BRAZEN

The golem, if she is one, felt I should write
A poem about the bronze statue of Achilles
Which stands in Hyde Park and is reputed
To be the ugliest public statue in England.
It’s 18 feet tall and made from melted cannons
Captured from the French by Arthur Wellesley.
It weighs 33 tonnes, which is, if you must know,
Seventy three thousand, nine hundred twenty pounds.
Originally nude, it somewhere acquired a fig leaf.
Its head belongs to the Iron Duke. He looks irate
At being exhibited nude in Hyde Park. How the golem
Got it through customs I cannot guess. She lugged it
Into my dreams two weeks ago and refuses to take it away
Last night, the standard anxiety dream I'd ordered
Turned into a farce. My accusers kept bursting into laughter
Or whispering "My God! Where did you find that thing?"

UNSETTLED

At the 2001 Prague Conference on Artificial Life
The ghost of Rabbi Judah was occasionally seen
Sitting quietly at the back of a morning lecture.
He'd take a few notes and once asked a speaker
Whether he agreed with Eliyahu of Chelm
That the possibility of a golem acquiring a soul
Could not be ruled out. This set off a loud debate.
The fact that the motherboard of an early laptop
Was known to be suffering in Hell was deemed
Interesting but not genuinely conclusive.

THE GOLEM'S SHADOW

An absurdly small shadow
Trots at the golem's heels.
It looks something like a cat
Who's lost an ear.
It trips over itself
And occasionally stoops
To examine bugs
Or pebbles or its own feet.
My offers to buy her
A new shadow
Have been refused.

WHY THERE IS NOT A POEM

The golem who’s been serving as my muse

Stays up all night reading and making

Enormous heaps of cornmeal pancakes.

Despite the pancakes, I have been resisting

Her latest idea which is to write about

Sainte-Beuve’s mistress –  the one

Who wanted him to believe she was Spanish

And so slept every night with a dagger.

MUSE OF THE DAY

The very old muse who usually fills in
Is on vacation and my muse is ill.
I have just landed a rush order
For 1500 foot/boards of poetry
By next Thursday so the agency
Has sent me a temporary muse.
I think she is a golem.
Her long arms end in huge fists
Her iron grey eyes rarely blink.
Her forehead hides under lank bangs
But I suspect "emet" is written there
As with all the best-made golems.
When she speaks in her deep voice
An echo repeats her words
But with slight differences in tone
And odd hesitations. Her shadow
Is almost ludicrously too small for her.
We have produced three poems so far.
The first, on a stone lion who becomes
Mayor of Cincinnati, is amiable enough.
The second, about the sadness of pottery,
Drinks beer after beer and sleeps all day.
I'm not sure what the third one means
But it seems to be wanted by the police.