Repertory—poems that come and go
(last revised October 23, 2011)
NOTE: Newly-added poems are at the top, previous ones deleted below
Rainwalkers
Coming down on the Manhattan
side of the Brooklyn Bridge.
The weather discouraged others
and I have passed almost no one.
I notice two young women
starting their ascent, think.
About the adventure they
are embarking upon.
And wonder whether either
of them can see me.
Shadows . . .
. . . are nothing,
Really.
I mean literally, nothing,
I think to myself as I sit
under a tree, seeking shelter
from the afternoon.
"Super Shooter"
That's what the Wear-Ever Company called it:
The "Super Shooter electric cookie, canapé, and candy maker."
Put on one of the attachments.
Fill it with dough, or paste.
Out comes a star, or a swirl, or
some other custom shape.
I read the box: "It triggers
a whole new era of ease,
convenience and versatility
in the kitchen."
Well, sort of, since the gadget just sat,
in it's unopened container,
on the shelf above the basement door.
Mom never made canapés
that I can recall,
or seemed to care much
about the shape of her cookies:
a lot of time and effort saved that way.
I can't say how long
that carton had been there
before I took it down
to paint the stairwell.
but the cardboard
was yellowing, and brittle.
I still have a few keepsakes,
like the broken travel alarm clock
which lived in the dining room
for twenty years (give or take).
Mom said not to throw it out.
It was still useful, you see,
because she could set the dial
to remember when the time came
to take her medication again.
It was all useful, and could not
be discarded, everything
she accumulated
for four decades--like
the blender, base now cracked,
that had moved with us
from the old apartment,
the sacks of Styrofoam packaging,
the collection of lids for absent jars,
the checkbook from 1964,
and the Montgomery Ward catalogues
of similar vintage--so useful
that we decided just
to leave most of it in place,
down in the basement,
after she died. But now,
with Dad in the nursing home
the place is to be sold.
No one who knew this house
guessed how much
we took to the dump.
The closest anybody came
was half of the four tons.
The crew I hired to do most of the work
told me it was the biggest
single hauling job they had ever handled.
I said we were going
for the Guinness Book of Records.
It's been two years since Mom's body
was hauled away
to the Howard University
Medical school, but only now
does it occur to me
that I have to tell her "goodbye."
Gazing
The alarm clock spoke at 4:00 am,
so I could shower with the night:
star-streaks punching tiny
wounds in scar-streaked armor,
left over from my yesterday--
carried with me here to Riis Park
in the Rockaways,
and during moments when
the dogs neglect to bark,
and children take a rest from screaming
at each meteor sparkling
across their eyes,
I stand upon the beach, as if
alone, to feel
my care-streaked universe within
begin to seep
from every punctured pore,
to seize its chance to dance
with an outer self once more.
I linger, then, a little
longer than I’d planned
until, surprised, I feel the autumn chill
as dawn-streaked sky grows brighter
than these shooting stars can understand.
COURAGE
You are the first to fall—knowing
there will be no rising--
come to rest upon the earth somewhere;
only then look back to see
if any of your comrades have appeared
to join the fray,
and bury you.
Accept these lines as my salute.
We need so many drops of snow
before the blizzard can prevail.
What if each, too fearful of its fall,
just shrugged and asked: what difference
can one snowflake make?
Courageously you lead the way.
I'll pledge to spend my life
in this pursuit—for if
my blizzard fails its test,
let no one say it was
because Steve failed his best.
PLANS FOR THE DAY
I think I’ll take a walk
on wooded path nearby;
the weather is so fine today:
with clouds, cold wind, and sometime rain
which will, I trust, cause others to refrain.
So wrap my body up in clothes
to match the weather’s mood,
and then my mind in precious solitude.
EARS AND HEARTS
He tried the music out first in Budapest,
1889, but there was considerable bewilderment--
including, according to one reporter,
"a small, but for all that audible, element
of opposition."
By 1900 the experience had been repeated,
complete with audience indifference,
in Hamburg, Weimar (twice), and Berlin.
"Damn it all, where
do people keep their ears
and their hearts
if they can't hear that"
Gustav wrote to Alma.
And it took fifteen years
from start to finish,
before he would finally publish
his "Symphony Number One"
which allows me to sit here this evening,
thrilled by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
mind wandering to times
I recited a poem, then returned
to my seat wondering "Where
do people keep their ears,
and their hearts?"
put that particular verse away, resolved
never to read it in public again.
And before Mahler's final chords
have faded I have decided
to take one or two of these pieces
out for my next featured reading,
and the next
and then for the one after that too,
until someday, perhaps,
I will be able to offer you
a satisfactory answer
to this question.
OVERBAUGH PLACE, BROOKLYN NY
For those of you who don’t know
it’s one block long, just north
of King’s Highway. I’m sitting
in the only traffic lane
turn signal flashing right,
waiting for the light to change
first in line at the intersection
with Flatbush Avenue.
Another car pulls around me
in a lane reserved for parked
commuter vans (of which
there happen to be none
at the moment) edges
into the cross-walk far enough
to make sure I won’t try
to race ahead and go first,
or maybe it was simply
so I could read the bumper sticker:
“Keep Christ in Christmas.”
Good idea, I say to myself.
That way you are free
to ignore him the rest of the year.
QUESTION
What does the great teacher do
when no one
is interested in learning?
AND YOU THOUGHT
We arrive—three of us at
the appointed place
only to discover that it isn’t
the appointed time.
“The reading is next Saturday,
not tonight.”
Eric tells us from his post
behind the bar.
A trio is playing: Clarinet, drums, bass.
They’re good, too,
I think to myself. A lone young woman
sits close, listening.
In another corner a couple snuggles together
on one of the sofas,
talking, laughing. They are the only other
people in the bar.
A few minutes pass and their arms are wrapped
around one another.
We order wine, beer, exchange thoughts
about this space
how congenial it seems to be for
a poetry reading.
When we decide to leave the sofa couple
has departed
(gone, I assume, to spend the evening
in each other’s arms.)
“Turn around” I suggest after we step out
the front door.
Through the glass we see Eric at the bar, grading
examinations (day job).
The jazz trio still plays as the lone young woman
sits close, listening.
“And they’re good, too” one of my
companions says.
“Yes,” I reply, “and you thought it was hard
being a poet.”
SOUVENIR DE PARIS
I did not comprehend a single word
back then—unless you count boucoup,
merci, or oui. And yet
I wandered, often, through
your magic streets (perhaps these lines
should speak of them as boulevards
et rues?) reading signs like “Nettoyage,”
“Prète-à-Porter,” “Boulangerie,” too timid
in this foreign land to enterany door
and find out, thus, for sure
what such a strange exotic world
might hold in store. But oh
how my imagination wandered too.
And it took time, therefore, to learn
what words meant, simply,“Cleaners,”
“Ready-to-Wear” “Bakery,” and thus
discover how a wondrous universe
becomes transformed to the mundane.
Grateful I was then, of course,
and still remain
for language skills acquired.
And yet at times I wonder why
we are, so frequently, required
to mourn our loss--
while marking what is gained.
MAPUCHE
I have not heard
the name"Mapuche"
until today.
“Come,” my friend says.
“This evening
there is anindigenous woman
from Chile speaking.”
And I learn of one more tribe that lives
on ten percent of its ancestral lands.
* * * * *
When she was in opposition
that nation’s current president
opposed Chile’s anti-terrorism laws,
uses them today, however,
to round up Mapuche
who try to stop the Ralco
hydroelectric dam, evict
timber-hungry multinationals,
dumps where garbage, transported
from cities, rots away, infecting
children who play nearby.
The word “mapuche,”
in the native language of the Mapuche,
means “people of the land.”
Sometimes we discover a name
that actually means what it says.
The Mapuche people were never conquered
by the Inca empire, nor subsequently
by the Conquistadors. (Perhaps this
is what engenders so much terror
in the heart of Chile’s current president?)
I have not heard
the name"Mapuche"
until today.
How about you?
And what of the Kolla . . . the Pehuenche . . .
the Kaiapo . . . the Aymara . . . the Paez . . .
the Guambiano . . . the Achuar. . . . What
of all the indigenous nations living
today under the domination of others--
who go by aliases such as Mexico,
Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru.
Some year, I believe, their stories
will be taught to children
in the public schools of New York City
(as the tale of the Pilgrims is now)
and it will be necessary, perhaps,
to set time aside for those
who cannot keep themselves from weeping.
At this moment, however,
let us simply set time aside
to consider how, and why,
there are so many peoples in the world,
living under the domination of others,
who can never be conquered.
* * * * *
I have not heard
the name "Mapuche"
until today.
How about you?