WOOD

The trees have decided

To be men. Feet they manage

Pretty well, and also legs.

Fingers are a bit rootlike

But not badly done. The heads,

Though, are merely

Sawn off pieces of wood

Bent at enquiring angles.

AAPOW

Guzvir at the next desk says that she

Has a Chemehuevi mother and so is related

To the Actionless All Powerful Old Woman

Who made the universe. I tell her that 

At my last job I shared an office 

With Aristotle's Unmoved Mover who also

Made the universe. Perhaps we could

Get them together? Guzvir is doubtful;

The Actionless All Powerful Old Woman 

Doesn't get around much anymore.

LABOR FORCE

Growl and grunt of the old dead 

Returning to work since those 

Who died yesterday think death

Excuses them from hard labor.

For convenience a punch clock 

Has been installed. The old dead

Don't trust things that beep; they prefer

Things that clack. We've come to work;

We're leaving work now. Because they must,

They work with computers but they

Have taught one to think like an abacus

And set another to telling fortunes.

GUESTS AT THE PARTY

Though not in the opera, Pagliacci insists

On entering the party scene in Traviata

Banging his big drum. At least

He usually maintains the right beat;

Escamillo, who thinks he is the star

Of an opera called Escamillo in which

Carmen and Don Jose provide comic relief,

Stands by the buffet table in his full

Toreador rig. It’s only a question of time

Before he throws an arm around Pagliacci

And the two of them burst into song.

POST M

After I've died it may be that my image 

Will stand in a temple as an example 

Of what not to be. Over time

Some, through ignorance or perversity,

May send an occasional prayer my way 

And I'll become one of the oblique gods 

Lord, say, of Seashells or Narrow Alleys

Or of Three Almost Indistinguishable Shades

Of Yellow. If that happens, I intend

To hire a cat -- perhaps several. A god

With cats must be taken seriously.

PAGING

After slipping on February's stairs

The Queen of Coins 

Was rushed to St. Vincent's 

That it closed six years ago

Doesn't matter. 

The ghosts staffing it now 

Say they know what they're doing.

CONCERNING DANNY DEEVER

Do you know Kipling’s poem about hanging Danny Deever?

It’s in the form of a dialogue between Files-On-Parade

And the Colour-Sergeant. My father used to sing it

When he was putting me to bed. This was a lengthy process

Involving a book being read, perhaps two, a story --

Which my father would invent – and some songs.

Occasionally, bits of poetry would sneak in;

Someone must have told him, correctly,

That Macbeth soliloquizing about the futility of life

Might be just the thing to make a three year old sleep sound.

My father was the youngest of nine children which meant

He had four living and one dead older sister

And two living and one dead older brother. The dead brother

Was named Moshe and was called Morris and remained

After he died one of my father’s favorite relatives.

The dead sister, Edith, left almost nothing behind

But her name. Recently, though, she has been insisting

That she would have been tall – for her family, at least  --

And witty and  a talented amateur artist who wore

Extraordinary hats every chance she got if only

She had lived more than a few months.

By now, you may have given up hope of hearing

More about Danny Deever. It may even be

That you never began reading this poem at all

And are quietly pleased with yourself. The question

I want to discuss today is who it was who taught my father

(Nathan was his name, called Nate or Natie by his family

But never by my mother) the words and the tune?

Had I asked he might have remembered that Sadie

Or Doris had memorized it for some class and he,

With his preposterously good memory for such things,

Had picked it up when whichever of them read it aloud

To fix it in memory. Not Anne (the pretty sister) I think,

Nor lefthanded Rose, nor Harry (the family rebel).

Certainly not Joe.

I believe I will choose

To believe that my grandmother – who learned English’

From her children’s school textbooks -- was entranced

By the cadence and the drama and would say bits of it

When she was awake at 3 in the morning when everyone else

Except my father was sleeping. The tune he may have found

Years later, left in the street by some careless passerby.