New and Selected Poems (6 page)

 

        high up there

roped safely
        with the junk
the eviction notices

 

        I used to
prophesy
        he'll stumble
by and by

 

        No luck—
oh
        Mr. Furniture Mover
on my knees

 

        let me come
for once
        early
to where it's vacant

 

        you still
on the stairs
        wheezing
between floors

 

and me behind the door
        in the gloom
I think I would
        let you do

 

what you must

        Note
as it gets darker
        that little
can be ascertained
of the particulars
        and of their true
magnitudes

 

        note
the increasing
        unreliability
of vision
though one thing may appear
        more or less
familiar
        than another

 

        disengaged
from reference
as they are
        in the deepening
gloom

 

        nothing to do
but sit
        and abide
depending on memory
to provide
        the vague outline
the theory
of where we are
tonight

 

        and why
we can see
so little
        of each other
and soon
        will be
even less
        able

 

        in this starless
summer night
        windy and cold

 

        at the table
brought out
        hours ago
under a huge ash tree
        two chairs
two ambiguous figures
        each one relying
on the other
to remain faithful
        now
that one can leave
        without the other one
        knowing

 

        this late
in what only recently was
        a garden
a festive occasion
        elaborately planned
for two lovers

 

        in the open air
at the end
        of a dead-end
road
        rarely traveled

 

        o love

I saw a high window struck blind
By the late afternoon sunlight.

 

I saw a towel
With many dark fingerprints
Hanging in the kitchen.

 

I saw an old apple tree,
A shawl of wind over its shoulders,
Inch its lonely way
Toward the barren hills.

 

I saw an unmade bed
And felt the cold of its sheets.

 

I saw a fly soaked in pitch
Of the coming night
Watching me because it couldn't get out.

 

I saw stones that had come
From a great purple distance
Huddle around the front door.

Figure or figures unknown
Keep a store
Keep it open
Nights and all day Sunday

 

Half of what they sell
Will kill you
The other half
Makes you go back for more

 

Too cheap to turn on the lights
Hard to tell what it is
They've got on the counter
What it is you're paying for

 

All the rigors
All the solemnities
Of a brass scale imperceptibly quivering
In the early winter dusk

 

One of its pans
For their innards
The other one for yours—
And yours heavier

Grandmothers who wring the necks
Of chickens; old nuns
With names like Theresa, Marianne,
Who pull schoolboys by the ear;

 

The intricate steps of pickpockets
Working the crowd of the curious
At the scene of an accident; the slow shuffle
Of the evangelist with a sandwich board;

 

The hesitation of the early-morning customer
Peeking through the window grille
Of a pawnshop; the weave of a little kid
Who is walking to school with eyes closed;

 

And the ancient lovers, cheek to cheek,
On the dance floor of the Union Hall,
Where they also hold charity raffles
On rainy Monday nights of an eternal November.

And how are the rats doing in the maze?
The gray one in a baggy fur coat
Appears dazed, the rest squeeze past him
Biting and squealing.

 

A pretty young attendant has him by the tail.
She is going to slit him open.
The blade glints and so do the beads
Of perspiration on her forehead.

 

His cousins are still running in circles.
The damp, foul-smelling sewer
Where they nuzzled their mother's teat
Is what they hope to see at the next turn.

 

Already she's yanked his heart out,
And he doesn't know what for?
Neither does she at this moment
Watching his eyes glaze, his whiskers twitch.

The church is an iceberg.

 

It's the wind. It must be blowing tonight
Out of those galactic orchards,
Their Copernican pits and stones.

 

The monster created by the mad Dr. Frankenstein
Sailed for the New World,
And ended up some place like New Hampshire.

 

Actually, it's just a local drunk,
Knocking with a snow shovel,
Wanting to go in and warm himself.

 

An iceberg, the book says, is a large drifting
Piece of ice, broken off a glacier.

As if in a presence of an intelligence
Concentrating. I thought myself
Scrutinized and measured closely
By the sky and the earth,

 

And then algebraized and entered
In a notebook page blank and white,
Except for the faint blue lines
Which might have been bars,

 

For I kept walking and walking,
And it got darker and then there was
A flicker of a light or two
Far above and beyond my cage.

for Michael Anania

 

The hundred-year-old servants
Are polishing the family silver,
And recalling the little master dressed as a girl
Peeing in a chamber pot.

 

Now he is away hunting with Madame.
The reverend dropped by this afternoon
And inquired amiably after them.
His pink fingers were like squirming piglets.

 

Even the Siamese cats like to sit and gaze,
On days when it rains and the fire is lit,
At the grandfather with waxed mustache-tips
Scowling out of the heavy picture frame.

 

They were quick to learn respect
And what is expected of them, these former
Farm boys and girls stealing glances
At themselves in spoons large and small.

The pink-cheeked Jesus
Thumbtacked above
The cold gas stove,
And the boy sitting on the piss pot
Blowing soap bubbles
For the black kitten to catch.

 

Very peaceful, except
There's a faint moan
From the next room.
His mother's asking
For some more pills,
But there's no reply.
The bubbles are quiet,
And kitten is sleepy.

 

All his brothers and sisters
Have been drowned.
He'll have a long life, though,
Catching mice for the baker,
And the undertaker.

On the counter among many
Much-used books,
The rare one you must own
Immediately, the one
That makes your heart race

 

As you wait for small change
With a silly grin
You'll take to the street,
And later, past the landlady
Watching you wipe your shoes,

 

Then, up to the rented room
Which neighbors the one
Of a nightclub waitress
Who's shaving her legs
With a door partly open,

 

While you turn to the first page
Which speaks of a presentiment
Of a higher existence
In things familiar and drab . . .

 

In a house soon to be torn down,
Suddenly hushed, and otherworldly . . .
You have to whisper your own name,
And the words of the hermit,

 

Since it must be long past dinner,
The one they ate quickly,
Happy that your small portion
Went to the three-legged dog.

And again the screech of the scaffold
High up there where all our thoughts converge:
Lightheaded, hung
By a leather strap,

 

Twenty stories up
In the chill of late November
Wiping the grime
Off the pane, the many windows

 

Which have no way of opening,
Tinted windows mirroring the clouds
That are like equestrian statues,
Phantom liberators with sabers raised

 

Before these dark offices,
And their anonymous multitudes
Bent over this day's
Wondrously useless labor.

Our sainted great-great-
Grandmothers
Used to sit and knit
Under the gallows.

 

No one remembers what it was
They were knitting
And what happened when the ball of yarn
Rolled out of their laps
And had to be retrieved.

 

One pictures the hooded executioner
And his pasty-faced victim
Interrupting their grim business
To come quickly to their aid.

 

Confirmed pessimists
And other party poopers
Categorically reject
Such far-fetched notions
Of gallows etiquette.

Ariadne's bird,
That lone
Whippoorwill.

 

Ball of twilight thread
Unraveling furtively.
Tawny thread,
Raw, pink the thread end.

 

A claw or two also
To pare, snip . . .
After which it sits still
For the stream to explain why it shivers

 

So.
        Resuming, farther on,
Intermittently,
By the barn
Where the first stars are—
In quotation marks,
As it were—O phantom

 

Bird!
Dreaming of my own puzzles
And mazes.

in memory of M. N.

 

All shivers,
Dear friends.

 

Is it for me
You keep still?

 

Not a rustle
To remind me—

 

Quietly, the healing
Spreads—

 

A deep shade
Over each face.

 

•

 

So many leaves,
And not one
Lately stirring.

 

So many already
Tongue-shaped,
Tip-of-the-tongue-shaped.

 

Oh the sweet speech of trees
In the evening breeze
Of some other summer.
Speech like sudden

Rustle of raindrops
Out of the high, pitch-blue
Heavens.

 

Lofty ones,
Do you shudder
When the chain saw
Cuts one of you?

 

Would it soothe,
If for all you voiceless,
To high heavens
The one with the rope round his neck

 

Were to plead?

 

•

 

Forgive me,

 

For the conjecture
I'm prone to—

 

Restless as I am
Before you windless,

 

Whispering
To the Master Whisperers

 

Of their own
Early-evening silences.

after D. Khrams

 

In the fine print of her face
Her eyes are two loopholes.
No, let me start again.
Her eyes are flies in milk,
Her eyes are baby Draculas.

 

To hell with her eyes.
Let me tell you about her mouth.
Her mouth's the red cottage
Where the wolf ate grandma.

 

Ah, forget about her mouth,
Let me talk about her breasts.
I get a peek at them now and then
And even that's more than enough
To make me lose my head,
So I better tell you about her legs.