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.

MESSAGES

 

The old amulet says

"Demon! If you are hungry

Eat. If you are thirsty

Drink. If you aren't hungry

Or thirsty: Go away!"

What, though, if the demon

Just wants a few minutes

To tell you what it's like

Being an itinerant demon  

Or to ask if you'd consider

Walking with him

Just to the next town?

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD, PART TWO

 

My father, I ask you to look out for

A small girl, recently dead. No kin

Of ours but, out of your kindness,

Help her; she'll be so confused

That grownups took the trouble

To kill a five year old.

While you lived you could never

Ignore a child's distress; even Death,

I think, couldn't  change that in you.

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD

 

A young child, a girl, dead,

Asks why I'm writing a poem

When I should be bringing her back.

Young children do not know

That anything's impossible. There will

Be ducks on the pond that she

Won't ever see. The honking geese

Won't startle or amuse her; won't 

Make her clutch small hands together

And say Oh! No cricket will bring her

Good fortune; no grandchild 

Ask her why cats don't have kings.

STEALING

 

Kooser, if you look

At that poem of yours

You'll find your fan

Missing. I have it because

My poem needed it.

If you want, come by

And bring some spoons

(The ones the ghosts stole

From your aunt will do.)

APPLIANCES

 

The electric fan has ingrained dust

On its blades. It sometimes wakes itself 

On a cold winter day and whirrs officiously.

Older even than the broiler I took to school

It has outlived so many appliances

Even the Grundig radio that, on clear nights,

Brought Canada and Wheeling, West Virginia

To suburban New York. If the old fan thinks

I need cooling when it's 14 degrees

Who on earth am I to say it's not right?

CLOTHO WILL NOT BE PLEASED

 

Lawrence Silver <ashurbanipal@gmail.com>	Sun, Jan 25, 2:53 PM (3 days ago)
to Jane, bcc: me

In the middle of a very heavy

Snowstorm there is a knock on the

Door. A god -- a small one --

Stands there, brushing off snow, and

Says "A few of us, for no good

Reason -- we gods need none

For what we do -- have been

Slowly changing your fate. You've heard

That even gods can't alter fate?

We say this because it's hard and

We're most of us lazy. Still, we have

Built you something interesting which

Begins as soon as you leave your

House with me. C'mon! I've shoveled

Your walk and hotwired your car."

CRULLER

 

Because He doesn't always bother to distinguish

Levels of reality, when God is awake at 3 AM

He is likely to tun up in a reproduction of

Edward Hopper's Nighthawks demanding

Some coffee and a cruller. It does no good

For the counterman to protest that he

Is merely a copy of a figure in a painting

So he shrugs and, for the first time, turns the tap

On the coffee urn behind him and shouts to where

He hopes there is a kitchen and a cook

To see if there are any more crullers.

EMPLOYMENT

In those hard times God,
Not having two nickels
To rub together, took a job
With my Grandfather Max.
He did good work but
Nothing extraordinary, saving
Miracles for His off hours.
When things got better
He quit and resumed
Being God full-time.

ANGELS

 

The angels changing shifts use ladders

To go between Earth and Heaven. You'd think

They'd fly or at least use escalators but no;

They climb up and down ladders. Worse,

There are no ladders just for going up and

None for just going down so they must

Push past each other. When an angel going off-shift

Has news for his replacement, everyone on their ladder

Waits, commending themselves on how patiently they're waiting.

A PICTURE

 

After the execution of the beautiful Yang Guifei

The emperor's men, riding slowly, return to the palace.

One courtier pulls a wooden flute from his sleeve

And then puts it back. Silence is the music

Sent to accompany her on her way.

*

Frances Pray graduated in 1921
Nothing more is known of her
In fact, even this is not known of her
But was invented just now because
Her name appears in the text and
The editor likes footnotes. Really,
What sort of person likes footnotes?
The sort who pays research assistants
Scandalously little.

IN FOR REPAIRS

Joe, said God, as a fellow watchmaker
Why do you think this world of mine
Has never run quite right? I have,
Said Joe, a few ideas about that;
Make it 1925 and leave the world
In my father's shop; we'll take a look.

EX MACHINA

 

The god scheduled to descend from the heavens

Is ill. They pluck you from the audience and

Spend an hour or so deifying you.

Throwing a gaudy cloak across your shoulders

They wish you luck and  thrust you in the machine. 

It's only when you emerge on stage that you realize

You don't know the play. No matter. You cancel all debts 

Reveal that everyone is a long lost someone or other 

And marry to each other whoever looks unmarried.

Some of them look startled or upset but no matter;

We gods are known to be tricksy, untrusty folk.

ANIMA

I warned you or at least
I meant to and now
The bland little soul you tucked
Into a matchbox has been
Carried off by someone
Who just wanted a match
But now has your soul
In his pocket screaming
In its tiny voice in a language
He doesn't understand.