THINA'S POEM

Along the way to school there were angels

Watching her from roofs or perched

On streetlights, mailboxes, awnings,

Car hoods, window ledges and alder trees.

They weren't hostile, as on some days,

Seemed, in fact, rather bored. One of them

Was drying his great wings by gentle flaps,

Disturbing the pigeons. Another was idly

Carving the first fourteen hundred letters

Of God's unpronounceable name

On a brown shard of glass abandoned

By a tattered crow, unlucky in his affairs.

VIRTUAL

My tablet offers a font that imitates

Brushstrokes. Over time, a virtual soul

Has built itself to guide the brush.

The Seven Gods of Calligraphy are meeting

To determine its status. Meanwhile,

It amuses itself by renaming my files.

A LOST PIECE OF LITERARY HISTORY

One half the dreams of the poet Anna A------
Took place in the house she lived in
When she was nine. Rooms moved about;

Walls found themselves covered

With the bright red wallpaper she'd discovered
Nine layers down during a long night
Spent at an inn in Simbirsk. While she wrote
Her book on Aleksandr P----, he lived in the attic
Except for the years he'd been in exile
Which he spent in her garden shed.

CROWDED

The thoughts I had thought the night before

Were waiting for me in my bed, insisting

I think them again. They had apparently

Spent the entire day just lying about

And looked dissipated. One of them

Was smoking a fake meerschaum pipe

That I’d thrown away in 1987. Another,

Wore a preposterous hat, a cross somehow

Between a floppy musketeer sort of thing

And the odd felt crown Jughead wears

To go careening down a Riverdale street

In a bathtub while Archie attempts to steer.

Then there was the one who insisted

She had been personally brushed aside

By Catherine the Great and had spent

Three years trapped in an unfinished dream

Of the beautiful Princess Dashkova. 

I found this awkward as I had invited

A crowd of much higher-class thoughts

To join me. (One of them was almost new;

The rest could pass for new in a kindly light)

They could not be put off; we all crowded in.

I got little sleep; my head never found the pillow.

When I finally dozed I was poked awake

By the idea with a hat; he and the Russian thought

(I considered her accent a little exaggerated, myself)

Were in love and wished me, as captain of the bed,

To marry them. The other thoughts were members

Of the wedding party. Some of them had swords

(Which fact rather worries me) and made an alley

For the bride and groom. All of them

Have gone along on the honeymoon leaving me

Completely thoughtless. Worse, they’ve taken

Half the covers and the pillow with them.

VISITING

Others own the house where I never lived
But when I visit it the old furnishings
Do their best to reassemble themselves
From dust and splinters and the light
Peculiar to late Sunday afternoons.

FOR ONE OR FEWER GUITARS

The slow pavanna provides
Music enough to filigree the silence;
The more austere angels begin to dance
Long ago they stopped wondering
About the terms on which they exist
Or if they exist at all. Now if ever
They will answer if you will ask.

REGISTERED

Something's happened; you must react

But can’t. Now is not the time,

Or you don’t know what to feel or do.

Perhaps you’re not the person to whom,

Before whom, about whom, this thing

Should have happened. The hour has come

But not the man, the woman, the child,

The brindled cat with one eye who could,

If he chose to, speak flawless English

And make himself understood in koine,

But he never does chose to. So you say “hm”

Just that and no more. (Even another m

Would be too much). It’s enough;

When time allows, when you know more,

When you're the right person or cat at last

You will do or feel exactly what you should.