DISTANT SOUL

 

Suppose your soul, missing the years

It belonged to a magician

Who hid it from his foes 

Within an egg, inside a nest,

Under a bird, on a tree branch

Growing at the top of a mountain,

Gets tired of city life and withdraws

To a small town in a distant and

Possibly imaginary country. Birds

Carry messages concerning you

But the distance is great so Lapwing

Passes to Falcon passes to Merganser

Passes to Albatross passes to Tsuzume

Who, if she isn't eaten by an owl,

Instructs your soul to behave in ways

Appropriate to your condition. "He is fearful;

Tremble! He is confused; leap aimlessly!

He is complacent; fall into a well!"

ADVICE TO SOMEONE AWAKE ALL NIGHT

What you’d ask of the moon
Ask early; by morning
Her heart will be cold.

REASONS

 

The dog who now lives here,

Bred to live in palaces,

Asks why I am not an emperor

Ill-fortune, I tell her, flaws

In my character and reliance

On amusing but unwise ministers

THREE LINES

 

I explain to my cat that she

Has been dead for a year

She seems unimpressed.

Here, for one night only, Maitreya,

Buddha of the Future,

Dancing his fool head off

A dog so small she's

Just a breath away

From being the idea of a dog

Your shadow, knowing

Everything about you,

Remains anyway.

CLIENT

 

One of the things about Maitreya,

Buddha of the Future, is that if

He asks you to write about him

And you say you will someday

He nods, perfectly satisfied.

SADNESS

 

When Baba Yaga weeps each tear

Is a different color. By the time 

They've trickled down her nose and

Over her lips and paused on her chin

They're solidifying so that they make

Small sounds -- clicks and clanks, mostly --

When they hit the floor of her hut.

After a while you'd think someone

Had upset a jar of marbles.

THE DEAD -- HOW WILLFUL THEY ARE!

 

When I urged Principal Leonard J. Fliedner

Back to life I thought he'd settle in Lower Manhattan

And find work, perhaps at a Spanish restaurant

On Seventh Avenue where dignity and a degree

Of cadaverous thinness are the usual marks 

By which the waiters know themselves. At worst 

I'd give him a guitar and a hat and send him busking. 

What, though, has the madcap old man done but set up

As a minor god, promising the devout

Success in love or with dice or a perhaps a talent

For finding, in utmost need, a silver coin 

Or brass dagger in your hand.