharing a branch.

"Well," says the woman sitting bolt upright

(She rarely sits any other way) on her bed

"Can we get on with it? Let's see some haunting!

I'm prepared to be harrowed; I'm more than ready

To experience agonies of remorse or grief. My heart

Is resigned to burning in my breast; my soul

Has prudently taken a holiday. My nerves, though, 

Cannot long abide this foolish delay."

MOVING

 

Through a crack in the frame the image of my father

Makes his way out of the picture.  He's in

No hurry to make his escape; he knew that someday 

There'd be just such a crack. He means

To check on folks in other pictures, perhaps

Seeing how his folks are doing in that photo

Taken at a seder in 1947 but pauses,

Waiting for my mother's image to come with him.