Kali, though a death goddess who wears
Human heads as accessories, wants to be loved
Not for her incomparable ability with weapons --
Though master of all she is, and inventor of several --
But for her delightful sense of humor.
Any goddess can kill but who else
Can do so while telling jokes and dancing
On two of her four, or up to eleven, hands?
Old Man Anonymous
Sets up an easel, lifts a brush
But finds he has no paint.
Ah, no matter; this one
Gives him half a tube
Of Prussian Blue; that one
Gives him some ambiguous greens,
Blacks and yellows
Smeared on an old palatte;
The other, in his princely way,
Gives him thirty shades of white.
(Red, of course,
Can always be found)
And, if there's nothing else
I'm always willing to put on a hat
And pose for a portrait.
Every few centuries Sobek renews
His license to be a crocodile. If being a god
Becomes impossible, he'll still be able
To make a living. He finds the city cold
Though he's been stranded here for years.
Having nowhere else to be an hour
After the sun's abandoned its responsibilities
I watched him standing by a Christmas window
Spellbound by the clever automatons.
I don't really recall much of it but
Li Po tells me there was a night in my life
When I was irresistibly charming and
Also quite drunk so he and Basho
And Henry James Pye propped me against
The candy machine on the third floor landing;
Everyone who passed had no choice but
To acknowledge how charming I was. You,
Unfortunately, took the elevator that night and
Never saw me at my most enchanting. Li Po
Shrugs and says it was too bad and Basho tells me
That this world of dew is, after all, a world of dew
And Henry James Pye, who put me to bed,
Says the bitter sorrow of finding he was,
Bar one, the very worst of all poet laureates
Was somewhat mitigated by the generous salary
Parliament had attached to the position.
Conjure up Joe my grandfather:
Small, sharp-eyed, good posture,
A well-trimmed mustache.
Set him down some place
A city will do; so will a village
An encampment, a hamlet,
A berg, a settlement, a prison.
(Do it at dawn or dusk
So few people notice his arrival)
Done? Good -- my thanks to you!
He's shut his eyes for six seconds,
Casually shaken his clothes
Into perfect order.
He's setting his rectangular-faced watch
Exactly five minutes fast
Now he starts walking steadily
Towards a place where people
Are playing chess. There
An opponent will be waiting.
Since before there was Time
The King of Infinite Space
Has always had to accept,
Along with magnificent perquisites,
Being bounded in a nutshell;
No one remembers if
This is law or simply custom.
Most modern research
Focus on two questions.
One: What sort of nutshell?
Two: What happened to the nut?
What do I know of Great Aunt Lena?
I can make a list. Oldest, I believe
Of many children; my grandfather Joe
Was youngest. She was sharp as a needle;
She taught Joe chess; she goaded him
Back from madness after his first wife died.
Later, she decided she'd gone too far,
Leaving him too sane by half.
