RETURN

 Coming back from Brooklyn
My mother's ghost tells my father's
"That is the best baby, ever!"
"Patroosh," my father says,
"Don't you always say that?"
"I do. And I am always right."

TASKS

Esther's ghost has set out
Towards Lviv which she knew
Back when it was Lemberg,
Saying the new-made ghosts
Will need comfort and assistance
Defending the town.

She left behind her apprentice,
An inexperienced spirit who
Spends her days reading
Shadowy old newspapers.
When she comes by she talks
About the Brooklyn Dodgers
And says she can't believe
What a dollar could buy in 1936.

MOMENT

If no madmen live here who
Driven sane, will save the city
When the great fires come?

FIVE FLOWERS

In the Painted Map of Macuilxóchitl

A bull and a horse stand on a riverbank 

(The horse has his front feet in the water)

They both look pleased yet there is 

Something sidelong in their gazes.

Indeed, all the pictured animals 

Look knowing except for a bird

Resting near a hilltop cross,

Trying to decide if he is an eagle 

Or a crow or, just possibly, a dove.

He's been thinking about this since 

1580 when the artist invited him to sit;

What need of haste? When he knows

What sort of bird he is, he'll fly off

VISION

During his first session of madness

George III often played the flute.

In his last -- which went on for years --

He switched to the harpsichord

Playing Handel's keyboard pieces.

Harpsichordists sometimes dream 

Of Bach or Handel or Jean-Philipe Rameau

Stopping by to approve their playing.

More often, though, they catch glimpses

Of an old blind king, unshaven and mad,

Holding closed a shabby robe

That's lost its tie.

CAUGHT IN THE EDDYS OF HISTORY

Whenever Bishop Proterius

Is martyred he is replaced

By Timothy the Cat.

After all these years, Timothy

Has grown weary of this.

Also, he feels it's time 

Scholars stopped noting

Many considered him 

Not a cat but a weasel.

FOR ALDUS MANUTIUS

 

A semi-conscious semi-colon half buried

In the dust -- take it home, nurse it

Back to health and put it

With stray bits of wire and keys 

And small marbles kept in case

Despair insists you atone for your pale sins

By mastering Chinese Checkers

And restarting life from when you were six;

There is always a use for a semi-colon;

Besides, bent and old as it is, it adds

Some dignity to a drawer otherwise filled

With wire and keys and small marbles, 

Some of them chipped.