The steps are white marble, marble plate
There is graffiti washed and faded on the walls
The building smells musty
old soup and onions
This is a neighborhood of poor people now
There are glass and metal doors leading from the sidewalk
through which you can see
the marble steps and graffiti walls
There are five steps and a plateau and five steps up
to another plateau
There is a black rubber rug and another set of glass and metal doors
where the floor is dark brown and smells of polish
To the right on the marble plated wall are black buttons and
an intercom into which you may talk
Here you push the button of her apartment
A buzzer sounds, you are expected
You pull the metal handle of a glass and metal door
You enter
I had never seen a shooting star before my
father pointed one out to me
The sky was black and clear over the beach
the moon a large yellow circle
the star a white dot flickering across the sky
past the moon, its tail past the big dipper
Now a father and his son, stand on the beach
stare at the sky—
“A shooting star” dad said,
“that’s lucky”
These are the steps of eternity
covered in false marble
They were built in the early thirties and then
were all the style
The graffiti on the walls
mocks the majestic gravity
of her building
-
With his back to the ancient
Chateau de Maintenon
He stares into the grayness of the day
past the sculptured gardens over the
pond with its brownish gray water over
green manicured lawns
past the initial of a queen
sculptured in green bushes
bright flowers
Grandma, the trees sway in the distance
the branches of the trees sway
their leaves tremble
In this fine mist
in this fine rain
Like her daughter
who also died of cancer
she died Thanksgiving weekend
I didn’t go, it wasn’t my turn
My two younger brothers, Matthew and Jonathan went
by bus from New York carrying with them delicacies
from Zabars because of the holiday and because there were
things she still liked to eat
When they arrived she did not respond to the intercom’s buzzer
Still, they got into the building
Generally cautious, this time her apartment door was open
They walked in, closed the door behind them and called her name
She was in the bathroom
After about a half hour of talking to her through the bathroom door
they overcame their reluctance and opened it
She was naked in the bathtub, the water having long since drained
unable to lift herself out while refusing to admit
that anything was wrong
“Boys, I’ll be out in a minute”
Nor did she understand why the ambulance came
to take her to the hospital
I explained this to Jonathan
“She does not understand why she is here
and she blames you two for all of the trouble”
-
It grows colder
The trees have lost their leaves
Winter is early this year
Only the bushes show green
It was mid-August in a hot seedy neighborhood
in which the police don’t give a damn
that a building caught fire
a block away from me
Screaming and sirens, flames burst from windows
firemen shout to each other on the rooftops
Homes of the poor burnt homeless
I walk my way forward in the cold morning
the white mist of my breath in front of my face
In everyone of us is a sadness
nothing can touch
-December 21, 2009-
Her apartment is decorated with dry dead flowers
Her boyfriends can’t sleep with her under the covers
Some dreams never change
she won’t allow it
and never come through
Stark ineffectual wishes
You never get over it, you go on
Coincidences of happiness...
lucky numbers
Unless we throw off our fear of death,
coincidences of love
we’ll never be free
Her stark implausible dreams
but she won’t allow it...
go on
-December 15, 2009-
Burn ‘em
burn the cards you find
that call you lover, playmate, amour, soulmate
Burn ‘em all
One nightmare ends so
another may begin
The pearls you rejected shine delicate
and white
with the moon
“I’m so glad you’re here”
She lies
“Tell me we’ll never stop doing this”
She lies
The currents of memory flow back
She brings my head to her breast
and I suck her nipples, then
She sucks my cock and then
I take her from behind
Clearly, this is paradise
Only one direction
Part of me still aches for you
...back
I’ll take my love
where I find it
-November 30, 2009-
“If a lion could speak we would not understand him.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
There’s persons worse insulted than you
They even hurt more,
and though we may come to love them
we will never see things quite their way
And if they learn to speak truly
we won’t understand them
Here’s some of the jewels of our lives—
the bright white moon, whole, in winter’s predawn light
your hand across this table touching mine
our glasses of wine in a summer evening’s half-light
“to us...”
Mourning, as everyone knows,
spontaneously ends
True joy is spontaneous too
On a day like today,
can’t we let the raging lions go?
-November 25, 2009-
Oblique corridors
below ground links
structure to structure mazes
beneath
Angular corridors
link memory to memory
tortured underground days—
the rudimentary mind
Corridors of menace
obtuse, stubborn, strange
Some things you get over...
Some things
When I love
So I lost them—
some by fire, some by drowning
I don’t let go
Virgin, consort, hag
I had hoped for more time, earthly wonders
Soft things with no place in this world
I was happy
When you finally see this tattoo, this distinguished old mark
you’ll find me
-November 8, 2009-
A garish Fall—
strident, blood colored, dangerous,
its burnt leaves curled,
came early that year
We don’t know much about him—
The official records show
just a few bills, a few formal letters
of application, appointment
and resignation, some formal
complaints and a few reprimands
I can’t be honest with you
because nothing in this world is true
No diaries, no memoirs, no personal letters
He was confrontational
and insubordinate
These are the scars of the heart stung
Distant from the world and its pleasures
covenants, rules and rulers
He wrote music for “the glory of God
and the recreation of the soul”
Injured as you are
you’ll never get off this rock
without some kind of song
But the dark roots show
beneath all that gold
-November 1, 2009-
Mine is a winterish soul
so cold, so cold
I worried about a lot of things
but your shallow extremes, your perfidy
were new to me
I don’t worry that much anymore
Experience becomes memory
so fast, so fast
I was naive
Separated from all by invisible catastrophes
a critical mass of cumulative blows,
spiritual concussions
so cold, so cold
Happiness in an instance
so fast, so fast
The loss of self
in a delirium of infatuation
These bright hard eyes
in the after-math of rejection
Childish smiles from the small one, six months old
There’s still a lot of love in this house
-October 18, 2009-
She quietly blazed
through taciturn days
It seems to her men
can do anything they want
His heart is a battered thing
They can’t—she’s wrong
crazy wrong
Seeds grow differently here
wild, luminous, unfazed
The drug makes him amorous
and helps him sleep
All his old guides died this year
except for one
and he was no guide at all
The bruised heart trapped in glass
They laugh and laugh
As for the clothes
wrap ‘em in plastic bags
An old battered thing
Send them to charity—
get rid of ‘em
-September 28, 2009-
She stands in front of the waves
won’t dive under them
won’t dive over them
Our bodies touch all night
She refuses to dive under or over
Tone deaf to the diplomacies
the dishonesties of the human interactive
They knock her down
Defiant through pain
Wild and gentle with each other all night
In this weakness is her strength
Fight beyond all sense
They knock her down
or complaint
Heavenly fight
Fiery clouds
Cuddle together all night
so warm
For the Roman soldiers
the difference between the real fight and their exercises
the real fight and their practices
is the effusion of blood on the floor
-September 13, 2009-
(after the Chinese Mong-Kao-Jen and Wang Sei)
1.
The sun retreats behind these mountains
Evening descends in sweet shadow
Silver bark floats into sky
The sliver of moon rises
Dark fir trees shiver gently
In the breeze
I wait for my friend
To take our last farewell
I hear water move
The earth breathes deep
with sleep
Tired men have stopped working
The birds are silent
The ground grey with sleep
2.
He left his horse and handed me
a drink of farewell
I ask him where he goes and
also why it must be
He says
You my friend, my life has not been fortunate
I will travel these mountains alone
seeking peace
I am an old man, tired
There is stillness here
Everywhere the earth breathes spring
The land is green forever
-Revised September 4, 2009-