Home On Business
for Marly
Alone for the night at home with my wife
away on business. It doesn't get any better
than this: feed the dog, crank the tunes,
make a chicken sandwich and open a beer.
Watch the news; leave the dishes for later.
I smoke a cigar in the sunroom, catch
the sun setting, the pine shadows trembling,
and have another Schlitz, a shot of Chivas,
stroll from Monk to Steven Reich, from
Bartok to Ahmad Jamal, Randy Weston,
Leon Parker, Sun Ra and late Coltrane
in Tokyo, all because I want to weep
and there's no one here to leave the house
in a huff or go crazy. I pace and brood,
and turn the lights on in every room, busy,
looking with the eyes of a public official,
for solid evidence, for clues of some kind.
What is this? Who belongs to this stuff?
It's not so much a matter of what I do
with these vacant, unscheduled hours,
what matters now is doing it alone -- back
to the body I was born with, this coffin
that will find its way to a furnace; flame
to dull ash, bone cinders to gray soil,
white smoke turned to blue weather.
Without you: the necessary sweat lodge,
the temple cave, the cathedral at Chartres,
the Ryokan hut after the thief forgot to take the moon
along with the rest of his things.
Our roof, these walls, this floor: a shack,
a cardboard box, a shrub, a palace, a cave,
a Gethsemane, this grove of evergreens:
wind comes, rain comes, and I can stand here
in the midst of it, dry and wrapped in these pliant boughs,
falling with the rain all night, alone and grateful
that this, my love, is our home.
The Fisher Wound
for my son, Robert
"He was hungry, there was salmon
roasting over the fire, and he took
a bit of it to eat, burned his fingers
and his lips...."
-- Tale of the Fisher King
It happens with a taste --
the model airplanes hang from the ceiling,
the action figures lie dusty on the closet floor,
the cars on the shelves never race anymore.
Headphones blasting Hendrix
he sings in near silence, his guitar in hand
ears burning from the hot licks
he hears himself playing.
But when the album ends and
he plugs his guitar into the amp.
what he plays is not
what he's heard and it hurts
to know this. The fingers have yet
to learn their way so well as to fly
the frets on their own. Small
calluses on a young boy's hand,
the reach is short, the strength
not half of what it will be, he tries
again and again to find the notes,
to put them in order, to play them
the way he's heard them and cries
when he can't and when he thinks
he'll never be able to.
The solo stays with him in sleep
and plays inside him all through the day.
After school he's at it again,
and will be, as long as the fire blazes
and the salmon roasts on the spit.
Cheap Shoes
White canvas slip-ons with a blue line
like the trim on a yacht; such plain comfort
for $5.99 that today someone said,
"Where are your shoes?" thinking they were my socks.
But I feel luxurious, tropical, Panamanian,
and so relaxed that there are palm trees, mangoes,
pink flamingoes every step I take in this flat
mid-western American town. To match my mock
elegance I wear my baggiest blue jeans,
4 inches too large in the waist, my blousiest shirt
unbuttoned half way, and a woman I hardly know
stops me on the street and says, "You're so thin,
have you been ill?" But to me, this is the attire
of a man with plenty of time to get from one place
to another, time to sip an iced coffee, to browse
for hours the aisles of the bookstore and buy
nothing, to saunter the baked white sidewalks,
flat footed, tanned, not glossy with sweat. These
white shoes conjure up the old country: the piazzas,
the chiming of the steeple bells, the rolled up
sleeves of unshaven men playing bocce
in the cool shadow of the church, rough hands
waving black cigars, juice glasses of red wine,
the fig trees' blue shade.
I jingle a pocketful of change to the tempo
of some tune I've made up. But these cheap shoes
have their own tune, quiet
as their soft rubber souls, they move
in only one direction: to their own demise.
The grid of the soles smoothes,
the white of the canvas dulls,
the strength of the stitch collapses.
Months away, with a light snow falling,
I'll slip them on to take out the trash.
Federal Hill, RI
They yelled under the grape vines
whatever they said;
in the evening, in the midst of fig trees,
tomato plants, lettuce,
string beans, cucumbers,
spinach, chicory,
the yellow rose bushes surrounding
the blue Madonna, geraniums, chrysanthemums.
Grandpa rocking far back in his iron chair
smoking fat black cigars,
drinking black red wine pressed
and stored in the damp dirt cellar.
The picnic table covered with plates
of biscotti, rumballs,
spinach pie, doughboys, a wooden
bowl of grapes
green and bitter, blemished
peaches, hard green apples,
Mangia! Mangia! foods I never
had at home -- cakes
made with anisette, with brandy,
ripe figs right from the tree...
the smoke from cigars
and cigarettes burned
my eyes, made me cough and dream
all night: carpaccio, va bene,
prosciuto e fichi, benissimo, ecco --
tossing and wriggling as if
tied to a beam in the dank cellar,
I'd sit up in bed,
bolted to the dark,
while my father's snoring
prowled throughout the house.
Snow
On our way out the door, my 3 year old son says,
"Dad, I have to poop."
After all the work of bundling him up,
"Go ahead," I say.
He sheds his parka, drops his snow pants,
and mounts the high white seat of the toilet.
I unbutton my overcoat, loosen my scarf,
let it hang from my neck, and wait.
Almost immediately he calls from the bathroom:
"Papa, check my bottom."
I lean over the small of his back as he bows
lost in the flurry of my overcoat and scarf.
I wipe his ass again. He hops off the toilet,
pulls up his pants. I flush and see shit
on the fringe of my scarf; disbelieving,
I hold it up to the light:
"There's shit on my scarf!"
He puts on his coat, mittens and hat.
I'm reminded of the young monk Ikkyu
wiping Kaso's shriveled ass with his bare hands,
washing his master's frail body, rinsing
the soiled sheets, wringing them out
day and night till the old man's death.
I think, too, of the stains on my father's bed,
the nurses drawing the curtains to clean him,
his sunken eyes, looking into mine, ashamed.
"It's all right, Dad," I say.
"It's not all right," he says.
My son tromps to the door, flings it open;
a blast of cold air rushes through the house.
I wash the fringe in the sink, tighten
my scarf and raise my collar.
He's making angels in the snow.
Cricket
In the bush outside my window
you say the same thing over and over
with equal enthusiasm. Whatever it is,
I know it's the truth. No one could go on
so relentlessly if it wasn't.
What that truth is doesn't matter, finally,
because of your persistence.
I could hear you saying "cricket -- cricket"
and translate it to, "I am -- I am!"
And just as easily I could hear the chirping:
"Fuck it -- fuck it!" and be equally moved
because I'm here by the window
where the stars are, where the half moon is.
Each morning, turning off the alarm,
stepping from the shower, drying myself,
tying my shoes, packing my bag....
When a car comes you become silent.
Too much noise shuts us both up.
Like you, I disappear all day.
Daybreak
The birds must know night
is nearly over
though morning is still black.
One by one the singing begins.
First it is lonely.
I feel myself stretched out, adrift
on the bed somewhere between
anonymous sleep
and who I think I am.
Then, still dark, others begin
to join in and I imagine
myself among them --
cool, damp grass, the heavy
limbs of the trees bowed down
with new wet leaves,
the song coming from deep
inside the shadows. I'm up
in the high branches
while the treetop bends not
enough to break,
but enough to sway me
back and forth: a slow,
silent metronome. So
gradually
the night sky surrenders
to dawn that the birds become
a full morning's chorus
and I drift again from shore to sleep.
They reach
a crescendo
just as the sun erases all
signs of night,
and it's then
with the light
that they sing less
and less. Their song
is a defiant one after all: a simple
melodic outrage against morning's
rumble and shriek.
Every Flower, Every Leaf
Where three phone wires intersect
against a cloudy sky
a mourning dove sits perched
above the street,
its pale feathers rippled
by sunset's stormy breeze --
a battered blue Buick grumbles
below, the dove
hops from the wire
spreads its wings
and is gone.
A little girl in yellow summer dress,
training wheels
on her pink and white bicycle, stops
at the corner to let a jogger pass.
She watches his chubby red face
drenched in sweat huff by.
From this sudden intrusion
the back wheel is somehow held
aloft by the training wheels
and just spins, faster
and faster, as she pedals -- she looks
down at the silver blur of spokes
then finally gets off, pushes
the bicycle a few feet
then mounts and resumes
her voyage.
Cuts and bruises never stopped a game
of baseball, frozen tag, capture
the flag -- but now, past the middle
of my life, I must make
a conscious effort to sit still, to breathe,
to practice giving
my eyes to every flower, every leaf,
rose, daisy, dandelion, oak,
lily of the valley. I can only smile
as each petal, each leaf
reminds me that, after all these years,
the only thing not me is me.
Cockroach
In a dusty corner near the couch
you lie
legs up, for weeks out of reach
of the vacuum cleaner.
Like the wing with leg and talon
still attached
flattened in the gutter
on 9th St., more
clumps of feathers
scattered
around the park, the squirrel
in the middle
of D St. -- here
in a pile of dust
by the wall, your black
brittle shell
is just one more place
to enter, a small
shrine
to kneel down in
and say a prayer.
In death, you are
like the stone temples
in the Dutch farmland,
a single statue
and room enough
for one person
to escape the rain and wind
and kneel.
My eyes rest on you
as the wine-soaked
conversation drifts away.
It's good to leave
the table through you
and be off
to where the day's gossip
doesn't reach,
where there are no
obligations to confess
sins or goals
to anyone, including
myself. Through you
whatever we were
talking about becomes
a moment
of crows
in the sugarbeet fields
and wild sunflowers
12 feet tall.
Homage to my Father
My father said:
Fuck Father Farrell,
what does he know, that old bastard!
Study all the religions. Learn Italian.
See Venizia, Firenze, talk
to all kinds of people
and never, never think you know more
than someone else! Unless,
unless they're full of shit.
And if they are, tell them;
and if they still don't get it, fuck it,
there's nothing you can do about it.
Learn how to bake bread.
If you can make pasta and bake bread
you can always feed your family,
you can always get a job.
Keep your house clean
and don't worry what anyone else does.
Cut your grass,
prune your fruit trees
or they'll die on you.
Don't drink too much
but don't always be sober --
it makes you nervous.
A couple glasses of wine,
some anisette now and then,
a cigar never hurt nobody.
Nervous people always got an ache here,
an ache there, they get sick,
they die --
Look at Father Farrell:
he'll be dead in a year.
Fuck him!
Sheer Hunger
Some asshole, (I assume
he was an asshole),
threw half a loaf of bread
in the middle of a busy street.
A gang of blackbirds slammed
onto the burning asphalt
jabbing and clawing each other,
talons and beaks stabbing
at the bread.
I drove up at 40 mph
and all at once they exploded
into the air like gushing oil;
all the birds, that is, but one.
This one, so determined
for bread, so set on her path,
whether courageous or plain
stupid, made me swerve
at the very last minute
and swerve again
back to my own side
of the shimmering street.
When I glanced
in the rearview mirror,
that bird hadn't budged.
There she pecked,
all alone, a brick of bread
twice her size.
The Sand In My Shoes
As if walking a beach all day --
the woman who sells stamps
does her own adding
and calls it a dying art.
The man who pours coffee
tells me whom
to vote for
saying he's never voted
for a winner.
The clerk who preens and asks if
I need help
finding a particular
tube of paint points
to the art books on sale
and I leave
with Kandinsky
and Franz Marc.
The woman
who makes burritos tells me
I should try beef for a change
instead of chicken
so I do. The tobacconist
says I should quit smoking
cigarettes
and start smoking cigars.
The mailman tells me
he's tired and needs new shoes.
The building manager feeds the squirrels
and says
hello. And you
my private beach,
so sunny that I forget
all about you in each
of these places until,
with face washed, teeth brushed,
I remove my shirt
smoking one last cigarette
and slip
off my shoes -- there
you are, from the playground
where I sat early this morning
with my son.
You've been with me
all day and well
into the night,
taking in every gesture, every
voice, every footstep
in silence --
and in silence
you give it all back: two
small piles on the floor.
Balzac and the Buddha
I haven't read much Balzac
but I like to say his name.
It's the name I give to the hostess
while waiting in line for a seat.
It delights me to hear over the intercom:
"Balzac, party of three."
When I was in the Buddhist monastery
the Master would shout, "Katz!"
and I would reply, "Balzac!"
He would hit me with his withered stick.
I once knew a dyslexic accountant;
he was often black and blue
and looking for work.
When he went to the Buddhist monastery
and the Master shouted "Katz!"
he punched the Master,
and the Master said, "Balzac."
The cook, overhearing this encounter,
merely muttered, "Rabelais."
That's why he's the cook;
he knows where his belly is.
When I say the word "Buddha,"
my two year old son shoots his finger
straight into the air.
I tell him that someday Balzac
will cut that finger off.
He grins, lifts his bottle
and says, "Juice!"
Before enlightenment there is, it is said,
chopping wood and carrying water.
After enlightenment, it is said,
there is chopping wood and carrying water.
Somewhere in between
is the ferry.
Balzac.
Nola's Banana Nut Bread
Four inches of windblown powder
on a six inch ice-packed base.
I run and slide, run
and slide up the street
in the wiry shadows of creaking trees,
seven blocks skating
streetlight to streetlight
with a loaf of Nola's
banana nut bread tucked
under my arm. The falling
snow looks like minnows
swimming the white light
of the elms. I'd rather be
skating the frozen
snowy canals of Amsterdam
on my way
to a small coffeeshop
off Prinsengracht, a place
where I don't expect to understand
the language, where
I know I won't run into my ex-wife
and her boyfriend,
a place where I can sip
rich coffee, enjoy a chunk
of dark chocolate, smoke
and watch the snow
pile up in the corners
of the windowsill.
Long icicles hang from the rusted
fire escape above
the back door to my building.
The ivy is a mess
of brown string. The cars
parked in the lot
of the Senior Citizen's Home
haven't moved for days, thick
with ice and snow. My home
is as I left it: Sunday paper
spread on Wednesday's floor,
cups, empty beer cans,
sweaters draped on chairbacks.
My coat slumps,
keeled over on the couch
asleep. My wet boots
leave puddles and sand
on the kitchen floor
as I cut a half dozen thin slices
of bread and slide them
into the oven. This is not
a barge, ice-locked
in the city of a thousand bridges,
this is a small apartment
in Lincoln, Nebraska: outside
only the flashing yellow lights
of the sand truck and plow.
Thank you, Nola.
It's too late to phone my son
sound asleep on the far side
of town; it's too soon
to fall in love, too expensive
to go out for a few drinks,
too early to go to bed and
not sleep. It's just right
for hot home-made bread.
A Wall Of Books
Dim and bright brick tight
against brick -- the books
that line the walls
have themselves become
wall. Up close
the dull bindings,
their colors, drained
by sweat, are the cracks
in the mortar
where suddenly day appears:
the dirt street
where an ox roams
into the thicket
and the oxherder
draws him back.
A bird flaps for a clawhold
on a sick man's
windowsill.
Trees leap across meadows
and Busby-Berkelyites kick
heel-toe through town.
White clouds pile up
on jagged peaks. Children
toss handfuls of grass
in each others' face and laugh.
A cuckoo stuttering
most tentatively.
Horseflies in a house
surrounded
by dung -- this
is why their spines have bled:
When flocks swing by
wheeling and turning
I see them. When dawn's blossoms
open their rosy petals
and a woman puts on her lipstick,
I see them. When the temple bells grieve
and the night monkeys chatter
and the cicadas
rattle themselves to death, I hear them.
When an old friend says,
Why not drink
one more glass of wine.
Beyond Yang Pass
there are only strangers.
I don't hesitate.
Green Beans
The joy
comes not from planting
but from having
the sense
to buy five cans for a dollar
this week, four
for a dollar last week
and the week before that --
water, low salt, no fat
a delicacy
when cold and smothered
with vinegar and tarragon.
I have known what it's like
to have Cheerios in ginger ale,
tomato paste soup,
my last few cigarettes
carefully lined up
on the cluttered desk.
The tarragon
makes all the difference
in the late night news.
I know I'm being good
to myself despite
the riots,
shattered windows,
anthrax mail,
and smart bombs.
The half bright moon
and a light stream of traffic.
The taste of malt,
spice oil in the vinegar,
a dash of pepper,
a sprinkle of salt --
of course,
more than just a hint
of garlic.
Cleaning the House
Always to begin again, whatever
the disaster
of crumbs, the litter
of napkins, coffee cups,
bottle caps, junk
mail I always
intend to read but never do.
Where was I
while all these
books piled up? The empty
juice bottle a whole week
on my desk,
the burned-out light bulb
in the fruit bowl --
things
I don't even see until
I start throwing them out.
Washing
the floor, vacuuming the rug
for the rest of my life.
Sooner or later
I'm always on my knees
with steel wool.
And just as often
as I walk the vacuum cleaner
back and forth
across the rug
and the street sand rattles
its way into the bag
I wish
all my messes could
vanish
as easily.
Learning To Shave
I drew the blade this
way and that, rinsed
with cold
water, scratched
my skin dry
with a coarse
towel, stiff
from the clothesline.
Aqua Velva
splashed to the palm
of one hand, rubbed
into both, slapped against the face;
the styptic pencil,
and when that
failed to stop the bleeding
swatches of toilet paper
dotted chin and neck
while I ate Sugar Pops, slurped
coffee, scanned
the morning paper
before charging out the door
with school books
and bag lunch.
A friend of my mother's,
another widow -- Annette,
smoked menthol
cigarettes, wore long silk bathrobes
and high-heeled slippers
with feather puffs on the toes --
came to spend a week with us.
Bright red nails, cigarette butts
red with lipstick.
One morning she passed the bathroom
while I was shaving, folded
her arms and leaned
against the doorjamb, smoking.
She said, I used to watch my husband
shave every morning.
She looked at me in the mirror,
at my shoulders, at my back
as I stood there
in white T-shirt, gray
school pants, lather
covering my face and neck.
You're doing it all wrong, she said.
Pull up on the razor
when you do your neck.
Pull down like this
when you do your face.
She exhaled smoke
through her nose
and walked away.
The smell of her
perfume, the sound of her silk
robe against the bannister,
the click
of her high heels
on the bare steps
made me tremble.
Bicycle
Locked to the fence, the chain links
overgrown with ivy, the handle bars,
seat, front fork, spokes, tires, all
in a snare of green leaves and blue buds.
Tires soft, almost flat. Rust forming
where the frame's chipped and scarred.
Even the lock, caked with orange, seems
impossible to undo. Each day as I pass you
locked in the grip of the dense vines,
I miss the banking and turning, following
the wind one moment, fighting it the next,
keeping an eye on the clouds, planning
where to lock you in case of rain.
The breeze lifts the Morning Glories
from your blue metallic frame. Small
consolation, this retirement
among the sprawling leafy vines
and abundant blossoms. You've become
a trellis: no longer a moving thing,
but a thing moved upon.
The Moments Noticed
Even with the keys in my hand
as soon as I close the door
I wonder if I've locked myself out.
Heat-waves on the black-top parking lot.
One old gray Buick
and a squirrel underneath eating french fries.
A swarm of blackbirds
in the State House trees --
my boot heels sink into morning's mud.
Tiny weed patch
in the middle of the asphalt parking lot --
one cricket's island.
Opening the door, the curtains
reach out and greet me
like a pair of angels.
Rice, beans, pickles-
big sink,
one dish.
The TV on, the sound off --
a face to look at
when I look up.
One long hair in the sink --
a G clef
gone gray.
Books lined up beside the bed --
tonight
the titles are enough.
Spider Night
After weeks of torrid heat, finally
a cool and starry night --
cricket and cicada jazz, just right
to spread my sleeping bag on the deck
and fall asleep, ears asway
to the bluesy ballad of a box elder breeze.
Little did I know what a Gulliver
I would become. My body,
tied down by sleep's dull thrum,
while a world I rarely see
worked its way all night with me.
The lumps are there; spiders
sucking from cocktail straws
my blood
until they could suck no more.
Such is the way of insects,
animals, all of us: hunger,
thirst -- a pure and simple twitch.
I have done my part for them
and they have done their part for me:
itinerant clergy, planting their sermons
into my swollen flesh to remind me,
when the stars are out
and the night is cool,
and my house too much a house,
just who and what,
while asleep, I am.
Homage to Joseph, The Father
Ever notice how it's never the father
who shows promise, it's always the son?
Take Joseph, for example. No way, and
the critics agree, no way this chump
could've been the father of the Savior.
He was a caretaker, for Chrissake, a simple
carpenter sharpening his tools, paying
his taxes, keeping his family clothed
and fed. God Almighty is the real father,
not the shmuck whose tunic stinks with sweat
after a long day in the shop, the schlemiel
with calluses forming on calluses.
It's a big joke, on earth as it is in heaven,
Joseph the patsy, putting up with a wife
whose attention goes entirely to her son,
and the son who has trouble remembering
the difference between a lathe and an adz.
I played Joseph in the Christmas play
when I was in the 2nd grade. I stood there
in a brown smock with a hammer in one hand
and a saw in the other, the fuzzy black beard
slipping from my sweaty face. I had no lines.
The Wise men had lines. The shepherds
had lines. The drummer boy had lines.
Even the stable boy had lines. Mary,
of course, had a whole shitload of lines.
But I, Joseph, had no lines. Meanwhile,
Mary's done all right for herself --
statues galore and apparitions aplenty.
She never even died, she ascended.
And the son, well, he's been translated
into every language in the world; icons
of every kind: kneeling, praying, preaching,
on the cross, off the cross, just his head,
just his hands, sometimes just his heart
with a crown of thorns wrapped around it.
Well, just for the record, let me be the first
to announce: "I saw St. Joseph! He had
splinters in his hands and feet. Sawdust
in his beard, a ring of sweat around his neck,
and god! he smelled like a mule. But,
when I asked him for a cigarette, he gave me one.
And when I asked him what he was drinking,
he ordered a double-bourbon, just for me.
Pistachio Nuts
There are those with mouths
wide open, ready
to be taken.
Those with a sideways grin
who require some
prodding.
But every one will be consumed
sooner or later, even those
clamped shut,
shell and all popped
into the mouth
to savor the salt,
to soften the shell,
to bite gently
to the cracking point
where it's tooth
or pistachio -- suddenly
soft, the break,
the taste!
the time it took
never happened.
Losing My Voice
You know when the lid slams shut?
You know when the stone ball drops
from the brain down through the body
to the soles of the feet? You know
the thud it makes? You know how
the throat feels tight and the stomach
swells, and the eyes ache even though
it's dark out? You know how your foot
taps without you and you crave things
that can kill you? Always it's 3 A.M.
no matter what time of day, and
you keep telling yourself, It's okay,
it's okay. You know how one morning
you realize you're not getting old,
you already are. And for that one
brief moment there's no joy
in the Gingko tree, no red
in the Japanese Maple,
and your walking stick is turning
into a hand-worn cane. You know
how you don't care how you look
at the supermarket? You don't care
if the car's dirty? Bottles, cans, bones:
it's all trash anyway. You know
when you're broke and the credit card
companies tack late fees on your bill?
What can you say? So many voices
already and so few matter, why listen
to my own? Why should my magnolias
matter, because they're mine? Why
should midnight with January snow
under the blue-white pine trees matter?
Because I see it? Or because it is seen
and has always been seen by the Greek
soldier. the Chinese hermit, the Italian
shepherd, the camel jockey, the pipe fitter,
the stone cutter, the foundry worker,
the electrician, the shoe salesman -- all
of them on their way somewhere, even
the milkman with his hobby: a prize pig.
The breakfast special that everyone
can afford: how does it come to matter
so much? And then not at all?
When I had a voice I listened to it
like a total stranger. He kept me up
nights, too many nights perhaps, but
he took me out to interesting places.
We lived in France, Holland, England;
we lived as mountain monks above
the clouds in California. We shoveled
summer snow, went days without sleep.
We discussed life from the point of view
of the dead, and death from the point of view
of the insatiable, the reckless, the joyous.
How does it happen that silence
is the better voice? The spruce trees make
no sound, nor does the blue jay when it
sings to itself. Where are the odes to shoes
and socks, fish and eggplant, thread,
hands, tomatoes, atoms, rocks, artichokes,
bocce and old wine fresh beneath the cork?
They're here, all right, in the trashcan
where the head bows and these old
shoulders push up hard against the tin lid
and nothing happens
again.
Walking in Winter
for Tim Skeen
Midwestern wind is sneaky.
It leans against your back
with a gentle nudge going south,
then it strips your face to tears
tromping north towards home.
Like everything else that throws on clothes
and heads out the door,
there's a price to pay for walking away.
Another price to pay for walking home.
And walk we did: collars raised,
gloved hands and covered heads
for the sake of putting one foot in front
of the other, a sign: we're not done yet.
We covered miles -- frigid twigs, frozen
bird baths, frosted leaves, icicles
3 feet long dripping from the 4th floor
of the Haymarket seed factory
"could kill somebody" you said.
We'd already seen what cancer
and a policeman's bullet
could do to a family, a walk
against a hammering wind
was a history exam we already
knew all the answers to.
But did we know, could we possibly
know how many pairs of shoes would pass
between us and the pavement?
Worn out soles stacked in our closets,
how we refuse to throw the lifeless
fish back into the sea.
And how many still? Each day
when I walk, I say to myself
what I've always said.
Every man needs a brother;
every walk deserves another.
Elegy for a Book of Poems
for "Kentucky Swami"
"You're right, the mill never missed
your paycheck. Thirty years
and never a mistake.
You're a simple man, as you say."
-- Tim Skeen
Laid to rest: the years in hours; daily
a long walk
to a blank page and bowing
at his desk like a monk
as words appear
and disappear into the union line,
the steel mill, the strut
of an MP in a country not his.
It's over.
The hours
he chiseled into moments
are sealed in poems like dreams,
like dreams the blue jay,
the cat's tail, the strangers
playing baseball,
the raccoon stiff
on its side by the highway.
His daughter
will become her mother
and him, and be herself.
This book has made it so.
And now what's said about the swami
is what's said about the dead.
The Greeks called it "kleos."
In this way
they rivaled the gods.
The Vulture
We hate the vulture because he preys upon the dead.
We have this thing about the dead:
flowers which live and die, we give to the dead;
a casket to preserve the body we give to the dead;
someone makes money, people feel better;
a headstone, a gardener we give to the dead.
We don't like the idea of eating the defeated.
We loathe the idea of our bones picked clean
bleached white and made brittle by the sun.
But in the Himalayas, the vultures are the reincarnations
of Buddhists monks. The people revere the vulture
because it does not kill in order to survive.
The eyes of the vulture and the eyes of the monk
sitting on top of a mountain for 30 years and more
are no different -- they settle on the complete stillness
of the shrubs and flowers, the sand and snow
the fields where the yaks feed, the sheep graze.
The wings of the vulture are as strong as any eagle's.
But while the eagle scopes out its prey, spies
the rabbit eating clover, circles, then plummets
filled with ambition and determination, the vulture
practices patience, lifted by the heat waves,
by the shifting winds -- stillness will come;
stillness always comes. We hate the vulture.
We bury the bones and pick our memories clean.
With the body buried we can re-create the body
in whatever image, whatever likeness we want.
We make everything right, as it should've been,
with flowers, with candles, with a fine coffin
that neither time nor nature can erode.
We think we have had the last say. The dead
bury the dead. But the vulture -- like the monk,
like the gravedigger -- does not discriminate.
It's nothing personal.
My Skull
Finally, dear skull, your appearance
delights me. For so long
I've known you were coming.
I saw it in my father and uncles,
I caught glimpses so soon
after puberty, that while a long
and thick mop of hair hung
below my shoulders there was
what seemed a constant breeze,
a headwind pushing the hair away
from my forehead, back, always back.
And with the sun blazing
through the thinning strands, you,
dear skull, blazed back.
It's gotten so that I wouldn't
recognize myself with too much hair,
nor do I think I would like who I saw:
that man, with a mouth of big teeth,
the face of a giant ant, and those eyes...
those eyes I've seen in photographs
when I was looking elsewhere --
the eyes of a blackbird, a scavenger
groveling and pecking, flying away
at the slightest noise. Silent cranium,
passing through it all: the odd jobs,
the inclement weather, the few hands
that have tousled my hair and rubbed
you, dear skull, the monk in me,
patiently making your way
to the clear sky
to bow.
The Genius
It's as though
his head
were cut off
but his will
to live
made a face
of his neck;
so it looks
like he has
no neck,
when really
he has no head
The Things They Keep
The ugly, and less ugly paintings;
bone-dry books held for 30, 40 years.
Not the favorite sweaters, threadbare,
stretched; most comfortable shoes, shirts;
no one wants the slippers and robe,
the winter hat, the parched leather gloves.
The eyeglasses are worthless, the razor
and toothbrush. The favorite towel, good
for washing the car, for drying the lawn-
chairs after a sunshower. Give away
the pants and suits, throw out the socks
the underwear, the neckties, the hand-
kerchiefs, the sweat-weathered wallets kept
in the top drawer with the dead watches,
the cufflinks, the tie clips, tie tacks.
Who wants the ball of string, the tool box?
What once was held knew its worth
by the hands that held it. Now the black
umbrella sticks out of the trash a wilted
stalk. The suitcase that crossed continents
waits on the sidewalk for the dumptruck.
As they go, their things go too: who,
a week later, a month, a year, thinks
long about the dead? A pain now and then
like an old injury before the rain falls --
sudden, brief, a sharp reminder. Then
the news comes: It's time to put your things
in order. Beyond a generation or two,
nothing you can hold in your hands will last.
All that was s aid, all that was done --
this alone they keep.
Homage to Issa
It rains.
So it rains.
I wait beneath a tree
and the tree is just an Ash.
Cicadas and crickets?
They are only cicadas and crickets.
The river is just a river,
night is simply dark,
the stars are simply stars.
Granted, sometimes the leaves seem more
than leaves -- the heron shriek,
the owl hoot --
but the moon is just the moon.
A bonfire burns in the valley, the snow falls
and neither
are heaven or hell.
My bed is a bed,
not a grave.
My hands are just hands,
not wings.
My shoes are shoes
and I'm not Achilles.
Issa says: "Frog and I, eyeball to eyeball."
That's good enough for me.
Till Death Do Us Part
for Marly
One funeral after another
creates an odor that
lingers in the nostrils,
a perfume
that conjures up
an unforgiving silence
that makes even the breath
stop until a long sigh starts it up again.
"I love you" means
I love myself too much
to do nothing, too much not
to make myself part
of the larger picture that
seats me beside her
at the dining room table,
that places me
before a sink full of dishes,
that has me checking
the refrigerator and cupboards
while making the grocery list,
that puts me on my knees
pulling weeds from the garden,
standing in a daze
watering the lawn. We
glance at one another
in the mirror: me, brushing
my teeth; she, soaking
her contact lenses. Time
has not stopped for this
belly of mine nor
for the gray and white strands
that streak her long brown hair.
The daily routines have slowed
the passage of years not
by weeks or months but by
knowing what wine to buy
for dinner, what dessert
we both enjoy, what movies
we want to rent, what vitamins
we need, what route is best
for a slow walk after dinner;
by knowing, night after night
on what side of the bed
to lie -- to be so close
to someone that her scent
overpowers the candles,
the incense and flowers
on the altar. And sleep,
when it comes,
comes easily,
and is deep.
The Hands
At night, the hands
come to the face
and push it together again.
The hands know the terrain,
have always known
how day disfigures the face.
The fingers push the layers,
rub and spread the skin around,
find their place
closest to the skull.
Skin and bones of my spirit,
crawl space, temple, cave,
waiting room and cathedral
for many other spirits, at night
the hands come to the face
and push it together again.
***
It's the cold
that puts one hand
inside the other,
like prayer.
The trains go by,
the cold stays.
It's the cold
that puts one hand
inside the other,
as in waiting
for a train, as in waiting,
waiting,
one hand
for the other.
***
The cold pushes
the blood aside
howls
through veins
to heart, from heart
throughout the limbs.
Hands and feet
frantic for heat;
old hands reaching
from the dark
to the flames.
***
It's been a long time
since this warm wind,
sun glare, a trace
of old snow, the squirrel
on the fence holding on,
the swirling gutter trash
and cackling leaves.
I walk, at last, my hands
unfisted
in my pockets.
Homage to Kanzan
Again winter is only moons away.
Already sounds of night gone south.
In this house, when wine is drunk
it's bound to be spilled.
The moon is in the glass. When I lift it,
my shadow and me get this dance going.
After 3 or 4 glasses,
who needs glasses?
Heaven Now or Never
Above me
a leaf
of warm dust
falling
from the heat vent
plays a Hendrix solo
plucking, pulling and
bending the air
till it bows, rocks
then rests on the floor.
Cigarette smoke
curling from an ashtray
in Paris
25 years before
makes my tired
eyes tear.
A man in my twenties
walks all night,
so many nights too late
for the last subway.
He raises his collar
against the cold and clutches his throat.
Dead leaves shuffle
like a brush on a high hat,
every step a crisp snap,
every footfall a drum kick.
Twenty years until
he gets here.
Wind chimes
clang the green wood
of a porch among trees
where a bird the size,
shape and color
of a pine cone
suddenly bursts
into flight, a blur.
A Drop in the Temperature
Gray sky and earth
getting hard. Squirrels
burrowing through the piles
of brown and blackened
leaves. Blue jays crying
like the rusted pulley
of the clothesline
as my mother reels in
the damp clothes
before it snows.
An iron gray branch
claws at the roof
while winds tumble
down from the north. My jaw
hangs slack.
The same at 47 as I was
before I could count:
gazing at the stiff lawn,
listening
to the blue jays, a little boy
in mittens, flannel-lined
pants, a jacket too big
with a hood that looks
forward even though
I turn my head.
The neighborhood
is silent
the way someone
who knows something
doesn't say.
My mother asks me
to help her sort
and fold the laundry,
but I don't want to.
I want to stay outside.
I don't need to be
a soldier, a cowboy
or a knight in armor.
I pick up a branch
that's neither a gun
nor a sword. Now,
and so many times
since then, my eyes settle
on a twig, a stone,
a swatch of grass and I can't
look away. My mother
goes inside and slams
the warped door shut.
Homage to Ryokan
I drink my fill.
The clouds grip their purple,
the mountains let go their thunder.
I sit and drink my fill.
How much I long to see
through the man
who sees through the moment.
I sit.
Easter Sunday Morning
Wind strong enough to make the warped windows whistle,
to make one of my paintings crash to the floor, pop
its nails, split its wooden frame. And then the quick
patter of my little boy's bare feet,
he shivers as he climbs in bed beside me:
"Let's make a Daddy sandwich."
My sweet mouse of a wife rests her thin head on my chest,
her frail paws curled under her chin.
Her black hair, her white, flannel nightgown,
frayed at the neck, tickles me.
"Pat the Daddy," he says. They both stroke the stubble
on my cheeks and chin. I have risen, wide awake,
with the two I love the most beside me, we are a minor
trinity, but a trinity nevertheless. The venetian blinds rattle
and wheeze. The sky rumbles far to the west,
and rain, one small stone at a time, pelts the house.
My wife says, "Think of all those bonnets..." yes,
and the pink, the white, the powder-blue dresses,
the patent leather shoes and purses, the blue blazers,
the seersucker suits, straw hats, black loafers
and white bucks whacked by the sweat of sudden thunder.
I remember getting a severe headache -- 15, maybe
16 years old -- Easter morning spat on my new suit;
It was a "double-moment" -- so angry, and angry
at being angry. I already knew the priest was a fool,
adorning himself as he did in gold and crimson robes,
gaudy rings like a frocked Liberace, but I was just as vain.
My head hammered itself from the inside:
why should I love this suit so much?
Why should I care what Sharon McMahon is wearing this morning?
Sister Mary Jude, the biology teacher, had explained
that probably they didn't put the nails in his palms
because his hands would've just ripped;
most likely, she said, they nailed his wrists
so the bones could hang on the cross over night.
This stayed with me -- I studied my wrists.
Blood on my suit. Blood from the crown of thorns
dripping into my eyes. Held there by bones.
40 days of Friday fish sticks, beans without franks,
pizza without pepperoni, stew with no beef,
and the hairy incense, the wet heat, the stations
of the cross every day, the widows in black; for what?
An oversized charcoal gray suit to grow into,
chocolate bunnies, marshmallow chickens,
Sharon McMahon's black shoes and pink dress?
40 days and 40 nights in the desert:
stone to bread? No. Ultimate power? No.
Faith in the Father? No. "Thou shalt not tempt
the Lord thy God any longer."
Hotel Gethsemane, silver coins and the cock's crow?
To hell and back, rounding out the characters,
the fine details, getting the story straight -- for this?
The stone's long been rolled away:
Gate gate paragate parasamgate
bodhi svahaa --
gone,
gone to the other shore
to the other shore and landed,
landed: Svahaa!
This morning there's an altar boy
on his knees at church and he knows the death
and resurrection forwards and backwards.
But he's confused. He counts: killed Friday night,
buried on Saturday, alive on Sunday.
In Blockbuster hours that's not the Third Day.
Hands grip their hats in the rain, men and women
run with lowered heads up the steps, children
unnaturally starched and plaited squirm and giggle.
I lie in bed, my arms outstretched, holding them both.
My son smells of sleep, his kisses I gladly inhale.
My wife lies across me like a fallen tree; I sigh, still
tired from too much praying in the yard the night before.
The birds are singing despite the rain, the wind,
and the distant bells of St. Matthew's.
Liturgy
for Scott
"They have yet to enter bliss,
but they rise up, eager and a little shocked
to find their bodies capable of this."
-- Scott Cairns
Removing myself
from a busy street
to a doorway,
or from an open field
to heavy limbs overhead --
standing still and not
wanting it to stop, wanting instead
to remain inside
the downpour's hum.
In the small space
of a stranger's doorway,
or among the dry needles
beneath the pine boughs,
sometimes under a stone bridge
or on the stoop of a creaking porch;
sometimes just sitting by an open window,
or pausing at the front door
before leaving, I submit
to this prayer,
the chapel:
the rain.
Becoming a Buddha
Suddenly one morning I woke up and I had ass-belly!
That's when a man's ass decides its had enough,
leaves his bottom, moves to his front and settles on his belly.
After 40 or so years of reasonable comfort, the tired ass
leaves it up to the bones: "You do it, let him sit on you
for a change." And the poor bones don't have a choice.
"Okay, ass," they say, "Be like that. You think you've
had it bad! We're the last to go; we're the last to know
the bastard's gone."
I sit here with arms folded over my newly relocated ass,
and I finally understand the Buddha's big belly:
it takes this long to slow down and sit in the middle
of the highway in rush hour, where traffic is a pin-drop
of sound, a solid brick of motion and there's no need,
no desire to step on the gas and weave on through.
It takes this long to be reminded that soon enough
it will be time to return this rented body to the dealer.
Now I have the Buddha's drooping ears to look forward to:
old man ears, sacred elephant ears. Already my ears
are filling with hair. This is the forest where the Buddha sat.
It happens, with enough time and in the right season,
that hearing hears itself.
Then the earlobes become huge.
Jerusalem Slim
Tall, paunched,
a bright beam
of baldness
on the back of his skull;
his beard is fat
like a steel-wool sheep.
His forehead sparks
with sweat.
Walk faster
when the leaves fall
and the ground freezes,
he says. Slow down
when the sidewalk
sizzles, wear a hat --
it keeps you cool.
Leaving and
arriving, what does it matter?
One foot after another
makes its own sense.
Love your feet,
care for them as you would
the small, delicate
feet of a child. Soak them,
rub them , let them
feel the air. No matter
how thin the sleeves
of your coat, warm shoes
will keep you warm
all winter. Snow flurries,
sun showers... leave
the flowers intact. Love
them, love your feet
and the rest
will take care of itself.
Elegy for Laura
My student, 22, killed by a drunk driver
"Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover."
-- Theodore Roethke
I've never hugged a horse, never
thrown my arms around the neck of a Guernsey
out of sheer joy exclaiming, "We did it, we did it!"
I've never sheered sheep, never shoveled straw from a stall,
never fixed a broken wing, bottle-fed a goat or pig,
never witnessed the birth of a litter.
When I rode my bike home from school
I didn't part rows of corn; farmers didn't wave.
I didn't play softball, soccer or volleyball for the church,
and our pastor never ate dinner with us.
These were the photographs in the vestibule
of the church -- from her beginning -- a wall curving
with birthdays, championships, prom nights,
buffed teenage boys in swim trunks, bangled
girlfriends being goofy with big teeth and red lips
posing as Madonnas of the Great Plains.
July 17, 1976 you were entering the world hungry,
scowling at the noise and lights, the cold; I was just
hungry, out of college, travelling discount Amtrak
from East Coast to somewhere West. I zapped past
Friend, Nebraska the week they brought you home,
and 22 years later, Andrews Hall, English 180,
we discussed Oedipus, The King --
"But he didn't do anything wrong," you insisted.
"He was a good father, a good husband, a good ruler.
He didn't have to show up in the first place.
He wanted to save his people like he did with the Sphinx.
It was all his father's fault, right? That's why it's a tragedy:
Right? Oedipus was innocent."
After class you smiled, "Can I hand my paper in early?"
I said, "Of course, why?"
And you told me your plans for Spring break:
skiing in the Rockies, staying in a cabin,
sorority sisters, guys... you grinned, "Do you want to come?"
And for a brief but ecstatic moment I was 22 again,
wide-eyed, rumbling on a train through Nebraska weighing
my choices, like you, a whole life still to be lived.
I smiled, thinking, ah, if I was 20 years younger....
Beyond the wall of Blue and Gold ribbons,
the family portraits, the guest book, I was shocked
to see you in your coffin shoved against the white
veiled wall lying so small, so tight, so done with.
I heard myself speak your name aloud -- Oh, Laura.
Struck dumb I took a seat by the window: drizzle,
thin black trees white with ice, fields of cracked rust,
packed benches creaking from tears and fatigue.
The road was slick that night.
The man blind with booze, a police record, a cop
on his tail, ran the light and took yours: immediate
darkness. Oh Laura, this is not you.
You were a good daughter, a good sister...
you were just out with your family,
you were just on your way home...
the light was green, Laura,
you didn't do anything wrong.
Where Distance Goes
Wind out there, along
with everything else; and me
without arms and legs, eyes, ears,
nose, tongue, everything
except the limbless space
between here
and where I sometimes forget
the geese, the blue jays,
finches, leaves released
from one season
crunching into the next.
And so it happens
when the eyes spot
the blue jay, and the ears
hear the geese honk
and the nose smells
chimney smoke
the shell drops away --
all the baggage,
pairs of shoes, hats,
jackets, lies
I'll never need again.
"We interrupt this program..."
for Marly
She never thinks
sudden death
on the highway
by a stranger's mistake:
a blown tire,
a sudden sleep,
and she on her way home
with groceries singing
to the rock & roll radio.
Old age has white hair,
all her wits about her,
a decent figure, a sense
of fashion. She's stable
on her feet, still cares
about new movies
and novels, old news and loves
to eat pizza.
Chartreuse, magenta,
lime, Hansa yellow,
purple, turquoise,
orange, cadmium red:
her favorite room of leafy
vines and well fed
blossoms, stained
glass mobiles, a forest
beyond the window.
She never thinks
colostomy bag, tubes
in her throat and nose,
a ghost at her feet
with a beckoning bony,
black finger.
The physician never stands
before her
with a sheet
of bad test scores
stiff in his gloved white hands.
For her there's no blackout,
no ball of fire
rolling uptown
at 100 mph, a hundred
torches per second;
there is no siren
slicing the day
into a salad of glass,
steel and bricks.
She's a champion
of sleep, knows
how the limbs must
line up in perfect
angles, her feet
on mine, her ass
against my belly, she snores
like the air beneath
a small bird's wing
and laughs in her sleep --
Sunday's child
on a playground swing.
She never thought
she'd be lost
when I thought
I might lose her
to an airliner
determined to crash.
When I shouted
"Oh my god!"
at the TV set,
-- the Pentagon's
gray, black smoke-
and her, only
a 5 minute walk
from the White House,
she didn't think,
like I did,
that I might never
hold her again.
Every morning
with pitcher in hand
she pays homage
to the morning glories
and takes out the dog
in her sleep-thinned
purple cotton nightgown.
The woodpeckers
on the house catch hell!
"Go away woodpecker!"
she shouts, throws
her fist at the air.
"Go away!
Go find a tree! You
stupid woodpecker!"
There's shopping to do:
a sale at Pier One, sushi
at Osaka's, fresh basil
and mozzarella at Shnucks,
a case of Pinot Noir
from the Wine Cellar.
There's books and biscotti
from Barnes & Noble,
the New York Times
and Vanity Fair
on the back deck
where the trees sweep
the heat from her face,
bare shoulders
and knees.
In bed at last:
I dream
of sand stealing
her breath,
of bearded stones
breaking her face,
blinding her.
I wake up crawling
from a pitch black rubble
of steel, buckled and spent.
She purrs and puffs
while I lie awake,
my hand
on her belly
with the news
of the day.
Morning Meditation
Almost like sleep, but safer, since
there is no falling or rising.
To be there without being in any place;
without arriving, without plans to leave.
The trees don't know the season.
The pond doesn't know it's wet.
The sky rests on the grass and stones,
goes and remains.
The bells don't hear themselves.
The breeze doesn't make itself shiver.
The needle doesn't stick itself.
The cat doesn't preen before the mirror.
The tongue doesn't lick itself.
The rose doesn't swoon.
The eyes light on nothing
and are lost to themselves --
he doesn't know
he's not thinking.
You Can Stay, You Can Go
Here among pack dogs
and pine trees, it's possible
to become rock and banyon,
bark and patter of coyote.
You can stay, you can go.
Knee-cracking zazen,
4 months of mountain summer,
snow, ice, a flood of sunlight
and mud.
You can stay, you can go.
The clouds below the mountain
are a walkway to LA --
a bowl of steel wool.
You can stay, you can go.
Monk foot: when the dried
soles look like street maps
cut by a razor.
You can stay, you can go.
Monk dick: pissing
in a bucket of stars
at 3 in the morning.
You can stay, you can go.
Every asshole
is your master.
Can you eat bitter?
You can stay, you can go.
Some pass through the needle,
some hear the pebble hit bamboo,
some lift a flower and grin,
some lift a glass and laugh.
You can stay, you can go.
When everyone's a Thou,
thus are thee -- to bow
means to bend the body.
You can stay, you can go.
The Ones Who Stay
Young Shakyamuni would've been a dead-beat dad
if he hadn't come from a rich family -- wife and son
provided for within the walls, without the trash,
while he was out sitting under a tree in the forest
being fed a berry at a time by passing birds
6 years or so; then came the goat cheese.
The ones who stay may not know the Bodhi tree,
but they learn the alchemy of credit, the strategies
of insurance policies, unemployment, accidental death.
If only he could sit in the tree top
outside his window and prune the dead
branches from last Spring's winter storm
he might fly, he might pass through rocks
and stone walls, be 5 places at once,
comfortable and saintly in each.
Pack the lunch, fold the laundry,
help with the homework, read aloud
the veins of the chipped ceiling, sleep.
The morning monk with the wake-up bell
is older by centuries
than old Shakyamuni himself.
(The title of the next poem is name of the ordination ceremony of
zen monks. "Tokudo" means "To grasp the wisdom of the enlightened."
"Shiki" means "Ceremony." "Seido" is the name I was given at my
ordination. It means, roughly, "one who makes the Way his home,
like a bird nesting.")
Tokudo Shiki
In the eyes of a squirrel
and the flash of its tail.
In a bone-white tree trunk
and the wind that's worn it away.
In the brush of the fly's wings
sweeping the dust from his ears.
Seido makes his home.
In the teats of an old street bitch
scraping the sidewalk.
In the Blue jay collecting rent
with its sharecropper song.
In the mosquito concerto
taking his blood for a ride.
In the trees turning in a huff
and slamming their doors.
In the outstretched wings of a hawk --
the black wink of a blue eye.
In the shadow he feeds to the rocks
one footstep at a time.
Seido makes his home.
In the thick sap of a pinecone
slapping his black sleeve as he passes.
In the moon bright trunks and rocks
guiding him to his door.
In the mouse he catches with light,
opening the cupboard, hungry.
I Was Going to Write You a Letter
for William Corbett
"...broad lines brushed
quick, broken excitedly,
form and the need to have
it over with now..."
Dear Bill,
Late pacing, son sleeping, wife upstairs.
Eddie Jefferson on the stereo, a blank
canvas on an old easel. Pacing, pausing
to stare at old paintings on the wall, so
much paint -- "Your surfaces are like frosting,
I want to stick my finger in it and lick --"
someone once said to me, Peru, Nebraska,
1997, sins on the wall, rock hard
and as jagged and unforgiving as slipping
on a shale mountain trail.
Finished a Nebraska landscape last week
after months of staring.
Brad says, "I always know when you're
depressed, you paint landscapes."
I just needed to paint the highway
the way it looked when I drove my son
back and forth every other weekend 2 hrs.
each way. He was so small...
once a storm so bad we had to pull off
to the breakdown lane, the sky green,
the rain like rocks and my son said,
"I'm scared, I'm going to sleep."
And now so long and slim with a slight mustache,
"The Thwacker" walking barefoot
everywhere in the house strapped
to his bass guitar and thwacking
bass lines everywhere
but the bathroom where he thunders.
I confess: I like that Homer Simpson.
I like when Bart says,
"Dad, Don't kill me!"
I like to see Homer grab Bart by the throat
and shake him back and forth.
My son has started to call me
"Homer" for all the right reasons.
Not because I give lectures on
The Iliad and The Odyssey,
but because I grab him by the throat
and throttle him. Thank god,
someone to strangle with love
and make laugh. "The Thwacker"
soundtrack -- bump, bump-bump, bump,
ba-ba-bump, ba bump,
bump bump, bump, ba-bump --
that follows me everywhere.
Greece on the horizon,
Italy & Turkey.
Buying socks, traveling
pants, film and books.
To set foot on such soil,
to sail among the islands,
goddamn! How can you not
worry about dying?
"...before
a journey one is calm, but suspects
that the wise don't travel and that
the pleasure of returning is a costly one."
-- Montale
I said to my students, "Please contemplate
this: the poem Beowulf is essentially a life
affirming poem and yet the ending is grim.
So what's so good about life?"
Gilgamesh can keep one up at night
pacing in the basement, filling the glass.
"The one whose spirit has no one left
alive to love him: have you seen him?"
"I have. The leftovers of the pot, the scraps
of bread thrown into the gutter,
what no dog will eat he eats"
-- Gardner: Sin-Leqi-Unninni Version.
We have known the joys
that make dying so sad.
Achilles knew nothing
lasts forever, especially
himself -- he made even the river
sick with bodies;
he would have preferred to live
long anonymously
but by then it was too late.
Odysseus tried to flatter
his late, great reign among the dead
and got nowhere.
I never watch the news anymore
except for the weather.
Like hammering a spike into a stump
and running around it in circles.
I never complain about the weather
the way some people do.
There was once an old man
who loved the rain so much
that whenever it poured he
immediately sat down
and folded his legs.
They called him "Rain Master."
What could be better
than watching the rain
wash the world?
"And today Harvey, calm,
steady-as-you-go Harvey has
the final address we all get."
A cardinal flew
beside my car today
the window open,
the bright red blur
at arm's length
then gone.
Moment to moment,
the last thing
I'll ever see
is what I see.
Love to you and Beverly,
Life Insurance
All my life I've been remiss
when old
age will caress
with claws
this body, no place
to put it
down and go
quietly
to what's
next: hard
cash has to be
paid by someone
who loves me enough
to put me -- what
I've collected and made
a way to be
remembered -- away.
A wake at least
as long as what is worth
the time to say,
"Glad
to have had the chance."
Please,
take care of me,
old friends -- this body --
when ready or not
I die and won't
be able, on my own, to
put aside what was.
It must...
must be you
I thank, no one
else.
Gilgamesh In Translation
From Occident to Orient, elsewhere
and never twice the same
footsteps, handshakes, doors
closing and opening windows
and their seasons never summer
back to spring but always winter
after the fall and before the birth
of fresh air, the redemption
the new leaves bring forth
a scented breeze to what was
once closed, once again open
the windows.
The young build the barrows
and send the dead sailing,
pick up the helmet and shield,
the sword and the slack:
to live means to act
if for no other reason
than for what must be loved
and said.
The Night Before The Doctor
In 5 minutes I can tell you 5 years of my body's life:
I've been sad ever since I could...
my lungs, liver, kidneys, have paid the ransom
even though once, not long ago, I rowed hard,
ran fast and far, threw stones in the Atlantic-
the lungs are smoked, the liver soaked, the gnarled
intestines a wreck and all because I've been,
ever since I could remember, losing a hat
or glove, sock or set of keys, father, mother even sister
so just had to stop
build a mead hall, stoke the fires,
sing to Grendel, with bare hands rip his chest open.
So the prophet spoke: You will lose the use of your right
arm sooner or later, a knife to your spine. The Lord said
not to row, not to lift, not to ride a bike with low handlebars.
Don't run, you'll crumble. Don't lift boulders, you'll stumble
and wind up in the beer garden, blowing smoke at the stars
and moon while the trees whack one another senseless.
Standing still, leaning long enough for the crickets and the birds
to return and feel at home. The flies find me --
finally --
5 minutes alone.
Reed Wall
"Six days and seven nights I wept for him
until a worm fell from his nose."
-- Gilgamesh
The flies circle Django my ancient Shitsu
panting in the high grass
the last of his days.
A monk once said: Spring comes
and the grass grows
by itself.
The Ark finds land and settles
into old age, fleas
and flies on shit.
Then comes the diagnosis,
the highrise of intravenous
and bed pans.
Utnapishtim said: from the beginning
there is no permanence;
death is hidden, life is plain.
Some other monk once said: Ordinary
Mind, enter by way
of the cypress in the back yard.
Poor Django never even scratches his balls anymore,
thirsty and sleepy ,
same day everyday.
For us, the mourning
will go on. His life
made good each morning
in the grass -- the pearls
of dew, and the gods
swarm like flies.
* * *
So he stood listening,
unlike others he stood
and listened by the reed wall he heard
"Tear down the house, load only the seeds
of every living thing and ride the Euphrates
till it's time to send the crow."
So they built a floating house
for the floating world
and sailed the rain.
He stood and listened by the reed wall
while walking home to his wife
after a day in the market
selling grapes and plums, figs and peaches
it was always good, at sunset, to walk
the long way home.
By the reed wall he listened unlike the others
he stopped himself by the reed wall
where sun and wind also stop,
he listened by the reed wall to the counsellor Enlil,
Ennugi, the canal inspector, Ninurta and Ea.
It was Ea who shouted,
"Reed wall! Reed wall! Pay attention!"
He sent the crow after the swallow,
the swallow after the dove.
The crow never came back.
He knew it was finally over
when the gods gathered,
swarming like flies.
Dress Rehearsal
There is no lying
to oneself when lying
on the couch
with chills
and the sweat
of a fever,
when it hurts to blink
and the brain
is like a fist
buried alive
pounding
the lid of the coffin;
no soft voice
offering hot tea
or a cold towel
can remove the guilt --
up too late,
downing too many,
forgetting to eat
and walk,
money and weather
permitting.
Just this: memory
and all that once was
is now all
that is ill
and weak,
tired, taking breath
through a gasp
thin as a blade
of grass rising
from pond muck
to the ears' gargoyles
guarding the cathedral
where again
and again
in the course
of a lifetime
I practice
letting go of all
I did, of all
I never had
the time
to do right
or wrong.
Baptized
Like playing the piano, there must be one.
There has to be a place to sit.
There must be one spot entirely occupied by piano.
Birds are a bonus.
If there are trees, the more trees
the more the rain keeps time when it falls.
Windows without traffic. Everything is rain.
Everything is traffic. The window breathes in and out.
The rain taps a Kansas City blues bass line
sneaks up behind. Green leaves on a gray sky,
glad for rain, the blessing -- wet.
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