UNRELIABLE AND COVERED WITH DUST

 

The Memory Palace I built years ago

Is much smaller than I remember it

And surrounded by outbuildings

So that whatever I seek always seems

To have been moved to the Memory Garage

Or lies under a clay pot in the Memory Toolshed.

THE LIMITS OF MEMORY

 

You remember distinctly that

At the end of  long night St. Wyndred,

Coiling herself into being

From the smoke of a blown-out candle,

Offered to perform a small miracle,

Just for you. What you cannot recall

Is what the miracle was or is or will be.

RELATION

I never had an Aunt Edith since she

Who would have been died after a few months

And is buried in a very small grave

Still, I've done my best for her, casting her

In this role and that. (Read my third poem

About the eleven thousand virgins

Who traipse about with Saint Ursula; she

Is the third virgin in the second row, the one

Who's halo is slipping sideways, annoying

The virgin next to her). She'd have been tall

I tell her when she comes by, and funny

And have had a fondness for large hats.

Now, though, she wants to know more

What jobs did she have? (Mostly clerical

Though during the war she learned to weld)

Did she marry? (Twice, once happily)

What was wrong with the bad marriage?

(I'll get back to you on that).

 

CHESSMEN

 

My grandfather Joe would sometimes look

At a chessboard and rearrange the pieces

Two black bishops might change places

Some pawns would yearn forward

Others retreat to the back of their squares

Or sit with deadly calm in the exact middle.

When he played he might put a finger on a piece

To see what it wanted to do. Knights, though

He always took by surprise. Never wise

To know what a knight was thinking

A MOMENT ON THE WAY

Passing the house
Where she'd have lived
If she'd taken another road

A FEW INSTRUCTIONS

 

When you wake up 

Look in a mirror and say

"I am no shadow" 

Until you believe it.

Next, gather substance.

Stand without flickering.

Remember not to change size

Too radically.  Hire servants --

You'll need at least four: one

To attend you outdoors; one

To appear by artificial light; one

To be invisible to all but you; the last

You must not acknowledge

When you meet again.

LAMB'S CONDUIT FIELDS

 

At Captain Thomas Coram's Foundling Hospital

There was a side entrance for desperate folk

To leave infants, often with notes or tokens --

A blanket, a toy, a bright bead, some coral.

One morning they found one, small and sick,

Wrapped in a basket with a letter pinned

To his blanket saying "This is Death. Please

Take care of him. I'll come back 

If things ever go better for Me."

BAGHDAD AND CHESS

 

"In Baghdad a thousand years ago," I told the ghost

Of my grandfather Joe, "well-advised men were not

Blacksmiths, butchers, conjurors, policemen,

Night watchmen, dung collectors, tanners,

Bathhouse stokers, makers of women's shoes,

Well diggers, masseurs, pigeon racers or chess players."

"Better-advised men," he said, "left Baghdad

And played chess in peace."

SPARAFUCILE'S COMPLAINT

 

In my career, says Sparafucile, I fulfilled the terms

Of almost every contract. Hire me and your worries

Were gone or replaced at least by ones more interesting;

You could go right home and start thinking

About what to wear to your enemy's funeral.

Really, I was that good. Killing the Duke

Was nothing special for me; I'd killed kings!

I gave Rigoletto a bargain price; I liked him

And yes, I know that I mistook a slender soprano

For a bulky tenor but it was dark and she, remember,

Was trying to fool me. You'd think there'd be operas

About the many times I killed the right victim

But no -- there's not even a poem.

HATS

 

In the picture it is late 1955 and you

Have on an admirable fake-leather hat

With earflaps which I thought

Fairly marked your status as

A seven year old and the oldest

Of us. At half-past three

I, having no say about my headgear,

Wear a shapeless wool thing

Made by an aunt who'd obviously

Accepted her sister's dare

To shut her eyes and knit a hat

While wearing boxing gloves.

RESURRECTIONS

An angel -- not one of the major ones but still

Powerful and scary -- having read a copy of

Harris' Guide to the Ladies of Covent-Garden

For the Year of Our Lord 1790, asks your help 

Reviving all of the ninety-one women listed there

From wise Miss Allan ("middle-sized," "dark eyes and hair")

To careless Miss York ("fair complexion and full eyes ... 

Vibrates even her feet to the motion of every fiddle").

You supply the craft while he draws upon 

His account with The Illimitable Grace of God.

You've not much to work from - smart grey eyes,

Melting blue eyes, strange green eyes

That are small or big or shrewd. A willingness

To use a whip. A willingness to be whipped.

A reluctance to swear. Traces of a good education.

Expects five pounds and five shillings for the night.

Charges a guinea. Charges a half guinea.

Takes whatever's offered and is glad of it.

Has a temper. An accent. A scar. A sister. A sad story.

Bodies. Teeth. Legs. Bosoms. Breath.

The work is extremely challenging -- 

Exactly what shade is "melting blue?" Just how tall

Is "middling sized?" You can't believe how long it takes

To get the shadows right! -- but you bring them back.

Not one of them thanks you and the angel

When you ask for a favor says there are limits

Even to The Illimitable Grace of God.

 

CHANCE-MET

 

The forest is unimaginably big

And filled with orphans and thanes so 

It's all just a matter of which

Witch you run into. Some

Will urge you to kill the king

And take the throne for yourself.

Others will take you home

And keep you in a cage until you're

Fat enough to make a good meal.

("The Tragedy of Hansel, King of Scotland;"

"Macbeth: The Man, the Thane, the Casserole")

Occasionally there will be witches

Who've just eaten or ones who'd rather

Dance naked than mess with politics

But don't count on meeting them.

You don't really want to be king

Or a string of sausages?  This is exactly why

You should stop wandering around forests.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

 

It's not true that my father understood

The language of animals -- just cats

And birds and some of the dialects

Stray dogs use with each other.

OUT OF WORK

 

The comic book villain, usually

More genre-savvy than the hero,

Thought the story would be longer.

Despite robbing bank after bank

He somehow has no money so

He checks the ads but they're all

For air-guns or x-ray specs, 

For lovable sea monkeys or for jobs

Selling a newspaper called Grit.

("Everyone loves Grit!")

COVENT GARDEN

 

In time the ghosts lose hold

Of their names but remember

What they charged. "Five pounds

For a night in a well-furnished room." 

"A half-guinea for an hour in a shed."

"Some pennies for three minutes against a wall."

LEGACY

 

The executors' inventory revealed 

King's painter François-Hubert Drouais

Left behind an army of spoons each of which

Knew its place, as did François-Hubert.

Aside from a brigade of miscellaneous spoons

Willing to do almost anything there were

Soup spoons, table spoons, tea spoons,

Coffee spoons, dessert spoons, salt spoons,

Olive spoons, gravy spoons, sugar spoons

Jam spoons and one spoon that scorned

To touch anything but mustard.

STORAGE

 

My mother had a sewing box of some light-colored wood

Finegrained and with a slanted oval knot in its lid.

Opening the brass-hinged lid raised up tiers of spools

Arranged by thread-color, some with needles stuck in them. 

(If there was no black when needed, dark blue could be used

But her conscience would be troubled.) There was a pin cushion

Made to look like a ripe tomato and three thimbles;

The heaviest one, dull silver, was never used except to distract me

If my mother needed to think and sew at the same time.

There were pictures on it, almost rubbed away --

A crescent moon, a long-haired woman with a spear, 

Two cats, a boat being rowed through the air.

ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN

 

Over the head of the woman sleeping next to you

You see her dream; as in comics, it's in pastel colors

And surrounded by soft scalloped edges.

She and the last Ming Emperor -- Zou Youjian, 

(1616-1644) -- raise clouds of dust as they argue

In an old-fashioned car racing down a dirt road.

Neither one of them seems to know how to drive;

You think about entering the dream before they hit 

One of the frightened animals running alongside them

But can't remember -- in those dreams of yours

In which, but for a blown tire, you'd have won

The 1961 Indianapolis 500, have you learned

How to use a stick shift?

THE THIRD COUSIN TERRY

 

My cousin Terry -- the one who went to war

Not the one who went to Hollywood nor

The one who went, depending on whom

You asked, to Vermont or to Delaware --

Was tall and strong and had red-brown hair

She kept cut short. During World War Two

She learned to smoke and joined the navy

As a nurse. She gave up cigarettes

Before I met her but would sometimes

Gesture with an invisible one or thoughtfully

Take a puff on it before answering a question.

Her voice was quiet and hoarse and unnaturally

Free of malice. Thinking of her, I always see her

Carrying wounded sailors -- one under her right arm

And two under her left -- as if it was for her

The easiest thing in the world to do.

HERSELF

 

While Ono No Kamachi slept

The self she'd be in forty years

Rummaged through her closet

Looking for her old red dress 

When it was still new 

But other selves, getting there first,

Were using it to play Dragon Queens.

FORGIVENESS

 

There is one particular ant whose purpose

Is to forgive you for the deaths

Of all the ants you've killed

By accident or design. Of course,

He can't spend all his time forgiving you

He's still an ant with all the responsibilities

Of his trade. Once in a while, he pauses

While lugging a sugar grain or digging

A tunnel and shrugs his six shoulders, thinking

"Such things happen. It's that kind of world."

TROUBLE WITH EVERYTHING

 

"The thing about infinity," said Satan to Abetha Gill,

"Is that you can’t trust it. It's everything but

It's never stable and quickly splits in two

And both parts are everythings. This happens

Over and over and over and over and you find

So many everythings in your house there's nowhere

You can walk without slipping on a round everything

Or bumping into an everything with sharp edges

So you go outside -- feeding the everythings first

Since they'll get cranky if you don't -- and there's God

(Who's been driven out of His house too by everythings)

Pretending you're invisible; He knows this drives you crazy."

CREATION

 

At his ease in Anne Milton's kitchen, Satan says

"It is a mistake to think God puts much labor

Into His creations. All of us -- human, demon,

Angel, cat, lizard, fish, ornithorhynchus or Mount Fuji

Were flicked into being by quick, nervous gestures.

More trouble, a little bit, is taken with shadows

Which God lets subcontractors like me make. 

God's things come from immediate inspiration

But  shadows -- I've made more than a few in my time --

Need planning -- all those subtle gears meeting at angles

And thin wire woven into fabrics that stretch

And shrink and never wear out until they suddenly do.

Yes, it's possible but quite rare to outlive your shadow

Much easier to lose one and have some patchwork thing

Tripping after you, getting under foot and not knowing enough

To discreetly vanish under a meridianol sun ."

QUELLER

 

Under the right circumstances any image of Shoki

Can turn into Shoki himself, all tensed and ready

To quell demons. It does no good for us to say

"We're respectable these days and have proper roles!

We are museum guards and small children

Pushing smaller ones in strollers! We are old men

Of no fixed address who sleep on the sidewalks

And occasionally turn into old women muttering

Of how nothing's gone right these forty years now

Or nearly so..." 

                          "Demons, the lot of you! "

Says Shoki, and draws his blunt quelling sword.

ENDPIECE

 

On the last page of 

A book by  Katsukawa Shuncho 

A woman lifts a tall lantern

To light your road as you leave.

DIFFERENT PATH

 

Bored with her routine, your guardian angel answered

A subway ad in 1969 -- the one that said

"If u cn rd ths u cn mk bg mny!" She could read it 

And made big money and in retirement,

Mildly curious about what happened to you,

Has her people set up a lunch meeting.

She seems disappointed you've never, in her absence,

Stepped into a manhole or off a cliff. You shrug

And console her with stories of the foolish, shameful things 

She'd surely have warned you against doing.

 

 

Sent from my iPad

ROUTINE

 

Early each morning I lift

The blinds on the left

Hand window so the

Cat, dead for years, and

I can inspect the day.