I took the hand of the dead man’s wife
(She buried him today).
Her limp grip echoed the years of her life
Grown flaccid with soft decay.
She had no tears in clouded eyes,
No sobs, no heaves, no pain.
She had no sense of what death implies
Within its amber stain.
I said, “I’m sorry.” She said, “You’re kind.”
I poured myself some rye.
And as I drifted through my mind
She wandered off to die.
Here lyes Buried ye Body of
Mr. Winslow Warren,
Son of James Warren, Esq. of
Plymouth & Mrs. Penelope his wife,
A young gentleman of great Hopes,
Who died March ye 9th A.D. 1747.
Etatis 15.
Now hear this, Mr. Winslow Warren
I want to talk with you.
Buried in this Cambridge grave for 220 years,
I’m sure you’ve much to say.
You were too young to see the troops
In Continental Blue
Whose tromping, worn, prophetic boots
Marched past your placid grave.
Washington took command of his army
Just across the street.
I can see the spot from here.
You must have seen the event.
I am impressed.
Were you?
My daughter is learning to walk
By grasping hold of your gravestone.
You died too young to be of use –
Even if you were a gentlemen –
Now something will come of your question
And each step of her life
She’ll think of you,
Perhaps.
Now she claps between her tender hands
The grass that springs from out of your chest
And reenacts a sacred mass
And eats from sprigs transmuted flesh.
There are flowers elsewhere in the yard
And students pick them here and there
But none dare fall near your regard
For fear of sadness, fear of fear.
Well now, to the task at hand,
I came, my camera at my side,
To photograph the quaint grey stones
That mark these plots of land.
What angle is best
To capture my daughter?
Framed against your faded stone?
Shall I highlight the skull of death
Or have her kiss it, better yet?
Two New York Poems
I.
[Allegro, con humor] When I told my sister
All about my mister,
She yelled: “What a pissah!
Hey, get outta heah.”
II.
[Andante] Well, now, New York …
I was leaving New York
Flighty rustlings in the night
Gossip freely, unashamed.
Louder boomings, sonorous rumblings
Cry out proudly unrestrained.
Lightly flashing over drabness,
Neons dancing, never pausing.
Glaring brothers in the darkness
Echo deeply, colors tossing.
Paper phantoms in the roadway
Walk past briskly, almost racing.
Eyes and nose fuse into pinkness,
Souls go drifting, feet go pacing.
Brassy, sassy, painting, painted –
Panting starings, knowing frowns,
Beggars’ cups and autos’ whishings,
Sable coats, bejeweled crowns.
Mighty:
Great and high.
As powerful as life.
Stalwart as mountain walls.
Taller than ancient oaks, so very tall
Yet tender in its heart,
Tender and compassionate
But mighty all the same
Mighty.
Reflections …
See and know brother man
Thru the mirror of his city.
Varied as man’s emotions; built to glorify his conquests,
Meek as his meekest, as forward as his boldest,
His city reflects hopes and desires
With hazy pictures –
Reflections.
Promising.
Surging with powers.
Oh, the smell of eagerness is here,
Here in the city that is a monument to man,
Here, where the fiery frays of a thousand hearts find common peace,
Here where some find eternal war,
Where all is done to build,
Build to the very sky –
Promising.
Hateful.
Fury of hell.
Fury on the face of it.
Fury ‘neath the false surface of it.
Fury, why torture those who seek their peace within my city?
Do you show the mercy that we crave?
Naught but terror do you breed,
You spread what we despise.
Hateful.
Cauldron!
Yes, my city, you are a cauldron.
You are a cauldron of the world I love,
You blend the emotions I merge within myself,
You speak the truths I dare not speak,
You weave the fabric of my being,
You churn the butter of my heart,
You know all of me, all my soul,
Why can you not speak to me?
And tell me what I am?
Cauldron, please?
Cauldron.
Roar to life
Antiphonal bastard born by hell at night in blood-red seas
Emblazoned coat of arms across a field of fire
All beauty wrapped in a sack with the bones sticking through –
If not with grace at least with gall.
Earn a buck today
on the river in the stink of the scum
and floating beer cans
all the way from Albany I’ll bet goddammit they’re so rusty; in an office
breathing phony air
drinking bitter coffee twice a day
with lungs puffing on a girder swaying
to the music beating
like a drum with dollar signs for sticks
And all the tourists wear print dresses with big black buttons.
Down by the Plaza secretaries rushing
Black smear sloppy harsh in the glare
The maid gets a five dollar fine for letting the poodle defecate on the sidewalk.
When you cross the street cover your eyes:
Bus
vomits past
Choking
Chugging
Lustrous smoke for coughing
Crying
And two nuns on Madison Avenue stand waiting for the “walk” sign
Because they come from out-of-town and don’t know any better.
I see designs
On pavement squares
Wrought in constant gray.
I walk streets
(uneventful paths)
Through valleys of sinking gray.
I live my life
(whose else, I ask?)
In endless dusks of gray.
I long to be
(is that enough?)
Alone within my gray.
I hope to die
And then to live
In tombs of peaceful gray.
There is no merit in this grey view,
The sky and stone all merge in smoke
As sentinels of stain
Inject the wind with blur.
The snow within the cracks and sills
Is flecked with black, unclear designs
And melts itself to dirty ice
And drips into the street below.
How to measure black decay
That sweeps through pavement on its way
To deaden, leaden, render gray
The reflux altar where we pray?
How to measure, judge or weigh
The bulk of flesh that we, the prey,
Must, on this surrender day,
Rip out, yield up and grant away?
What to do? What to say?
I ask you, friend, please find a way
To force the tender skin to stay,
To keep the hidden beast at bay.
Sarah was smart. Very smart.
“I am very smart,” Sarah would say.
Sarah was so smart that she went to Wellesley College.
“I am one of those girls who is so bright that I was admitted to Wellesley College,” Sarah would say.
Sarah did very well at Wellesley College.
“I am on the Dean’s List every other semester, or so,” Sarah would say.
Sarah was pretty.
“I am not just pretty,” Sarah would admonish.
Right. Sarah was smart and pretty.
“No,” Sarah would say. “Sarah is very smart and very beautiful.”
Well, beauty is defined often by classic bone structure, wide eyes and soft hair.
“I have classic bone structure and wide eyes and my hair is soft,” Sarah would say. ‘I am a classic beauty. And very smart, don’t forget that part. I am an exceptional girl.”
What about modesty, they would inquire.
“No need to be modest when you hold all the aces,” Sarah would say. “People do not expect modesty from a girl like me. They know I have earned the right to tell the truth.”
Why do you call yourself a girl and not a woman, if you have all those attributes, they would inquire.
“Oh, posh,” Sarah would say. “As a post-feminist very smart classically beautiful girl I have no need to pander to the dictates of nomenclature and other people’s idea of political correctness, behind which they hide to justify their own lesser intelligence and mundane appearance.”
So how do you define yourself, they would ask.
“I am the kind of girl who has even trained herself to omit the word ‘like’ from my speech patterns. Unlike, well, you for example,” Sarah would say.
You still end each sentence with a rising inflection as if asking a question, they would say.
“Yes I do,” Sarah would say, “but since I am so accomplished in every regard, as we have already established, that is fine for a girl such as myself. Sarah is above caring about such things.”
You talk about yourself in the third person, don’t you think that is affected, they would ask.
“No I don’t,” Sarah would say. “In my world, that is fine. But since you seem intent on parsing myself, Sarah would like to know what words, in your judgment, best describe Sarah.”
We’d rather not answer, they would say. It would be an embarrassment and besides, we do not mean to give offense.
“Posh,” Sarah said. “But since you are all so shy, let me suggest a lexicon for you to consider. One might describe Sarah as cool, although that is so old-fashioned. Reeks of calling someone “neat” or like “swell.” I prefer “Stone Fox” because I am so dope.”
There is nothing they would say as they did not want to tell Sarah that she thought herself smart while calling herself a dope.
But Sarah sensed their confusion and allowed herself a superior sigh, as a prophet might express mild exasperation when disciples, as is often the case, are lagging several thoughts and logical leaps behind their guru.
“Look,” Sarah said although there was nothing to see, “let’s start with ‘cool’ as like that seems all you can handle. I am like clearly cool in the classic smart sense, plus I am cool because I am so ‘hot.’ But I am so down, like it’s I don’t know how to say it or whatever it may mean but I think I am dope; or it is dope; or I am surrounded in my world with my own dope-iness.”
Sarah, they then asked, if you are so cool, hot, down, dope, smart, and let’s not forget classically beautiful, how come when you are excited you revert to interjecting the word ‘like’ in your sentences.
“Posh,” Sarah said. “I do not need your bourgeois criticism. If you even existed in Sarah’s world you would, like, never say a hurtful thing like that. Do you know that, aside from Wellesley, I was admitted to Smith, Yale and Radcliffe?”
Radcliffe doesn’t exist anymore, they would say. Perhaps you are mistaken, they would suggest.
“Enough of this,” Sarah said with finality in her tone, her aquiline nose crinkled, her brow with one neat discrete short furrow, her cheeks reddened slightly by the effort to be kind, her soft blondish hair swishing softly as she turned her head to leave. “I do not need to suffer your scorn. I am in a safe place and I received no warning, no spoiler alert that this would deteriorate into a personal attack. I am, like, going back to my dormitory room and fix the dust ruffle on my bed.”
And as Sarah turned and began to leave, she might have heard someone mutter “What an asshole!” although, as Sarah came to think of it, that was, like, hardly possible in Sarah’s world.
