A Chapter of Verses
mythic songs and play.
We turned our hands to summer’s work.
Powdered dung-dust sucked the juice
from our throats, discouraging remarks
and idle chatter. Despite the sun
I felt chills in the stifling shed.
something stirred that slept in the dark
rooms of my mind. It seemed that stone
hunched my shoulders and bowed my head.
I quarreled with my heaviness,
blamed it on eating improper food,
blinding myself to my unease.
The Carousel
The palomino swan-coach pair
and bay horse and black horse all are still.
They stand with the appaloosa mare,
nostrils flared and hooves held high,
poised on the silent carousel.
The sallow people walking by
darken the mirrors with their despair.
They hunch their shoulders against the snow.
They have no magic of the eye
to see the horses waiting there
to ride the golden poles. When they go,
we see the mirrors shimmering,
the horses prancing, eyes aglow,
and, beckoning, the golden ring.
The Quiet Carousel
The carousel is still. The gilt
has peeled from its poles in curling strips
and lies on the deck. The mirrors melt
debris to fantasies. A sad
slow wind rattles the empty cups;
they sound like horses on parade.
I half-convince myself I hear
the wheeze of a distant calliope
and see clowns caper in the road.
Small flakes of snow fall through the tears
in the carousel’s canvas top. I see
no clowns, I hear no song but wind
drumming the canvas mournfully
and rolling the cups along the ground.
The Coyote
Last night it snowed. Tonight it drifts.
The coyote calls from the eastern hills.
He’d have me raise my cry with his
to grieve the moon’s uncaring ways.
I hear the despair in his howling
that the moon has done him wrong.
I will not go to howl with him.
I will not go where God has spilled
his star shaker across the sky.
What care I for the fickle moon,
that I should freeze in the winter wind?
Let old coyote howl for himself.
I’ve faithless loves of my own to accuse,
and in my house I have fire and light.
The Dowager
Orange-and-black-winged, two butterflies
sip at the purple chives. The cat
folds her tail and poses wise
and solemn, a gray-furred dowager
aloof from frivolous moths at their meat.
You stroke her chin. She starts to purr
and stretch, forgetful of her dignity.
The dowager is still a kitten,
for all her venerable years.
I look, and in your eyes I see,
though you wrinkle, your youth will sweeten
your sour age. Your sight may fade,
your hearing go, your memory weaken,
but you’ll still want to watch the parade.
The Frogs
The frogs are croaking in the yard.
Their throats are hoarse. They’ve sung for hours.
“Ninety-nine droplets of dew on the lawn,”
they sing, “ninety-nine droplets of dew.
Take one sip, then wipe your lip,
ninety-eight droplets of dew on the lawn...”
they must be drunk, or stoned on grass.
If they kept a rhythm, I’d sleep,
perhaps to dream of railway journeys,
but each must croak to his own drum,
and sing his own off-key notes.
Some claim their chorus marks their turf,
others say they sing for mates.
I’m wakeful, plotting frogicide.
The Presence
You sense a presence in this place.
I feel a chill, dead, mass of air.
You think it’s a ghost, one of your race
still uneasy in its rest.
Your talk prickles my neckline hair.
Moonset is orange in the west;
some angry cloud has tinted the white.
My unease grows as you draw close.
I put my fingers on your wrist
and wish the day would rush the night.
I measure the stutter of your pulse.
You take my hand and say, “Let’s run!
I do not like whatever it is.”
We run and hills swallow the moon.
The River
I watched the sun waltz on the river
thinking of you and why you went.
The ripples ran like melted silver.
I bowed my head to make a wish.
The river flowed westward, intent
on the sea. The sun painted a flush
on the waters as they ran.
I turned homeward to the rooms
where your feet left prints I washed
away in anger. You are not in
their emptiness, and I must come
to terms with places empty of you.
How strange: the river flows the same
while I stumble on a road that’s new.
Waiting For Unicorns
One night when lilacs bloomed in the yard
I slipped from bed and opened the window.
The cold breeze chilled my cheeks and nose.
The moon tarnished the yard with silver.
The stars had chewed a thousand moth holes
in the night’s threadbare opera cape.
Beside me, the clock climbed hand over hand
from nine to midnight. My books had promised
unicorns would come to graze
on lilacs blooming in May moonlight.
The clock hands slid from midnight to five.
My heart and body were ice by dawn.
I saw no unicorns. At noon
I cut the lilacs to fill a vase.
When We Began to Love
When we began to love each other
I thought we’d love till death came round.
New lovers don’t see troubles gather,
immersed in two becoming one,
convinced they’ll be forever one mind,
one will, one soul, under the sun.
Romance breeds a cataract
that blinds the heart to common sense.
Yet love survives the setting moon
to thrive in the day. I’d resurrect
the giddy ecstasy of romance
with you, but you’ve found someone else
who fires your soul with a single glance
and mates his heartbeat with your pulse.
White Water
White water wears at iron-stained stone,
then tumbles and quiets in brown pools.
The paintbrush catches the morning sun
and distills for dawn its purple and red.
Sun-dribbled gold touches the rills
that swell the creek from the mother lode
of glacier ice. Daisies dress
a hill in lavender shawls. We stop
and kiss with our eyes. You shake your head
to stop my kissing with lips. We pass
a small cascade, the others in step
behind us. “Look for columbine,”
you say, “under the aspen,” and drop
a wink to me for promise sign.
Wise Old Women
Old women were wise when I was a boy.
They crafted childhoods from cookies and stories.
They knew the secrets of making ja
ms
and building peace from compromises.
They knew where small boys went to play,
and when a silence threatened mischief.
They brought forth cakes from cranky ovens
and started fires with kindling and coal.
They chased my monsters out of my closet
and swept the ogres from under my bed.
The world was a decent and orderly place.
One by one the wise old women
laid down their baking pans and died.
The world wobbles in a warped orbit.
Berry Picking
A sparrow chattered overhead
while we picked the boysenberries.
Our hands were sticky with the juice,
our fingers too dirty for licking clean.
The cat stalked the moths cavorting
above the vines. We complained
about the heat, but kept picking.
Grandma promised pie for dessert.
A thunderstorm rode down the canyon
throwing lightning and hailstones at us.
The cat and sparrow fled to the porch.
We dropped our pails and ran for the house.
The berries scattered over the lawn.
We had no dessert that night.
Childhood Rules
The old ones gave me childhood rules
that still compel my obedience:
“Brine draws the bitter from cucumbers.”
“Don’t sit in drafts if your feet are wet.”
“Vinegar seasons beans and spinach.”
“Salt tomatoes, sugar cherries.”
“Hot cookies burn the tongue and fingers.”
“Do your chores before you play.”
“Children should sleep when chickens do.”
“Scorch the flour for pot roast gravy.”
“Wash your ears and elbows twice.”
“Tiptoe when a cake is baking.”
“Wash both the front and back of the plate.”
“When you sleep in strange beds, wear pajamas.”
Adapted from Anacreon # 47
I am old, but I drink more
than young men can, and when I dance
I take the center of the floor,
using my jeroboam for crutch
since my cane’s too short to serve.
If anybody wants a fight,
bring him over; I’ll whip him, sure.
Barkeep, bring me bourbon and seven,
not too heavy on the seven.
Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)
Snow crushed the roof on Lizzie’s hut.
The thrifty council refused to disturb the ruin.
They carved her dates on a broken roof tile.
Why dig the woman up just to bury her?
For My Ex
(Horace, Carmina IV, xiii “Audivere, Lyce, di mea vota, di...”)
I lit candles, pranced
widdershins around them,
chanting harsh syllables
awkward as Klingon curses.
It worked, my dear. You’ve aged.
You paint and powder, paste
a too-bright smile on your face.
Only the blind are fooled.
Your flesh has shriveled or sagged.
Your hair, what’s left of it,
clings feebly to your scalp.
Look in your mirror; your treason
is carved in your wrinkled cheeks.
The powers that be are just,
if bought with prayers enough.
Love Weariness
(Horace, Carmina IV, i “Intermissa, Venus, diu...”)
Love gods in every pantheon,
have done! Spare me further amours!
I’m not the man I used to be
when Lou’s love ruled me. Have done, I plead!
I’m crowding sixty. Bother the young.
They’ve the constitution for love,
the will to waltz all night with lust,
the strength to woo and win and lose.
I’m beyond both men and women.
Leave me to my television and crackers.
But why, when Matt Damon visits Oprah,
does my breath come faster, imagining
I watch from poolside as he plunges,
a golden arrow, into blue water?
Midsummer’s Night
(Horace, Carmina III, xxviii, “Festo quid potius die...”)
Midsummer’s Night, my friend.
I’ve stashed a Sonoma Merlot
in the cellar for tonight.
Fetch it, amigo.
The afternoon’s wound down.
Dusk unwinds it shadows.
I’ll get some ice and a bucket
to cool the wine.
While it chills we’ll sing
songs for the holiday.
I’ll do songs of the sea.
You warble laments.
We’ll end with a duet for lovers,
uncork the wine and drink
a toast to fermented grapes
and drowning sorrows.
Adapted from Anacreon # 51
Just because you’re young,
blooming with youth and grace,
don’t run from my gray hair.
Florists arrange bouquets
with lilies beside the roses.
My Escape
(Horace, Carmina I, v “Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa...”)
What graceful half-god embraces you,
crushing you on heaps of roses?
Have you caught him with artless curls?
He’ll come to tears over you.
He’ll dive into your eyes’ black seas
to drown where others have. Too bad
your eyes are deeper than your soul.
I was luckier. I got away.
Shipwrecked Romans come safe to shore
offered plaques and their sea-soaked tunics
to thank the ocean. I scrawled my thanks
on a bathhouse wall and left my jeans
in a puddle in a shower stall.
For a Soldier Who Died on Camera
(Catullus, Carmina LXV, “etsi me adsiduo defectam cura dolore...”)
Brother, my verse calls me to work.
I am too dull with regret to midwife
verses for the Muses. The foreign earth
lies heavy on you by that strange river.
I’ll never meet you, now, to spend
an hour or two in some tavern to hear
your story of your war. Out of regret,
unknown brother, I write for you
this paraphrase of Catullus to tell you
I held you in my mind beyond
the electron flicker of your dying.
Adapted from Anacreon # 53
Gray hair rings my head.
When I see young men dancing,
I am young again
and waltz as well as any.
Bring me scotch, no ice,
to stupefy my heart.
I’m old, about to die,
but I’ve got reels to dance
and polkas to step before
I let you bury me!
Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)
Prion, a sailor of Greece,
outran the storms of the sea
to shelter in a windless harbor.
Pirates caught him there,
took his ship and cargo,
recruited his crew, and killed him.
Tithonos
Greek tales tell how Dawn once took
a lover, the young stud Tithonos.
She granted him an endless life,
but forgot to include eternal youth.
He withered as the years piled up.
Dawn ran off with an ageless god.
Fate made Tithonos a locust
doomed to hop the prairies forever.
Tales claim he still wanders with the bugs.
&nbs
p; If Dawn remembers her lover at all,
I suppose she remembers him young.
Who knows what Tithonos remembers?
If fate was kind his brain has withered,
and he only remembers the wind in the grass.
The Visitation
It was after church
and after noon,
and the sun lay on the town
like eternal damnation’s despair.
Miranda sat on the veranda
holding her panda
while Amanda fanned her
with a palm frond.
Behind the oleanders,
her brother Alexander
and her cousin Leander
fondled each other.
Sister Lorna lounged on a lawn chair
languid as the lilies
sleeping on the pond
in the languorous afternoon.
Her beloved Papá, the Commander,
snored in his wicker rocker.
The cicadas in the yews
harmonized on their kazoos
and the mockingbirds slept,
too weary to mimic their buzz.
Flies circled the lemonade,
dipping and sipping
from pitcher and tumblers
sticky with sugar
retreating ice cubes left.
Silk rustled in the stillness.
Miranda thought of dry grasses
rubbing helplessly in a moaning wind.
The cicadas went silent.
The Commander woke.
Alexander left off fondling Leander.
Amanda laid aside her palm frond.
The lilies slept on the quiet pond.
Lorna lifted her head, her limp locks
slipping over her shoulders.
The flies, flush with lemonade,
settled on the rim of the pitcher
and waited with motionless wings.
A fungus-pale face emerged,
like a Polaroid developing,
above the yew shaded walk.
Under the face the darker shadows
formed into a gown
five generations out of fashion.
A fierce old woman stood
in mourning silk and laces
just on the edge of the sun
like a raven with ill tidings.
Miranda on the verandah
shivered and squeezed her panda.
Amanda turned and hurried into the house
crossing her bosom in panic.
Leander and Alexander peeped
through the branching oleander.
Languorous Lorna leapt from her lawn chair.
The Commander rose from his wicker rocker,
to peer at the figure on the walk.
“Great Aunt Cassandra’s Ghost!”
he exclaimed and fell back in the rocker.
It creaked under his weight.
The apparition laughed.
The screech was nerve-destroying,
like a death cry of dolphins.
“Not sober, Nephew Evander?
Too much rum in the lemonade?”
The ghostly whisper
rattled like dry sticks.
The Commander forbore to answer.
Miranda’s Mamá,
Amanda behind her,
drifted onto the verandah
dressed in blue linen
pale as water
under a winter sky.
“Great Aunt Cassandra,
what a lovely surprise!”
Her voice was a flute song,
liquid melody in the languid heat.
“Do come perch on the porch.
We’ve lemonade, already made.”
“Great Aunt Cassandra
died a hundred years ago, Mamá.”
Lorna’s voice was harsh and sour.
“I don’t think we’ve lemonade
enough to wet her bones.”
Mamá Letitia’s fluting voice
rose to a gargling shriek
as she slumped to the porch.
She lay there like water
spilled in a puddle
waiting for the sun
to suck it up.
Miranda held her panda
in front of her to defend her.
“By the holy jacaranda,
sacred to the best of families,”
she demanded of the apparition,
“what brings you here,
Great Aunt Cassandra’s Ghost?”
The menacing whisper was clear
though it did not stir the heat-heavy air.
“The Yankees are coming!
They’ve burned Atlanta!
The Yankees are coming!
They’re marching on Savannah!
Beware! Beware! Beware!”
With a loud ululation
the apparition evaporated.
In the silence that followed,
the cicadas began to croon
in the summer afternoon.
The thirsty flies
dived into the lemonade.
Amanda lifted Mamá Letitia
from the verandah
to carry her into the gloom
that huddled in the house.
Leander caressed Alexander.
Alexander giggled among the oleanders.
Sister Lorna reclined on the lawn chair,
her fingers twisting her limp locks.
Commander Sanders snored again,
a gentle sound, like muffled tubas
keeping the beat for a distant band.
Miranda hugged her panda
and prayed on the verandah
for the repose of ancestral souls.
Homeward Bound
Winter moon, watch over me.
Shadows stalk the feeble streetlights.
The whispering wind has snow on its breath.
Long hours in smoky bars behind me,
waiting for Mr. Right to show.
I’m going home alone, again.
Watch me, waning winter moon,
between the bar and my empty room.
Hospital
Every evening they come to me,
the woman I wed and the man I loved.
They gather with lesser ghosts at twilight,
fearful I’ll forget I knew them.
They swing from the tube that enters my arm.
They dance on the scope that watches my heart.
When the lamps divide the glare from shadow,
they skulk in the dark corners and scowl.
They wait for my evening medication.
They want to chatter in my dreams.
If this room had television,
I’d turn it on before the twilight
and drown my ghosts in seas of drivel,
so I could sleep the night undisturbed.
Hyperbole
“If the moon were a medal,
I’d take it from Heaven
to hang round your neck.
I’d take Orion’s stars
to make the chain
and a cunning clasp.”
He smiled as I spoke.
“But the owls will not take
their delirious wings
from the moon’s wan face
and Orion is hunting
the negligent bear
through the galaxies.
I faint when I climb,
and a loon is wailing
I’ll die if I try
to snatch the moon
from the firmament.”
When I said this to him,
he replied with a shrug,
and got up and left me.
“No poetry of soul,”
I