Donald at Boughton Place
A small dog darts out in the highway,
but not a dog, a red fox,
drags a grey-furred mass off to the side,
glances back at me when he's safe,
black pointed ears, tail.
Black geese, down for the night,
cluster in twos and threes
don't pay attention as the fox
drags his prey past them.
It's not clear what he's got,
but if it's goose, they don’t care,
engaged as they are in discussions
of weather, direction.
At the reading, on a circular stage
layered like a wooden wedding cake,
Donald Lev is the feature.
He reads love poems for Enid,
ever regretting his choice to leave
the hospital that night and who
knew it would be her last?
Donald, eyes of snow, four separate seasons,
reads Enid's own lament for Sari,
lost biblical sister moved to suburbia,
remembering her desert commune.
Donald won’t be mistaken for a fox,
this lazy-haired poet alone
in his house of lemon balm and books.
Thunder rattles the theater.
Donald is undisturbed.
Red wine trembles in our glasses,
and already Donald has tried
to wipe a spill from his large, white heart.
Too late, it's already stained through.
CAR 7/31/09
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
*Poem: "Song of Washington Park"*
Song of Washington Park, 5/31/09
I.
I bring my copy of Leaves, mass market paperback,
purchased the summer before I went away to college
at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, Long Island,
with my my birth name neatly written in my 18 year-old hand
in the upper right-hand corner of the first page,
and a bookplate inside the front cover
with my short-lived married name, from when I was into
Aubrey Beardsley bookplates and married names,
both seemingly the thing to do.
In the park is a birthday reading for Whitman, of Whitman,
his "Song of Myself," not about him,
and the weather is clear this year,
but cold, colder than the mall I've just been to,
and the gym I endured this morning.
Listeners are gathered around the mic in lawn chairs,
wearing baseball caps, multicolored shawls,
gloves, scarves and blankets.
My boyfriend is dressed for summer,
white linen jacket, straw fedora, short-sleeved shirt.
Dan, our host, dons his customary black beret.
I have my black jeans, shirt, sandals,
tortoise-edged sunglasses, and nothing more.
My boyfriend retrieves our picnic blanket from the car
and I wrap it around myself, him being stronger,
less inclined to expressions of discomfort,
We who are unafraid of the mic take turns.
Even my boyfriend assists, offers up the unfamiliar lists
to the busy wind, as the sun dodges out
from behind newly leaved trees, new May trees,
new green, suddenly full.
We stand at the base of the Robert Burns' statue.
The mic stand is decorated with Tom's Day-Glo streamers.
One tears off, blows away, and I chase it down, a memento
of Tom, the mic stand, the green.
Power walkers in the park walk more forcefully
when they pass the poetry readers.
Rugby players at the adjacent field,
high strung and giddy with games and the day,
pay no attention, no mind at all.
A jogger heads off in the opposite direction,
bald head gleaming in the distance.
A marching band practices its routines somewhere out of sight,
Elderly sweethearts cuddle on a park bench
under a spreading oak, then come closer,
cross before the mic and readers,
step in unison left to right.
An ice cream truck drives by, Mr. Ding-A-Ling,
and the electronic tune is foreign,
not "The Entertainer," or "Yellow Rose of Texas,"
I hear at home, complete with
automated whinny of a Texas horse.
Two rugby players stop him for treats.
II.
Then I think, this reading should be in my old mall,
mall of my memory, fountain in front of Macy’s
standing in for Robert Burns,
water swishing, gurgling, drowning out
shoppers’ quick steps, clean-shaven cascades,
pocket change minnows glimmering in the pool,
and shoppers rushing past, big, crinkling red bags
stuffed with cashmere jock straps, alligator bras,
nylon nylons, exotic perfumes brewed East of the Expressway.
Should we read on the roof,
plush pads of moss to cushion our steps,
bold gulls improvising blocks from the Sound,
up where we can see Pinelawn in its orderly splendor,
bones as broken in death as in life,
and Adventureland, popping lights, pirate logo,
rocking metal galleon thrilling ticketholders and us?
The human stew remains the same,
though the spices vary.
I take the bus there, the mall, too small for a car.
With Walt’s words to move through my mouth
I see what he would see, the wild frontiers
of A&S, Penneys beyond my $5 spear,
soft pretzel and slushie at McCrory’s before the fire,
Foods of All Nations, where the sugar-covered violets come from,
a book shop at end tip of one wing,
comic books, paperbacks, where I buy my copy, Walt’s book,
carry with me, unread, for decades,
bring to this reading in Albany today,
leave in the car, because I know Dan has a script,
bigger letters for older eyes,
and I do my part, tandoori chicken vapors
mixing with the wind and my hair.
The mic rustles, and Robert Burns
remembers his night, Tom’s beret,
and the snow that surrounded his birth.
CAR 6/1/09
I.
I bring my copy of Leaves, mass market paperback,
purchased the summer before I went away to college
at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, Long Island,
with my my birth name neatly written in my 18 year-old hand
in the upper right-hand corner of the first page,
and a bookplate inside the front cover
with my short-lived married name, from when I was into
Aubrey Beardsley bookplates and married names,
both seemingly the thing to do.
In the park is a birthday reading for Whitman, of Whitman,
his "Song of Myself," not about him,
and the weather is clear this year,
but cold, colder than the mall I've just been to,
and the gym I endured this morning.
Listeners are gathered around the mic in lawn chairs,
wearing baseball caps, multicolored shawls,
gloves, scarves and blankets.
My boyfriend is dressed for summer,
white linen jacket, straw fedora, short-sleeved shirt.
Dan, our host, dons his customary black beret.
I have my black jeans, shirt, sandals,
tortoise-edged sunglasses, and nothing more.
My boyfriend retrieves our picnic blanket from the car
and I wrap it around myself, him being stronger,
less inclined to expressions of discomfort,
We who are unafraid of the mic take turns.
Even my boyfriend assists, offers up the unfamiliar lists
to the busy wind, as the sun dodges out
from behind newly leaved trees, new May trees,
new green, suddenly full.
We stand at the base of the Robert Burns' statue.
The mic stand is decorated with Tom's Day-Glo streamers.
One tears off, blows away, and I chase it down, a memento
of Tom, the mic stand, the green.
Power walkers in the park walk more forcefully
when they pass the poetry readers.
Rugby players at the adjacent field,
high strung and giddy with games and the day,
pay no attention, no mind at all.
A jogger heads off in the opposite direction,
bald head gleaming in the distance.
A marching band practices its routines somewhere out of sight,
Elderly sweethearts cuddle on a park bench
under a spreading oak, then come closer,
cross before the mic and readers,
step in unison left to right.
An ice cream truck drives by, Mr. Ding-A-Ling,
and the electronic tune is foreign,
not "The Entertainer," or "Yellow Rose of Texas,"
I hear at home, complete with
automated whinny of a Texas horse.
Two rugby players stop him for treats.
II.
Then I think, this reading should be in my old mall,
mall of my memory, fountain in front of Macy’s
standing in for Robert Burns,
water swishing, gurgling, drowning out
shoppers’ quick steps, clean-shaven cascades,
pocket change minnows glimmering in the pool,
and shoppers rushing past, big, crinkling red bags
stuffed with cashmere jock straps, alligator bras,
nylon nylons, exotic perfumes brewed East of the Expressway.
Should we read on the roof,
plush pads of moss to cushion our steps,
bold gulls improvising blocks from the Sound,
up where we can see Pinelawn in its orderly splendor,
bones as broken in death as in life,
and Adventureland, popping lights, pirate logo,
rocking metal galleon thrilling ticketholders and us?
The human stew remains the same,
though the spices vary.
I take the bus there, the mall, too small for a car.
With Walt’s words to move through my mouth
I see what he would see, the wild frontiers
of A&S, Penneys beyond my $5 spear,
soft pretzel and slushie at McCrory’s before the fire,
Foods of All Nations, where the sugar-covered violets come from,
a book shop at end tip of one wing,
comic books, paperbacks, where I buy my copy, Walt’s book,
carry with me, unread, for decades,
bring to this reading in Albany today,
leave in the car, because I know Dan has a script,
bigger letters for older eyes,
and I do my part, tandoori chicken vapors
mixing with the wind and my hair.
The mic rustles, and Robert Burns
remembers his night, Tom’s beret,
and the snow that surrounded his birth.
CAR 6/1/09
*Poem: "Sherlocks"*
Sherlock's
It hasn't been a bar for years,
the Board of Elections office,
uptown all offices now, so at 5 o'clock,
glass doors are locked, plastic blinds pulled
and the homeless take back their places
at the foot of stone basement steps,
down narrow alleys with broken iron gates,
or out in the open, slapdash park,
new tree, glistening green bench where
the tollbooth once stood for the parking garage
that started to crumble, then was demolished.
It hasn't been a bar for years,
but once upon college days it was
the fern bar of fern bars,
actual ferns hung in the front windows,
intimate tables on various levels,
and I was into Sea Breezes, now forbidden,
grapefruit juice incompatible with Lipitor.
My soon-to-be ex-husband drank bitterness
anywhere he could, huge mugsfull.
True, the gods had not been kind to him
in the Good Looks Department.
He was short, very short, and not handsome,
too uptight for sneakers, t-shirts, a bit of beard,
and his friend Joe treated us to drinks
while we worked for his ill-fated city campaign.
I lusted for Joe, and my husband was jealous
of everyone I talked to, and juggled
his own affection for him, their good times,
and me, the unfamiliar woman who had
taken the vows, put on the ring.
He must have thought I'd stop looking then,
made me guilty for still being alive,
and I'm not sure I ever loved him now, really,
certainly never loved Joe, but
I did meet a True Love soon thereafter,
two weeks after I married, in Joe's kitchen.
Joe's mother is dead, and that man
I met wasn't Mr. Right either,
but that's the love that blooms
in me, an air fern needing neither light nor water,
reminding me to never settle, never put up with,
and even in neon pinpoints of barlight,
there are greys we can't imagine when we're
18 or 25, or even 40.
There are teetotallers living a somewhere life
that later, when you are both sober,
arrive gratis from the closed saloon,
mysterious waters suddenly clear,
to sate your deepest thirst, last call,
when you can't stay where you are.
CAR 6/2/09
It hasn't been a bar for years,
the Board of Elections office,
uptown all offices now, so at 5 o'clock,
glass doors are locked, plastic blinds pulled
and the homeless take back their places
at the foot of stone basement steps,
down narrow alleys with broken iron gates,
or out in the open, slapdash park,
new tree, glistening green bench where
the tollbooth once stood for the parking garage
that started to crumble, then was demolished.
It hasn't been a bar for years,
but once upon college days it was
the fern bar of fern bars,
actual ferns hung in the front windows,
intimate tables on various levels,
and I was into Sea Breezes, now forbidden,
grapefruit juice incompatible with Lipitor.
My soon-to-be ex-husband drank bitterness
anywhere he could, huge mugsfull.
True, the gods had not been kind to him
in the Good Looks Department.
He was short, very short, and not handsome,
too uptight for sneakers, t-shirts, a bit of beard,
and his friend Joe treated us to drinks
while we worked for his ill-fated city campaign.
I lusted for Joe, and my husband was jealous
of everyone I talked to, and juggled
his own affection for him, their good times,
and me, the unfamiliar woman who had
taken the vows, put on the ring.
He must have thought I'd stop looking then,
made me guilty for still being alive,
and I'm not sure I ever loved him now, really,
certainly never loved Joe, but
I did meet a True Love soon thereafter,
two weeks after I married, in Joe's kitchen.
Joe's mother is dead, and that man
I met wasn't Mr. Right either,
but that's the love that blooms
in me, an air fern needing neither light nor water,
reminding me to never settle, never put up with,
and even in neon pinpoints of barlight,
there are greys we can't imagine when we're
18 or 25, or even 40.
There are teetotallers living a somewhere life
that later, when you are both sober,
arrive gratis from the closed saloon,
mysterious waters suddenly clear,
to sate your deepest thirst, last call,
when you can't stay where you are.
CAR 6/2/09
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
*Poem: "HGTV" *
In those designer homes on TV,
there's no room for prayer flags,
Kwan-Yin cut from a junk mail ad
and thumbtacked to the wood panelled wall,
no thumbtacks at all.
There are no piles of half-read, re-read, soon-to-be read
books next to the bed, beside the wastebasket,
no tissues either that missed the basket,
no magazines opened up to a recipe for Pumpkin Bread
with whole wheat flour, agave nectar and applesauce
on the kitchen counter, though plenty of counter, empty.
There are no birthday cards taped to a doorframe,
no place for unwashed laundry, litter boxes, dirty plates,
burnt toast, yarn scraps, dog-shit covered boots.
Just quiet breath, hands folded to lap,
flat screen TV tuned to the Fireplace Channel,
CD in the player enclosed by an oak entertainment center,
set on repeat-repeat-repeat- to a
copyrighted theme without words,
without staples or a strip of duct tape
to make it home.
CAR 11/5/08
there's no room for prayer flags,
Kwan-Yin cut from a junk mail ad
and thumbtacked to the wood panelled wall,
no thumbtacks at all.
There are no piles of half-read, re-read, soon-to-be read
books next to the bed, beside the wastebasket,
no tissues either that missed the basket,
no magazines opened up to a recipe for Pumpkin Bread
with whole wheat flour, agave nectar and applesauce
on the kitchen counter, though plenty of counter, empty.
There are no birthday cards taped to a doorframe,
no place for unwashed laundry, litter boxes, dirty plates,
burnt toast, yarn scraps, dog-shit covered boots.
Just quiet breath, hands folded to lap,
flat screen TV tuned to the Fireplace Channel,
CD in the player enclosed by an oak entertainment center,
set on repeat-repeat-repeat- to a
copyrighted theme without words,
without staples or a strip of duct tape
to make it home.
CAR 11/5/08
Friday, January 30, 2009
*Poem: "Three Hours"*
Three Hours
Three hours behind me every day
and as I finally my eyes
droop before the DVD de jour,
your evening is just beginning,
supper dishes drying perhaps
if you are one of those that still does that,
or maybe the dishwasher has ceased
its recycled rumble, the sound
you’re unaware of until it stops
like the trains that pass my house
a couple blocks away, 11:04, 11:35,
and which is the wrong side
of the tracks from here?
Midnight, prime time on your coast,
sit-coms just starting in earnest.
If we had cable it would be time for Bill Beutel
to say goodnight to Roger Grimsby.
I leave the bedding of Mrs. Calabash
in your nostalgic hands.
My head tilts up on the pillow like a baby bird
hungry for any worms the night can provide,
trains huff through the backyard,
sirens for no one on the tracks.
If you were here, you’d hear the birds have
already begun their mindless chant
for sunrise, and at 4 a.m. I know
where the term, 'birdbrain' comes from.
We are three hours, three thousand miles,
several partners apart, and just as the sun
reaches the high point over the Catskills,
hides behind as many clouds as mountains,
you are ready for a second cup of coffee,
check your e-mails, watch those celebrated frogs
settle into midmorning callesthentics,
and I wonder what with all the tectonic shifts
in our friendship, how time will fly before us,
if our suns will come together, mountains part,
and we'll share a cup o' joe from the same pot.
I'd look in your eyes, colored the same
sarcastic tone as the rest of your sad bones,
eyes that have it where the rest of you is
overshadowed, shark-skinned and cautious,
chink in your herringbone armor.
Three hours, three thousand miles, a couple of
lives before, we meet again and again,
you my ambassador to the world of high standards,
red-striped ties and a sense of what
good can do in the lives of strangers
and other insidious creatures
on the left coast of life.
CAR 6/19/08
Three hours behind me every day
and as I finally my eyes
droop before the DVD de jour,
your evening is just beginning,
supper dishes drying perhaps
if you are one of those that still does that,
or maybe the dishwasher has ceased
its recycled rumble, the sound
you’re unaware of until it stops
like the trains that pass my house
a couple blocks away, 11:04, 11:35,
and which is the wrong side
of the tracks from here?
Midnight, prime time on your coast,
sit-coms just starting in earnest.
If we had cable it would be time for Bill Beutel
to say goodnight to Roger Grimsby.
I leave the bedding of Mrs. Calabash
in your nostalgic hands.
My head tilts up on the pillow like a baby bird
hungry for any worms the night can provide,
trains huff through the backyard,
sirens for no one on the tracks.
If you were here, you’d hear the birds have
already begun their mindless chant
for sunrise, and at 4 a.m. I know
where the term, 'birdbrain' comes from.
We are three hours, three thousand miles,
several partners apart, and just as the sun
reaches the high point over the Catskills,
hides behind as many clouds as mountains,
you are ready for a second cup of coffee,
check your e-mails, watch those celebrated frogs
settle into midmorning callesthentics,
and I wonder what with all the tectonic shifts
in our friendship, how time will fly before us,
if our suns will come together, mountains part,
and we'll share a cup o' joe from the same pot.
I'd look in your eyes, colored the same
sarcastic tone as the rest of your sad bones,
eyes that have it where the rest of you is
overshadowed, shark-skinned and cautious,
chink in your herringbone armor.
Three hours, three thousand miles, a couple of
lives before, we meet again and again,
you my ambassador to the world of high standards,
red-striped ties and a sense of what
good can do in the lives of strangers
and other insidious creatures
on the left coast of life.
CAR 6/19/08
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
*Poem: Blessed*
Blessed
"Is Jesus still alive?" my niece whispers to my sister,
unconvinced by the pomp and ribbons
of the decorated tree before us,
o holy night carollers trembling song,
dark-robed minister and his simple good grin.
"He was a good man, and that's
why we celebrate his birthday,"
is my sister's ecumenical reply.
We have talked about this, and agree about
the man, the story, the not believing.
I am not guilty as this litany assumes,
wasn't born bad, have not gone,
owe no apology to some Great White Father King,
but the congregants recite,
in the glow of electric popcorn balls,
30-watt savior device in the popsicle creche,
their apologies.
My nephew and niece are invited to the menagerie,
handed a small stuffed donkey, plaster lamb
to add to the crowd in attendance at the celluloid babe's cribside,
after the second hymn, second verse, O Little Town tonight.
They don't know the words,
and we are so distracted by the lights and burgundy and
gold on the tree tumbling into our laps
that they almost miss their cue.
Yes, Jaimee', there is a Jesus,
and he lives as surely as Christmas returns,
with or without the snow you missed,
without blame, even without faith,
He fills the pantry for the poor that
the minister says is bare already, only December.
He carries the souls of the suddenly light into the next act.
He lays in the bed of straw, patiently waiting for his attackers
to come with their gifts, to cover the earth in gold,
surround the barn in a cloud of frankincense,
lubricate his small limbs with myrr
for the sleep of
the peacemakers,
for they are blessed.
CAR 12-28-01
"Is Jesus still alive?" my niece whispers to my sister,
unconvinced by the pomp and ribbons
of the decorated tree before us,
o holy night carollers trembling song,
dark-robed minister and his simple good grin.
"He was a good man, and that's
why we celebrate his birthday,"
is my sister's ecumenical reply.
We have talked about this, and agree about
the man, the story, the not believing.
I am not guilty as this litany assumes,
wasn't born bad, have not gone,
owe no apology to some Great White Father King,
but the congregants recite,
in the glow of electric popcorn balls,
30-watt savior device in the popsicle creche,
their apologies.
My nephew and niece are invited to the menagerie,
handed a small stuffed donkey, plaster lamb
to add to the crowd in attendance at the celluloid babe's cribside,
after the second hymn, second verse, O Little Town tonight.
They don't know the words,
and we are so distracted by the lights and burgundy and
gold on the tree tumbling into our laps
that they almost miss their cue.
Yes, Jaimee', there is a Jesus,
and he lives as surely as Christmas returns,
with or without the snow you missed,
without blame, even without faith,
He fills the pantry for the poor that
the minister says is bare already, only December.
He carries the souls of the suddenly light into the next act.
He lays in the bed of straw, patiently waiting for his attackers
to come with their gifts, to cover the earth in gold,
surround the barn in a cloud of frankincense,
lubricate his small limbs with myrr
for the sleep of
the peacemakers,
for they are blessed.
CAR 12-28-01
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
*Poem: "Love Wants To Be My Friend"*
Love Wants To Be My Friend
On MySpace I get an invitation--
Love wants to be my Friend.
After all these years Love
has been waiting for me,
browsing the Internet,
and comes across my intriguing profile.
Love wants to be my Friend, and
we should start as Friends, I think.
This time, we should go slow,
exchanging e-mails, MP3 downloads,
maybe a little YouTube if things
seem to be progressing.
Love wants to be my Friend, for once,
after all the angry breakups,
swearing off for good--
it seems Love wants to start up again.
I am ready this time.
I have my buttons before me.
All it takes is one finger
to block it all, delete Love
if things start to go awry.
Love wants to be my Friend,
and what the heck?
It's been a slow week.
I accept the offer,
and already I feel that old electric rush
coursing through the keyboard,
up through my fingertips,
into the light.
CAR 11/26/08
On MySpace I get an invitation--
Love wants to be my Friend.
After all these years Love
has been waiting for me,
browsing the Internet,
and comes across my intriguing profile.
Love wants to be my Friend, and
we should start as Friends, I think.
This time, we should go slow,
exchanging e-mails, MP3 downloads,
maybe a little YouTube if things
seem to be progressing.
Love wants to be my Friend, for once,
after all the angry breakups,
swearing off for good--
it seems Love wants to start up again.
I am ready this time.
I have my buttons before me.
All it takes is one finger
to block it all, delete Love
if things start to go awry.
Love wants to be my Friend,
and what the heck?
It's been a slow week.
I accept the offer,
and already I feel that old electric rush
coursing through the keyboard,
up through my fingertips,
into the light.
CAR 11/26/08
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