DIALOGUE

Setting a long exposure, Atget

Leaves the room. His camera,

Wearing deep black,

Remains behind, taking 

It's own picture, sorrowing

That the other machine 

Says nothing, nothing,

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

GAME

My brother Edwin -- nine, say, or ten --

Is playing chess with our grandfather 

Who, keeping his finger on it,

Slowly moves a bishop two squares 

Then suddenly retracts his move;

They burst into laughter. (I'd say

You had to have been there but

I was there and it did me no good.)

OPPONENT

My grandfather Joe was one of those

Who began when they were young

To drift uptown to Union Square

To find a good game of chess.

Buy him a cup of tea or a donut

And he'd beat you -- unless

You were very good -- show you

Why you lost and how if he were you

He could have beaten himself

SEASONAL BALLAD

 

Autumn, seeing me coming,

Mutters "you again!"

CAPTION

 

Riding the breeze she 

Looks down. Two figures

Are making strange noises.

They seem in no hurry;

How vexing if they never 

Look up and see

A woman flying overhead!

COMPANY

 If my father had said
“I think for a while
I’ll follow Matsuo Basho
Along the deep road
To the North”, my mother
Would have said
“I’ll come too. “

GREETINGS

My parents, truthful folk, told me

I was born in mid-May and I

Never doubted them but today

A wise friend, not often inaccurate

And a government official to boot,

Wishes me a happy birthday

In late September. A Taurus

Until now, allowances were made for me;

"A bull, after all! What did we expect?

Enough he didn't tear us with his horns!"

It seems late in the day to turn Libran

Becoming just and exquisitely sensitive

Like the beautiful jeweler's scales

My crook'd grandfather used 

To make honest measurements.