OCCUPATION

To allow the dogs time 

To master brush work 

And write poems

Li Po's shadow spent weeks 

Chasing a ball and barking.

TRANSLATED

Half-erased, 

In need of redrawing,

I stayed in the house

Of Carnea, goddess

Of doorhinges.

Since few 

Pray to her now

Her temple

Takes in lodgers.

EMBROIDERY

Li Po three days before he died

Made his shadow an embroidered hat

Exactly like the one he always wore 

It is recorded that the shadow,

In time, learned to write poems

But his were nothing like Li Po's

REPLACEMENTS

The point has never really been to kill us

But to make us into something else

So we can take our turn guarding camps and

Find nothing wrong with shooting children.

Who will be the us now that we

Have decided we'd rather be the ones

Holding the knouts? The job does not

Pay well and the benefits have been

For the most part, hypothetical.

TROPE

Read enough poetry and you'll notice

That certain images, certain combinations,

Are unstable, are fleeting and may,

When next you look for them, be gone.

If you meet Time walking his dog

You should linger; you'll not see him

More approachable than this. ,

Soon he'll appear in some foreign elegy

Where he and the dog must wear disguises

And use false names.

ON THE STREET

There are moments he forgets

He's been translated into silence;

Things that might become words

Stand at a respectful distance

Waiting for the crook of a finger

Or a head nodded ever so slightly

Sometimes morning discovers the ghost

Of a crooked cop has left

Half a sandwich and a small coin

Which will not buy a glass of tea

Anywhere on Seventh Avenue.

Time has made the lion and the saint

Unsure which is which but no matter;

Go ahead; ask for a miracle.

         

PAGE 3, WEIRD TALES, MARCH 1944

If only I had this manual!

Over six hundred pages!

Sturdily bound

In tough fabrikoid!

With it, I could repair 

Any car made

Between 1935 and 1942.

Without it, I can barely 

Change a light bulb

Or find my nose

When I wake each morning.