NEW DISPENSATION

Between one day and the next

The old-model ones have been

Swept from the streets. Instead,

Extremely tall, extremely thin angels

Are on every corner, never singly 

But in groups of two or three.

They take no bribes; they never smile.

STRAYED

My father died during a spell 

Of terrible weather. It's no wonder 

His friend Claude S., struggling 

Through snow, leaning into the wind,

Needed to make up a minyan

Should outpace his shadow which

Had been dim anyway, cast

By two-fifths of a moon. Days later

It arrived, thin, tattered, dazed

With a pale, unseasonable flower

Pinned to its lapel.

FUGITIVE

He who'd been the poet Wordsworth

Woke suddenly and heard his talent

Scratching at the window

While his muse hammered her fist 

At the front door. Escaping,

He faked his death. He is thought 

To have watched his funeral from

A closed carriage, but after that 

The trail grows cold unless 

He was one of the deceased poets

Implicated in the theft 

Of St. Oswald's uncorrupted arm.

DANCING

The golem who occasionally

Brings me a poem is trying 

To sell me one about when

She was a dancing girl 

(She was a dancing girl?)

At the Ancien Eldorado 

In Cairo. There's no story

Really; it's all atmosphere 

Beaded curtains and jazz

Played by austere men in 

Jaunty hats for other men,

Less austere, smoking

Thin cigarettes and watching 

Women dance. She says that 

The ghost of Konstantin Cavafy

Once bought her a dark beer.

When I object that Cavafy 

Hated Cairo, rarely left Alexandria 

And was, anyway, still alive then 

She shrugs and does a few steps

Of what she says isThe Balboa.

CONFERENCE

The person I am in the morning

Sometimes listens to reason;

The one on the night shift is,

If anything, too accommodating

If we could just arrange a meeting

Their  feud, -- the cause

Of so much bitterness and grief --

Could probably be ended.

MIRROR

 

When I returned

From the funeral 

My father's reflections 

Had moved out except

One, fallen asleep 

In a mirror leaning

Against a wall.

AVISO

 

"Warning!"

My tablet says,

"This website 

Is not secure!"

I sympathize 

But don't know 

What advice to give.

Have you thought 

Of being a different 

Sort of website or

Not being a website

At all? You should know

That stealing passwords

Very seldom brings

Lasting happiness.