New and Selected Poems (15 page)

 

In this moment of amazement . . .
Since I do ask for it humbly,
Without greed, out of true need.
My teeth chattered so loudly,
My old dog got up to see what's the matter.
Oh divine lassitude, long drawn-out sigh
As the vision came and went.

They didn't answer to repeated knocks,
Or perhaps they were in no hurry.
On the eighteenth floor
Even the sunlight moved lazily

 

Past the floating dust.
A year could pass here, I thought,
As in a desert solitude.

 

“Unknown parties, rarely seen,”
The elevator operator warned me.
He wore a New Year's party hat in August;
I was looking for work.

 

Inside, I imagined rows of file cabinets,
Old desks, dead telephones.
I could have been sitting at one of them myself,
Like someone doused with gasoline
In the moment before the match is lit,

 

But then the elevator took me down.

In Rome, on the street of that name,
I was walking alone in the sun
In the noonday heat, when I saw a house
With shutters closed, the sight of which
Pained me so much, I could have
Been born there and left inconsolably.

 

The ochre walls, the battered old door
I was tempted to push open and didn't,
Knowing already the coolness of the entrance,
The garden with a palm tree beyond,
And the dark stairs on the left.

 

Shutters closed to cool shadowy rooms
With impossibly high ceilings,
And here and there a watery mirror
And my pale and contorted face
To greet me and startle me again and again.

 

“You found what you were looking for,”
I expected someone to whisper.
But there was no one, neither there
Nor in the street, which was deserted
In that monstrous heat that gives birth
To false memories and tritons.

Child of sorrow.
Old snotnose.
Stray scrap from the table of the gods.
Toothless monkey.
Workhorse,
Wheezing there,
Coughing too.

 

The trouble with you is,
Your body and soul
Don't get along well together.
Pigsty for a brain,
Stop them from making faces at each other
In the mirror!
Then, take off these silly angel wings
From your gorilla suit.

Lewis and Clark,
You never found anything
To compare.
Trees without leaves,
Naked branches,
And then a snowflake or two
In flight
From the darkening sky.

 

End of town,
No sign of life
In any of the trailers
As you drive by slowly,
The ground bare,
Frozen
This overcast morning
While he squats absorbed
In a game.

 

A small child bent over a toy
On a road to Calvary.
In the distance, the crows
Already perched
On crosses
Of unknown prophets
And thieves.

Five, six chairs piled up in the yard
And you on top of them
Sitting like a hanging judge,
Wearing only pajama bottoms.

 

The sparrows, what must they think?
If people are watching,
They are as quiet as goldfish,
Or expensive cuts of meat.

 

Hour after hour alone with the sky
And its mad serenity
On the rickety, already teetering,
Already leaning tower.

 

How frightened the neighbors must be.
Not even a child walks the streets
In this heat,
Not even a car passes and slows down.

 

What do you see in the distance, O father?
A windowpane struck by the setting sun?
A game called on account of darkness?
The players like fleas in a convent.

 

Hell's bells about to toll?

I have my excuse, Mr. Death,
The old note my mother wrote
The day I missed school.
Snow fell. I told her my head hurt
And my chest. The clock struck
The hour. I lay in my father's bed
Pretending to be asleep.

 

Through the window I could see
The snow-covered roofs. In my mind
I rode a horse; I was in a ship
On a stormy sea. Then I dozed off.
When I woke, the house was still.
Where was my mother?
Had she written the note and left?

 

I rose and went searching for her.
In the kitchen our white cat sat
Picking at the bloody head of a fish.
In the bathroom the tub was full,
The mirror and the window fogged over.

 

When I wiped them, I saw my mother
In her red bathrobe and slippers
Talking to a soldier on the street
While the snow went on falling,
And she put a finger
To her lips, and held it there.

 

 

 

VII

 

You must come to them sideways
In rooms webbed in shadow,
Sneak a view of their emptiness
Without them catching
A glimpse of you in return.

 

The secret is,
Even the empty bed is a burden to them,
A pretense.
They are more themselves keeping
The company of a blank wall,
The company of time and eternity

 

Which, begging your pardon,
Cast no image
As they admire themselves in the mirror,
While you stand to the side
Pulling a hanky out
To wipe your brow surreptitiously.

They had already attached the evening's tears to the windowpanes.

The general was busy with the ant farm in his head.

The holy saints in their tombs were resting, all except one who was a prisoner of a dark-haired movie star.

Moses wore a false beard and so did Lincoln.

X reproduced the Socratic method of interrogation by demonstrating the ceiling's ignorance.

“They stole the secret of the musical matchbook from me,” confided Adam.

“The world's biggest rooster was going to make me famous,” said Eve.

Oh to run naked over the darkening meadow after the cold shower!

In the white pavilion the nurse was turning water into wine.

Hurry home, dark cloud.

My dear trees, I no longer recognize you
In that wintry light.
You brought me a reminder I can do without:
The world is old, it was always old,
There's nothing new in it this afternoon.
The garden could've been a padlocked window
Of a pawnshop I was studying
With every item in it dust-covered.

 

Each one of my thoughts was being ghostwritten
By anonymous authors. Each time they hit
A cobwebbed typewriter key, I shudder.
Luckily, dark came quickly today.
Soon the neighbors were burning leaves,
And perhaps a few other things too.
Later, I saw the children run around the fire,
Their faces demonic in its flames.

I had a small, nonspeaking part
In a bloody epic. I was one of the
Bombed and fleeing humanity.
In the distance our great leader
Crowed like a rooster from a balcony,
Or was it a great actor
Impersonating our great leader?

 

That's me there, I said to the kiddies.
I'm squeezed between the man
With two bandaged hands raised
And the old woman with her mouth open
As if she were showing us a tooth

 

That hurts badly. The hundred times
I rewound the tape, not once
Could they catch sight of me
In that huge gray crowd,
That was like any other gray crowd.

 

Trot off to bed, I said finally.
I know I was there. One take
Is all they had time for.
We ran, and the planes grazed our hair,
And then they were no more
As we stood dazed in the burning city,
But, of course, they didn't film that.

Your friend has died, with whom
You roamed the streets,
At all hours, talking philosophy.
So, today you went alone,
Stopping often to change places
With your imaginary companion,
And argue back against yourself
On the subject of appearances:
The world we see in our heads
And the world we see daily,
So difficult to tell apart
When grief and sorrow bow us over.

 

You two often got so carried away
You found yourselves in strange neighborhoods
Lost among unfriendly folk,
Having to ask for directions
While on the verge of a supreme insight,
Repeating your question
To an old woman or a child
Both of whom may have been deaf and dumb.

 

What was that fragment of Heraclitus
You were trying to remember
As you stepped on the butcher's cat?
Meantime, you yourself were lost
Between someone's new black shoe
Left on the sidewalk
And the sudden terror and exhilaration
At the sight of a girl
Dressed up for a night of dancing
Speeding by on roller skates.

I accused History of gluttony;
Happiness of anorexia!

 

O History, cruel and mystical,
You ate Russia as if it were
A pot of white beans cooked with
Sausage, smoked ribs and ham hocks!

 

O Happiness, whose every miserly second
Is brimming with eternity!
You sat over a dish of vanilla custard
Without ever touching it!

 

The silent heavens were peeved!
They made the fair skies at sunset
Flash their teeth and burp from time to time,
Till our wedding picture slid off the wall.

 

The kitchen is closed! the waiters shouted.
No more vineyard snails in garlic butter!
No more ox tripe fried in onions!
We have only tears of happiness left!

War, illness and famine will make you their favorite grandchild.
You'll be like a blind person watching a silent movie.
You'll chop onions and pieces of your heart into the same hot skillet.
Your children will sleep in a suitcase tied with a rope.
Your husband will kiss your breasts every night as if they were two gravestones.

 

Already the crows are grooming themselves for you and your people.
Your oldest son will lie with flies on his lips without smiling or lifting his hand.
You'll envy every ant you meet in your life and every roadside weed.
Your body and soul will sit on separate stoops chewing the same piece of gum.

 

Little cutie, are you for sale? the devil will say.
The undertaker will buy a toy for your grandson.
Your mind will be a hornet's nest even on your deathbed.
You will pray to God but God will hang a sign that He's not to be disturbed.
Question no further, that's all I know.

Rocky was a regular guy, a loyal friend.
The trouble was he was only a cat.
Let's practice, he'd say, and he'd pounce
On his shadow on the wall.
I have to admit, I didn't learn a thing.
I often sat watching him sleep.
If the birds tried to have a bit of fun in the yard,
He opened one eye.
I even commended him for good behavior.

 

He was black except for the white gloves he wore.
He played the piano in the parlor
By walking over its keys back and forth.
With exquisite tact he chewed my ear
If I wouldn't get up from my chair.
Then one day he vanished. I called.
I poked in the bushes.
I walked far into the woods.

 

The mornings were the hardest. I'd put out
A saucer of milk at the back door.
Peekaboo, a bird called out. She knew.
At one time we had ten farmhands working for us.
I'd make a megaphone with my hands and call.
I still do, though it's been years.
Rocky! I cry.
And now the bird is silent too.