FILLING IN

I called in sick yesterday so

Default processes and subroutines

Performed my functions. Interns

Ate lunch for me; a scarecrow

Sat with his back to my desk

Watching the sun go down.

Three unusually large ravens

Rode the train home in my place.

TRAIN

More real than most things

The train made of its passengers

Shadows and sea glass.

Its high tracks are gone,

 Hauled away with the motormen

And the conductors. The night

Says nothing; get on board

Since you will have it so.

ATTENDANTS

According to Cornelius Agrippa,
Who so far has never lied to me,
I have three spirits always in tow  --
An invisible entourage who sneak
Onto trains without paying.
One seeks my general salvation
The second to reconcile me
To the forces of destiny. The third --
I ‘m not making this up -- is a lawyer.
He's a demon of profession and his job
Is to get all three spirits pulling together.
On the one hand it soothes my vanity
To know I am perpetually attended
And am a procession. On the other,
I'm not at all sure I'm saved. Destiny, too,
Gives me the cut direct at the gym
And the lawyer, who dresses much better
Than I ever have, drinks because
He so very much resents being invisible.

NOT HERE ON A TRAIN

Being on a train reminds me of angels

Not here, not there, both and neither.

It is just a story that the revolted ones

Populate Hell. All and none of them rebelled;

For convenience, they use different names

Depending on their location. In Heaven

Michael is Satan's indomitable foe. In Hell

He has a pied-a-terre, calls himself Beelzebub,

 And is Satan's trustworthy lieutenant.

Two rows away, Schrödinger’s cat

Is free in a woman’s lap and in his box

And lolling in the seat across the aisle.

Schrödinger, poor fellow, is dead. His will

Is in a language no one but cats can read.

MORE JMWT

For some years I kept a model of J.M.W. Turner's deathmask next to my bed, but it developed a disconcerting habit of snapping its eyes open and staring at me. It was plainly trying to size me up as a subject, and was none too pleased with the notion. For a while I did my best to look like a full-rigged frigate, or a train racing through the fog, but it was a losing battle. The lips around the toothless mouth grew more and more grim.

Tired of this, I affixed the mask to my front door -- let old Turner watch the world if I wasn't good enough for him! For a few days he just watched quietly, through narrow-slit eyes. Then he began flirting with the high school girls as they passed by, trying to charm them. Disgusting in a man dead since 1851, though also, I admit, rather impressive. I brought him back inside and shut him in my top drawer, but after a week or so he began eating my socks.

A friend of mine finally loaned me his model of John Keats' deathmask, which has so far calmed Turner down. While a very great painter, Turner wrote terrible poetry and he seemed at first a bit cowed by Keats. Lately, though, he has warmed up and has been trying to persuade Keats to commision illustrations, like the ones Turner made for Byron and Scott. I've thought about reminding him that he is, after all, only a mask, but that would be cruel.

It would also, of course, entail the risk of him asking if I really believed I was something more, and then where would I be?