BOTCHED TOGETHER

 

A second here, six nanoseconds there

Once a whole minute found almost dead

And brought home by Orthus the two-headed dog

(Cousin German to sinister Cerberus

Scion of Erebus) to her masters

Who hoard abandoned bits of time

Against the time when there will be no time

Except what's been cobbled together

Into a monstrous month of ouroborean days

Ruled by Cyclopes. (The old gods will take with them

Whatever isn't nailed down so our one-eyed kings

Will sit in plain wooden chairs in the absence

Of thrones comfortlessly crusted with gold and jewels.)

KEEPING TRACK

 

The two girls -- Jenny and Lena -- played chess

And tried in turn to teach each new baby brother

But Barney, Pinney and Ase were born poker players

Impatient with a game where bluffs and tells

Played so small a part. With the youngest boy,

My grandfather Joe, they found success.

When he was nine or so he began, I don't know why,

Keeping count of his wins and losses against them

Continuing to meticulously alter the numbers,

Occasionally, for years after his sisters  died.

OLD STORIES

 

When my brother decided our parents hated him

And always had, he cast free the stories

They told of how clever, lovable a child he'd been

I've kept them for him -- along with his two 

Imaginary friends and his grief for a real one

Run over by a bus -- against the unlikely day

He wants to hear them one last time.

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. One of them

Buzzes about me now, saying "You think 

A swatter frighten me, I, 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.