VISIONS

 

Daruma never 

Sleeps

Doesn't even close

His eyes.

The dreams

He doesn't have

Wander about or

Put themselves up 

For sale.

You sometimes find

Crowds of them by

The vanished gates

Of the old Yoshiwara

QUELLER

 

I bought the demon queller

When I was ten because

I had a dollar and its orangeness

Appealed to me. It was meant

To quell Japanese demons

But mischance had brought it

To a Brooklyn giftshop.

American demons, thinking it's

One of their own, imitate

It's lidless glare and leave it gifts.

Mostly resigned, it sometimes dreams

A Japanese demon will turn up --,

Perhaps trying to sell me something --

And find itself quelled.

UNDOING

 

It wasn't the weaving

She'd miss so much

As the unweaving

The unpatterning.

Long night hours

The light of a candle

Held by a maid

(Later hung 

Her pale legs kicking)

If the sly king

Had drowned at sea

She'd have learned

To unspin wool

Unshear sheep

Unstring minutes

Hoping another Penelope

Might string them again

String them better.

MARKETING

There used to be
A fish market here
But they packed it up
Ghosts and all and
Moved it to the Bronx.
Now, very early
Muses buy and sell
Ideas for poems
My usual muse
(Quite old but sly)
Often leaves with
A small wrapped idea
And two or three others
Which somehow
Found themselves
In her purse's
Deepest depths. 

ON LINE

 

On the long line for admission

To Hell stands a child. It's hard

To imagine why she's there 

But there she is, fidgeting,

Holding the memory of a toy

That was blown up with her 

One damned soul makes faces 

To amuse her. Another starts 

A long story about an elephant 

And a lizard and a flying boat.

It's a very long line and, really,

What else have we to do?

VETERANS

 

Some saints spend so long in the field that at last

They're worn down, almost featureless, like spoons

With unreadable monograms and twisting handles

Which might be anything -- writhing Cupids, sleepy mermaids,

Apostles, even. Their attributes are lost or mere blobs,

Their miracles pointless, giving a duck, say, the power

To heal shattered bones and twisted hearts

Or making puddles rain themselves back into the sky.

A COUSIN

During the War my mother's cousin Simon
Was a solider and wrote brave letters
Sometimes and funny ones other times
He'd type an original and six carbons
Sending my mother carbon four.
When he was in college he lived
In my grandparents' house and Joe
My grandfather gave him a dime
Every morning for carfare. Most mornings
Si walked so he could spend the dime
On cigarettes and coffee. He came home
With a whole heart but three years later
It broke and then his spirit went flat
And he smoked cheap tobacco in a pipe.
When I found his war letters I wondered
What had happened to make him
Scared of everything. My mother thought
It was a girl named Gretchen or perhaps
Just bad luck of which Simon always had
Enough and more than enough.