SUBSTITUTIONS

 

With Hermes missing, some of my relatives 

Take over his duties. My Great Uncle Dan,

Old and unrelenting, is acting god of travelers.

My grandfather Joe answers thieves' prayers.

Edith, my father's sister who died young,

Has a provisional psychopomp's license

But, it's become plain, doesn't actually know

Where Hell is. She leads an increasing troop of the dead

Around the City all day; at night she puts them to bed

In the attic; as pro tem god of merchants I'm exploring

The commercial possibilities of dead souls.

DEBUGGED

 

St. Bernard once excommunicated

An army of flies who were buzzing about

Inside a church. Startled to find they had

Immortal souls, the flies left but

Their descendants buzz still. "You think

To frighten us with swatters, we who've been cut off

From the illimitable grace of God?"

TEETOTAL

 

My slow-witted and elderly shadow 

Needs to stop drinking. Last night

It accused a teetotal street lamp

Of cruelly lopping off some vital inches

Of its true stature and making its head

A mere elongated blob. It was all I could do

To get it home; (to avoid a scene I agreed

To crawl the last few blocks).

QUANTUM STATES

 

A hot day; God rests in the shadow of an atom

Nor sleeping nor waking, sorting through loose-woven prayers

Answering them any old how, dispatching angels

So small even He isn't sure they're real.

TRYINGS

Before he became the great essayist, Montaigne
Was thrown from his horse. Servants carried him home
Unconscious. He lay for days, groaning and thrashing
But, when he awoke, remembered only a pleasant dream
About riding with his father. You can read all about this --
Many have -- in the Essais. Since their first printing

 Unconscious folk with no other place to go
Have slipped into Montaigne's dream.
Montaigne and his father have given up
Trying to figure out who we are, why we ride
So badly and why so few of us speak good French.

REROUTED

On the train last night one of
Stevie Smith's tall and angular angels
Was punching tickets, sending passengers
Places to which they had
No intention of going. I am now
In Hy Brasil which has no trains leaving
For the next thousand years and,
Technically ,
Does not exist

SKETCHES

 

During the hard times brought on

By Phillip II's 1596 repudiation of debt

Christ economizes, replacing the Apostles

With a dozen crash-test dummies. El Greco 

Draws them tentatively coming to life. Peter's beard

Is unconvincing. Thaddaeus has two shadows;

Bartholomew none. James the Less wonders

"Would I look more distinguished if I wore

A tarnished silver halo, tipped at an angle?"