Steve's Poems: Permanent Collection (A dozen of Steve's all-time favorites)             The Clock . . .      . . . without hands   still may understand the time,   but cannot speak to me.      I walk down the street   gaze at faces of other clocks   as we pass each other by,      wish I could supply   each one of them   with the hands it lacks,      wish, in fact,   that I could remember   where I left my own.               Self Portrait      Every day of my life             somewhere   a lover selects a flower to pluck             from her meadow;   a prisoner dreams of what lies             beyond the dungeon;   a child takes first steps;   raindrops re-sculpt a mountain peak;   music is performed that none             has ever heard before;   somebody, once again, admires             a Van Gogh self-portrait.      Our calendar says it's September thirteenth,   two thousand seven, and my days therefore   number twenty two thousand two hundred   eighty. If the mental math is a bit much,   I can reveal that this number divided   by three hundred sixty five gives the result             of sixty one,   with a remainder of fifteen (a tally for every             fourth February).      Today is the twenty two thousand two hundred   eightieth day on which I will not paint             my self-portrait.   Yet, stumbling like a child's first steps,   I compose another poem, think of the times   when music, or flowers, reminded me that life   is more than what we can see from the inside             of our prison cells.      Yes, I know that every mountain   wears down in the wind and rain.   You have no need to remind me.   I respond that even hills that are older,   more rounded than I still   stand awe-filled, silhouetted            against the sunrise,   offer us the wisdom of everything            they have understood.      I cannot mourn.        And when that time arrives,   I ask that you remember,            in my honor   (perhaps on some future thirteenth of September):   The only human beings who never die   are those who were never born.               Dreams of Immortality      Perhaps, one day   I will be famous—   so famous that they'll name   a bridge, or a school,   or a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike   after me and everyone   as they pass by,               or over,                           or through,   will read the sign and ask themselves: "Who,   I wonder, was Steve Bloom?"               Exploration Leads to Discovery      Two hundred years ago?       What are two hundred years, when the people they visited   had lived beside the Missouri for a thousand summers or more,   and did not care about the lines Easterners drew on maps?       President Thomas Jefferson cared enough to send Meriwether Lewis   along with William Clark on their famous expedition, with a vision   of turning these heathen people into farmers, and traders.   There was, however, already a city (sixteen hundred miles   from the mouth of the river) where 4000 lived-more   than in Washington, or St. Louis. And their farms provided the corn   so these explorers would survive   the cold of 1804 to 1805.       Amy Mossat lives today in New Town, North Dakota,   along with her fellow Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara.   Here she plants this same corn in her garden, unmodified   by hybridization, or genetic engineering.       Lewis, in his journals, referred to the native people as "children."   The Indians, in return, named one of their own who    acted as a guide "Furnishes the white men with brains."       Amy Mossat can no longer live in Old Town,  because it   was hybridized, or perhaps genetically engineered,   some decades ago, inundated by the Garrison Dam   along with 155,000 acres of farm land-that many acres   of memories, and of sacred places.       Lewis and Clark passed through 50 nations. Each with its sacred places.   You and I know a few names, like the one we borrowed for a capital city   after the Omaha village of  Tonwontaga was wiped out by the pox,   or Chinook, because we gave it to a fish.       We take the time to worry about the future of fish. But who   can tell me what has happened to the Chinook people?   The Otoe and the Missouri were expelled to Oklahoma,   where descendants still long for their northern plains.   The Lemhi Shoshone were herded to the desert of southern Idaho.   Some of the elders of the Nez Percé, in 1877, who were children   when that tribe twice saved our explorers from starvation,   remembered-as they were rounded up and removed.       You, too, can remember. Just follow   the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail through towns   where suicide is the number one cause of death.       *Based on reporting by Timothy Egan (New York Times, June 15, 2003)                   Where You Find Yourself       If we see flowers planted in a line   or shrubs, trimmed with perpendicular sides,   you know right away that you are in a place   of human habitation.       If we see a river   constrained by concrete banks   to make sure it does not intrude   on the spaces selected for humans   to inhabit, you are surely in a city,   or at least a large town.       No river begins its existence   with perpendicular banks   of hand-poured stone.   Nor did the trees, the grasses,   the frogs and turtles,   egrets, dragonflies, sandbanks   or tumble-down rocks that once   lived along these shores ever   think to object if the waters   changed shape from time to time,   visited their lives more intimately. Indeed   this was something they needed   to remain alive and in proper harmony.       Which is why, when I seek   to remain alive and in harmony   I go where the river offers me   its unfettered intimacy,   play the game I call "imagine"—   that there is no place on earth   where flowers are grown   in straight lines, our lives   channeled by hand-poured stone.                   A Poem Is       A poem is god's way   of compensating us for the fact   that she doesn't exist.                   Flower Plots       Watch out for the caucus of crocuses   there, on the hill.   I hear they are hatching a plot   to overthrow the daffodils.        Beware the wisteria conspiracy   up on the ledge,   perfecting a plan I suspect,   to overgrow the privet hedge.       I wouldn't interfere, if I were you,   should bleeding hearts and columbine combine   to show defiance   against that great lilac alliance.         And it's OK to stand where you might see   but don't get in the way   as the cherry blossom posse gallops by,   leaving pink hoofprints against the sky.         There's so much more I'll bet you never knew   about what flowers do,   and-when no one's looking-where they go.   (Just don't let on who told you so.)                    Dialogue       "You are my Springtime flood   after years of drought,   the cool evening breeze   after a summer day, affirmation   that the sky is up,       the earth down   after so many moments of doubt,"   says the poet.        "I love you, too," she replies.        "I stroke your bare flesh,   hold your body close to mine,   explore your eyes, your mouth,   the secret place which lies   where a female belly curves away   to disappear between two thighs—   and forget, for just a moment,   that there is anyone else,   besides the two of us,   in the universe," he tells her.        "You are so wonderful," she glows.        "Your smile is all the food and drink   my soul requires, your caress   my shelter from the world."         She gently squeezes his hand, whispers:   "Thank you so much for loving me."        And he stares into her face, unable   to speak again, awed   by the eloquence of her words.                       In Memoriam        Most martyrs rest in graves undraped with flowers.   Nobody will remember when or where or how   they sacrificed-all that was within their power—   and so I cannot tell you now. . . .   Most martyrs rest in graves undraped with flowers.   Beneath more storied tombs, I sense it's always true,   lie countless other heroines and heroes who   gave equally as they were called and so,   although well-praised the celebrated dead must be,   this round let's toast a deeper victory.   For deeds which otherwise remain unsung, unfurl   the banner left too long unhung for all   who could in life achieve no more than try their best,   and now, at last, in graves we've draped with flowers, rest.                       Minutes        Annual meeting   National Association of Procrastinators   (acronym: "NAP").          Scheduled start time: 10:00 am   Actual opening: 3:25 pm     Motion: To postpone this session until Tomorrow—   carried unanimously.                       Missing in Reaction        I look through the compact discs   for some music by Alma Schindler,   but there is none,   nor any under the name   of Alma Mahler—though   there are symphonies   and songs by Gustav.        Before they married, you see,   he made her promise that after   she would never try to fulfill   her promise as a young composer.   His wife must have no career   save to make her husband comfortable.   He will create the music   in the family, thank you very much.          So she wrote   not one note more   during the next sixty years—   including five decades   that she survived   after Gustav's death.          I have no way of knowing, however,   as I browse today,   that Alma's music is what I crave   to restore the rhyme my life is missing.   And so I'll keep on searching.                              April 10, 2006   (New York City)        Sometimes politics proves to be   as strange as poetry.          Never thought that I would feel   at home in a demonstration   where one American flag   follows another,          after another,                 after another.   But today it's not the usual "my   country can beat up your country" crowd.   No, this time it's the invisible people,   speaking out loud for a change.          "I am Haitian;          I am Korean;                 I am Pakistani,"    they tell me.          "I am Dominican;          I am Mexicana;                 I am Filipino;   I am Ethiopian;          I am Jamaican;                 I am Guatemalan and   I live here too.   I will not be less of a human being than you.          "I fly the flag of my country.   And I fly the flag of my other country;   for whether I am there or here          your nation would collapse                 without the work I do."          So I stand watching, ask myself   whether we have, perhaps, just taken   one small step toward the day   when every human being   will, at last, fly every flag          of every nation                 and still feel at home.