Peter A. Weinberg – Poetry

                1.

First the mast broke—
  driven 300 miles off course
Then the engine overheated
   and a makeshift mast blew away
in the dark

                2.

I can’t tell you anything
   about the course of the sun
or the depths of the moon
   the release of hidden springs
or the earth’s best illuminations

I can’t dispel the night
   or find your cold hands
Ask me to be silent
   I have lived through troubles and toil
Through sorrow I have aged too soon

No clothes, no robes, hide my changes—
  no girdle or wreath
A gentle breeze goes
  from orange, gold groves
marble figures gaze at me

A mule seeks passage through clouds
  The cliff rocks plunge beneath
and lemon blossoms glow
   He loves her for her color
as she fades into white leaves

Silver scissors like a beak
  that flies with the crows
My lover is a thief
  Her tears, whatever their bitterness,
were never so bitter as mine

                3.

Crystals of time—
  For all this suffering
you might as well be wise
  Some cats are friends,
some cats are killing machines

Much of what we see is random
  I’ve said it once
I won’t say it again
  We sat up half the night
swapping yarns

In the middle of a comedy—
  but you’re not very funny
The indifference of the universe
  to humans and other dumb animals—
ugly, unhappy, degenerate

He didn’t know or care
  if they listened
He knew no one much would listen
  She finds lots of lovers
but they don’t love her

No defense was needed...
  I’ll sleep on the train
The motion sways, lulls me
  This was her madness—
inappropriate pauses, unrelenting sadness

-February 12, 2012-

                1.

“Go ahead then—tell it
If you think it’s so funny
It’s your story; you started to tell it—
so tell it”

Thrilled by pomp and power,
uninterested in any inner life
Enraged, moralistic, harsh and desperate
her excess wasn’t about their happiness

Custom, privilege, injustice
that single-minded suffering, resistance, redemption
Highly educated, earnestly well-meaning,
her high self-regard, stuck in these sad, antiseptic American prisons

Relentless indoor winter heat
They’re like parasites—dangerous too, like predators
Blind to her own blindness,
moralistic, overconfident, dismissive

                2.

There are always things to criticize
but there was nothing that so frightened or embarrassed her
Her denials would never stop in any case
It might be better that way, he thinks,

but it will no longer be as good
Conclusions drawn, proclamations made
Every statement somewhat wrong, somewhat premature
she flees to the safety of darkness, shadier storms

Dismayed by his appearance he always avoids mirrors
It makes her uncomfortable to see herself in him
He sat there drinking beer after beer in front of the children
That was restraint—he would have preferred vodka or gin

Hatred alone couldn’t sustain him
After the explosion the company determined
the kid’s life was worth a cool 150,000
So they sent the family a check

                3.

They dance in the streets of Paris and Berlin
rush to enlist before the whole thing’s over
Three months later—300,000 dead, 600,000 wounded
1914 and the war had four more years to run

He loses a bit of himself each time he goes down there
His intuition could easily fail him again
She’s not dead—the rumors were wrong
She didn’t kill herself—she’s alive and lives

in a small, closed-in suburb just outside of Dallas
“I do have problems with my eyes and if I fall
I generally break something”
Powerful people often enjoy taking risks

The politics were sharp, self-serving, Machiavellian,
petty and sometimes very stupid
He’s 68 and walks on shattered knees—he remembers the glory,
the victory then and that she wasn’t there to share it

                4.

Views desperately imperfect,
his knowledge always partial
He flatters, kicks, and kisses
to get what he wants

Too talented to do what ordinary people do,
we bust up those we dislike no matter what they do or say
We glorify the people like us—
like clench-fisted members of some small, feral gang

Conflict, anxiety, boredom, fear
envelop them in this fog
If only she could forget some of it—
if only in mitigation

They always felt superior, she knows, but she can barely believe
it happened—she couldn’t know what those people might do
Not that it mattered all that much to finally fail—
her last story ended with nothing to gain and everything left was for sale

-January 28, 2012-

                1.

Always enthralled by the original, the profound, the difficult,
she cared alone for what was true and right
She ignored the analysis until the blood got deep
The cost has been incurred and now it’s too late

She couldn’t relive the pleasure of that mistake
This inner debate, this scar
The causes of her hidden, deep anguish
If she felt it now she must feel it again

There was nothing to be gained by talking about it
It was neither salient nor shameful; only pain
Her inner world obscured by parasites who sound
like the idle, terrified chatter of old men 

The smarter you are the more likely you’ll lie
The less conscious lies are the most effective
You don’t know what time will be the last time;
but there’s always a last time

                2.

Her confidence grounded in ignorance;
it was by no means certain that she’d win
Her lies do best when rare and
poorly as they become more frequent

But what about the deeper view?
That huge bore, that fraud:
the more she treasures her honest ways,
the more frequently she lies

Her father was always best at those fun occasions:
a splendid host, bright and jolly as a boy
It’s always sad, awfully sad, to look back upon those days
When it comes to making attachments, she refrains

A simple, grotesque game played at the highest level:
It’s not the few traces of life in the corpse that scares
her and fills her regrets; she’s most scarred and damaged
by the shrill, mordant traces she missed in his life before death

-January 7, 2012-