THE POETRY CHALLENGE

Who writes THE BEST POETRY 

in America today?

(c) copyright 2007, David B. Axelrod

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

   CAMOUFLAGE

   FOR KATHLEEN WHO DISLIKES W.C.W.

   AT THE INSTITUTE FOR SLEEP

   TOUGH KID

   GRAY SUMMER WEEKEND

   FALL SHOWER

   PECONIC

   BOSNIAN CHILDREN PLAYING

RANDOM BEAUTY

Some can’t admit the randomness of beauty,

as if a clover’s perfect crown should need

a reason.  Others see gods at work in every

season, heroes personified in stars.

I have a quarrel with religion, imposing

order on things better left alone.

Honeysuckle is its own revelation,

its sweetness the  perfect perfume.

I’ll  take chaos over counting angels—

Columbine, clematis, abundant

at roadside.  Who needs Deuteronomy

or Numbers?  Beauty transcends all laws.

THE COLOSSAL ACCIDENT

The colossal accident of

our existence makes you,

asleep in a bunk bed

across the hall, all

the more a mystery.

I half believe a Buddhist

monk who died just

when your heart began

to beat has been reborn

in you.  I half believe

only the very dumb

think there’s a soul.

Your small cry for “Dad”

stirs me from my sleep

like the trumpet that

will raise the dead.

All you need is my

quiet shout “I love you,”

to fall back to sleep.

Now I’ll stay awake till

moonset, meditating

on life’s meaning.

Not to worry—we all

catch up on sleep. 

WHAT PHILOSPHERS DON’T KNOW  

Today a freezing sky

contradicts itself

with too-bright sun. 

A pencil line of jet

trails five miles high.

A quiet rush of wind

moves leafless maples,

wintered black pine.

What we can see,

says Aristotle, can be

quantified and named.

What we can see,

says Plato, is but a dream. 

Into this picture, introduce

a big belly, freshly showered;

warm breasts ready to nurse—

a landscape of shiny skin, 

forests, caves. If I were

a philosopher I would say

what matters, but for now,

before this moment passes

let's make love.

A GUIDE TO URBAN BIRDS  

1.  Parking lot Gulls

They preen beside puddles

squawking over dumpster tidbits.

Mother gull astride a paper nest.

Young gulls defending their territory

defined between white parking lines.

Old gulls like sailors too tired

to go to sea.

2.  Highway Hawks

The crows may leave the meadows

to pick at a recent roadside

kill.  Why should they bother

with field mice, harder now to find?

Here's fast food for any bird.

Only, a hundred feet above,

just at the edge of a pine

grove, a hawk still spans

the sky, waiting for a movement

he can identify.

3.  Dump Swallows

Yes, gulls, circling noisily

above a dozer as it spreads their

dump-truck dinner.  Yes, pigeons,

perhaps refugees from city streets,

cooing in a quieter corner.

And also two swallows

on a chain link, trying

to decide which home to buy.

ANGER

“Handle your anger,” they say,

as if I’m into Buddhist virtues

or anger is a pot with a wood

dowel for a handle waiting

to cook soup.  Well  brew me

some anger stew.  Haven’t  you

heard: “If you’re not  outraged

you’re not paying attention?” 

See, I’m not talking angry,

frustrated, fist-pounding,

fuck ‘em all.  I’m talking

productive, give ‘em hell,

do-something-about-it angry. 

I’m talking get-these-idiots-

out-of-my-life angry.  That’s

what I want.  Fewer fools

who cut  me off after

a half hour’s hold.  Fewer

sympathetic bureaucrats saying 

“You’re absolutely right

but there’s nothing I can do.”

Fewer people who think

they know what’s best for me,

telling me “Go placidly amid

the noise & haste.”  Give me

200 Watts and mega-speakers. 

Blow those bastard off the map!

LASSITUDE  

For stupidity there is no excuse.

Insincerity is a sin.

But lassitude, shouldn’t it

be understood? Slow clerks,

sullen sales persons,

sorry waiters serving

thumb in the soup.

The rich have

vindictiveness. 

The poor, revenge. 

But for middle class,

lassitude is justice

exacted slowly, slowly

like a leaking

tire and no spare.

Let the clerics deal with

matters of the soul.

Phenomenologists phenomenologize.

Lassitude is all that’s left

for the eviscerated common man.

EVERY BABY

beckons, its cry my need

to see the helplessness

in me set free.  No matter

someone else’s kin,

I want the child to smile

carry everything from candy

and toys to tricks to make

a baby sleep.  Open

a nursery, study pre-

school, adopt, I should

be someone’s mother

but am just by myself.

THE DEAD OF KINGS PARK

The dead of course remain,

in unmarked graves in obscure

corners, those who died

from neglect, experiments,

a fellow patient or attendant hands.

If you deny it, I’ll say I’ve seen

their bones in dreams,

can lead you to them.

But what of others, driven out

for lack of love, to save a buck,

to prove a point, pills in hand.

No honeymoon weekend home,

the iron gates opened to a world

of ironies: panic, longing for

the institutional lives they lived.

See them on a corner

in the once-rich neighborhood,

redlined, SSD checks in hand,

wondering what. The lifers,

the walkers, the ones medicine saved,

but in their minds as forgotten

as the dead of Kings Park .

DECEMBER 31, 1999

I am trying to make something

memorable of this sunset

for my daughter Aileen,

just seven.  This is the last

light of day of year of century.

“Millenium?”   She doesn’t

understand that word,

a thousand times too big

for her.  But she indulges me

as I explain, forced to consider

things like Christ’s birth and who

made the calendar.  She is more

sure of her two-wheeler, perched

just too high on the 20”pink

frame trying to balance

and I root for her on her

wobbling path.  Look!
She’s doing it just

as the sun disappears

behind a pink edge of cloud.

JANUARY THAW

Matted grass thaws

in my backyard, where soon

I’ll tune the sit-down mower

to start my acre trek, complaining

how fast the lawn grows even

as I water, fertilize and lime. 

For now, all gardeners can rest

as January turns a path to mud. 

What optimist imagines

emerald green?  What fool

envisions tulips budding

months before it’s spring? 

I am mulching clippings

in my mind, the warmth

of their decay my winter fuel.

THE GOD IN THE DETAILS

the god that looks

out for you is the part

of you that knows

there is joy in life

the structured details

of redecorating the house

in blue, in cleaning

for company so thoroughly

you move the couch god

is in the specifics the devil

doesn’t care lets laundry

pile up doesn’t brush hair

eats mostly junk food

smokes rationalizes drinks

god plans the day doesn’t

need a shopping list buying

red white and blue dahlias

in early March to bloom

by the 4^th of July your

god (and mine) doesn’t

sweat the small stuff

as if any moment is small

so that when you spill

soup hurrying to finish

and the stain is even in

an embarrassing spot

on a thigh the sudden

heat is a blessing the blush

is a blessing the fleeting

thought of what strange things

(incontinence) others may

think is a blessing and you

laugh to your god and give

thanks for this humorous existence

DISEASES

What better than a body,

the fleshy joke in which

we all reside, to remind

the mind that nothing lasts.

Six billion souls will leave

their corpse behind all

in the next 100 years—

peacefully or by violence,

by illness, accident, as if 

some cosmic puppeteer

really has a plan. Poets

and scientists are trained

to see disease as natural

and predictable as festering

produces toxins or penicillin.

Honey, garlic, ginger;

nature or nurture;

Western or alternative—

it isn’t a contest. Wait

long enough, wellness,

disease are just the same.

MUSHROOMS

These things that pop up

variously where you haven't

even spread the compost,

perhaps the last sign

of the oak stump cleared

for the house.  Startling

white, bulbous and yellow,

disturbingly gray fingers

clawing out of earth,

a mechanism vaguely

viral, growing where it

shouldn't, asking for ex-

cision—a fear that

rot will be revealed: fine

shards, coarse meat,

a tiny spot that might grow

back.  No chemo required,

just a stiff kick that spreads

their innards across the lawn.

MILL TOWN

They've made malls and condos

from mills where the girls

worked seventy-hour weeks,

weaving. Those who left

the farm and milking only

escaped spindles and gears

if the manager picked one

to marry.  How many toiled

where the shops now peddle

latte and Gucci?  But do not

scold the gentry.  There,.

by the parking lot replacing

the tenements, by the docks

where cotton arrived and cloth

shipped out, children are

in a playground, laughing.

WAITING

There's always another excuse

waiting for life to begin

the lawn needs mowing

(assuming seeding

was the first excuse) then

the garden weeding once

the spring is squandered

on annuals (because perennials

mean hope). Let's not mention

having kids, non-stop feeding

and a sentence, sixteen to twenty-six

hard time, depending on your

progeny's asserting independence.

Procrastination is a momentary

fascination, finding a way

to blank out the screen

or break the printer.

Postponements are inevitable.

But hardcore waiting is an art,

a philosophical stance

akin to Sartre or Beckett.

Waiting for a quiet moment

can pass for meditation.

Add a smile and patience

is a virtue.  Holding one’s breath

is clearly spoiled and a Mexican

standoff now has uncomfortably

anti-Hispanic connotations. Wait-  

ing is what I'm into now, even

as I speak. Eventually (a word

we waiters enunciate with fervor)

inspiration will come followed

surely by success. Until then

I will content myself with

surly customers and hope

for a suitable tip.

AN HONEST STRANGER  

(for the Port Jefferson town fathers and fire chief)  

When the cop awakens me

banging on the front door

below my bedroom

he asks angrily why I

didn’t answer my phone.
“Get dressed,” he says

“A house you own is burning.”
“Why?” I ask. “I can’t put out

the fire.”  “Don’t you care?”

he nearly grabs me. 

Ah, but there’s a history: 

It was left vacant, gasoline

contamination from

a nearby station.  The day

they confirmed it, the fire chief

said it could explode, then drove

away saying “Hire a guard.

It’s your problem.”

No one could live there. 

The authorities didn’t care

even after they pumped

20,000 gallons of unleaded

gas from the front lawn. 

“I’ll deal with  it tomorrow,”

I tell the cop and go back to bed. 

Later, the insurance company

uses my “indifference” to say
I torched the place.  It’s dangerous

to be an honest stranger.

THE FULL MOON  

The full moon maddens the blue jays

squawking good morning at one a.m. .

If birds can be fools, what chance for me,

hot with hopes for a peaceful summer

unable to dream or sleep?  There, on the lawn

the largest grub I have ever seen,

its fat, white body fully fueled.

No one feeds more voraciously than I,

finding the secret insects burrowing

in my backyard, sucking them passionately.

Does a bird have a choice? Can nature

resist?  This heat at last, 90˚in May

after so many cold nights, lusterless days.

Come on you crazy jays, scratch with me

in the moon-shadows of my back yard.

Let’s devour these delicacies while we can.

LAST ROSE  

Peach colored, double petals

open to a bright Long Island

noon , blooming from the bush

we bought last Pesach glad

for winter’s passing soon.  

Bring it in before it freezes;

place it in a crystal vase.

Watch it crown by candles

kindled praising a miracle of light.

OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVES  

The alltoocasual siren rush volunteers

to car crash fire whatever harries us

pitythepoormonster mankind

and we at tea at piano cellphoning

phonating through our days

interpolating into Icarus scenes

theskyisfalling the skyisfalling

as if it would matter to be mindful

to what purpose pay attention

rubberneck the couple bleeding

at a rearender keep the scanner on

to follow EMTs where but to our own

penultimate hour where we watch

triage the insertion of an IV the popup

of a gurney wheeling us away

as someone else weeds dandelions

on at last a warm spring day.

THANATOPSIS  

What calls the title

to mind as I walk

on a mild March

afternoon—

the sound of a jet,

the rush of cars,

hushed voices

of couples passing? 

Was the poem about

life or death, vanity

or fame?  They tell us

literature

is important. 
Brushed by

this warm, damp

breeze, I wonder.

LEARNING  

Some things learn

not to grow:

                   the goldfish

in its two quart bowl,

never the golden carp

coveted in the fishpond.

                  a small deer

in the Florida Keys

hiding among bent pines

by little quays.

                  that philodendron

in an eight inch terra-

cotta pot, never to dominate

buttressed trunks of banyan.

Still, stunted 

celebrates survival.

MARCH IN RED SQUARE  

Okay, I was never

next to Kruschev looking

on, but always close

to him, ogling big missiles,

oohing with great pride.
See, there in the second row,

almost close enough for our

hands to clasp as the official

bulbs were popping. I wanted

the world but he gave me

only his bare, balding head

and bad breath all night in bed.
Cranky old men don’t make

good lovers except, dying,

he whispered my secret name:

Rosebud.  Now I am a faded

footnote in history: Madam

Rusheskorva, consort, KGB,

and rumored lover of him.

Only, on May 1^st, I still

daydream of big missiles,

slumped in my lawn chair

here in West Palm.

WORKING TIDES

Water rushes

to fill the marsh:

a circlet of salt

along the reeds,

the rejuvenating

scent of iodine.

BEACH POEM

The erratic strut of an infant

with blue plastic shovel.

The halting stride of an old man

brown wood cane pushing through sand.

The erotic sway of a young woman

red rubber raft on hip.

The lazy pan of a middle-aged man

astride a straw beach mat.

THE LECTURE ON INNER PEACE

It’s a nickel a minute as I sit,

my parking meter ticking.

I’ve paid to hear a talk

on inner peace.  “In life,”

the master says, “more

is less.”  My house, even

empty, also has its price

(twelve cents a minute

average for a month). 

The master says “Material

things are nothing.”

The mystery for me is how

the phone, silent so much,

adds up.  “Listen

to the silence within,”

he tells us, encouraging

us to feel our breath.  It’s

the electric bill that scares

me half to death.  I’d like to take

this fellow out for drinks,

a burger, talk, but I’m sure

he’d be too busy. Then,

there’d be the ancient

question: “Who’s paying?”

SOCCER

What genius invented soccer?

Hefty calves plying muddy fields.

Any sport requiring the head

to stop hard flying objects—duh!
And who is the fool screaming,

“Goal! Goal! Goal!” Imagine

a couple hours and a 1-1 tie?
Duh times two.

                             We’re stuck

with baseball, the boring boys

of summer.  We’re hooked

on basketball, a hyper-

glandular parade.  Wrestling?
Stupidity.  Hockey? Stupidity on ice.

Football?  Steroids in uniform.

But soccer?  Exceptionally dumb!

PEOPLE WHO  CAN WATCH TV WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY

I’m jealous. For me it’s this compulsion

to do something, not just watch—

like mend a broken pot or roll

spare pennies.  With boxing

I miss the knockout,  reading.

Talk shows, I never look

the speakers in the eyes.

Then there’s the 101 cable channels

for which I pay umptididdle bucks

per month for what?  Reruns,

some news, the local weather?

Or could it be TV inspires me?

Sure I could love Lucy but

right now I’m writing you this poem.

ONCE IN A WHILE A PROTEST POEM

Over and over again the papers print

the dried-out tit of an African woman

holding her starving child.  Over

and over, cropping it each time to one

prominent, withered tit, the feeble

infant face.  Over and over to toughen

us, teach us to ignore the foam turned

dusty powder on the infant’s lips,

the mother’s sunken face (is cropped)

and filthy dress.  The tit remains;

the tit held out for everyone to see,

reminding us only that we are not so hungry

ogling the tit, admiring it and in our

living rooms, making it a symbol of starving

millions; our sympathy as real as silicone.

RADOVAN KARADZIC

(wanted for crimes against humanity)

I sat with you over

Turkish coffee,

strategized poetry,

translation, literary

tradition.  How could I

miss the slaughter

in your eyes?  Your

tweed jacket, the briar

pipe clenched in your

teeth.  A psychiatrist,

gentleman, poet.

Perhaps when you

introduced a colleague

as an Albanian though

he lived and worked

his lifetime with you.

Perhaps when you

checked the diacritical

marks on every name:
Ĉ= Serbian

Ć=Croatian

Ċ= Macedonian

a phonetic list of who

should live or die.

A HAPPY SLAVE IS STILL A SLAVE

( China receives permanent most-favored nation status)

Money can’t unmake a tyrant:

Deng Xiaoping declaring “It’s

honorable to grow wealthy.”

Now a billion souls are slaves

and we trade decency for dollars.

They have no free speech or press,

no workers’ rights or freedom 

to associate.  No right to assemble

or worship or even travel.

No rule of law or rights in court. 

Ask young students—they’ll say,

“We’re just like Americans.

All we care about is money.”

Maybe that’s all they’re taught,

but we should know better.

THE CHINA DAILY

The readers of the China Daily

bend in the breeze like ripe rice stalks.

As darkness descends on crowded streets

requiring retreat within small cells,

still some bring home the China Daily

pronouncing to wife mother father kids

reassuringly, beneath a smiling image of Deng Xiao Ping,

the China Daily tells us, comrades,

"To be rich is glorious. It's China 's time."

THE CRICKET

With a preemptive leap

through my front door

the cricket is singing

in my study.  Hopeless

lover,  he doesn’t know

it’s his last song, and I

won’t be sad.

Who asked him to visit?

Who’ll pay for his room,

his critical care as he

expires by the radiator?

Shall I hirer a shrink

to find the cricket child

within his hardening

carapace?  I can’t stand

whiners.

I understand

suicide but am not

inclined to risk assisting.

He'll chirp to death

soon enough and I'll

sleep better.

WE LIVE

we live ordinary lives denying

they are flying over them

six miles high every inch aspires

to be owned acres of egos

gardens of roses double petals

kennedy roses mine are

better mine are mine

try to ground them

you’re accused of being

too perfect your mmpi score

says you think you’re always

right what if you are always

right what if you are

that’s pathological

try teaching better un-

teaching everything you know

they know it’s useless even

as you try and their eyes

glass over and it’s time

for a break give me a break

give me a break a break

if you know the secret of

life don’t tell genital vegetable

mineral for gods’ sake don’t or

you’re punished with a torn

liver or a large rock to roll

branches withdrawn no fruit

if you have the answer answer

take my word for it honestly

the truth be told here’s how

it is i know if someone settling

a pillow or throwing off a shawl

we’re back to that beginnings

endings all been done before

done before before

but as surely as pain is

pleasure pleasure is

pain it’s still worth

doing again.

STRAWBERRIES

Cow manure was all it took,

and a soft bed of straw

surrounding each plant.

By mid-spring, the tendrils.

Late May, simple white flowers. 

July in New England ,

strawberry month and I

in business, picking

for five cents a quart,

sunrise to nearly noon   

when I’d change from

dungarees with wet

brown knees, and wash

the red juice from my

hands.  I’d rush to the triple

feature where I passed

on salty popcorn, jelly

beans and coke, a quart

of perfect berries already

churning in my belly

before the final chase.

THE HEAT OF DAY

A dry energy drains

winter's anxieties.

What slept in earth

has risen, daylilies

variegated proof of miracles

beyond the singing parish

the ministrations of cheerful

priests.  Nothing more sure

than the heat of mid-day

and traffic cued at stop signs

after mid-morning mass.

APOLOGIES

(for Robert)

We’ve lugged all day down to

the last. We’ll leave the old

cabinet, the chandelier sans

several crystals.  You hand me

the big framed mirror, kept last

for the rented van.  “That was

my aunt’s who raised me,” you say.

I place it carefully atop the load.

But when the tailgate opens,

no more aunt, no other kin, all

prematurely gone.  No more

mirror, only fragments on the wet

blacktop and me saying I’m sorry

for all the things we promise but can’t do.

BOYCOTT

The cafeteria women are

waiting for us at the gate

with “Boycott” signs.

I’ve seen them for years

at work with a kind word

if I’m tired, some extra 

fries when I pay.  Now

their contract is up and

the boss has replaced them.

“No one cares,” one says.

“I’m fifty. Who’ll hire me?”

It’s one thing to give

sympathy, another to go

hungry. But when I

enter the lunchroom,

the new help looks nervous.

They should be. I leave

the food trays steaming,

go out to walk the line.

FOR LINDA OPYR

All my joking about you

topless in the photo of you

and your older brother

at five and nine in a backyard

kiddy pool and how cute

your grin, barely noticing

him—Gregory, squinting

into a bright July sun.

I didn’t know—that he

was dead a year from then

at ten.  How you must be

post-traumatic even now,

the photo on your book

cover, an act of bravery,

the poetry unapologetic

therapy.  No wonder

you win prizes when

your hero, your heart

was driven off to hospital

to die.  How your words

mean more to me now

studying the sepia photo

of you at five and your

lost brother Gregory.

EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION

(for Raz)

He videotapes her leaving—

in case, for evidence—after

seven years of mostly arguing,

except for the uncontested divorce.

Her father pulls up in an aging van.

She packs every dish and pot

and towel and sheet until the van

settles to one side on tired springs. 

He doesn’t care, and doesn’t

have to hold her hand once more

but does, putting down the video

camera a moment to grasp her thin

fingers, wish her a safe trip “home,”

acknowledging theirs wasn’t

for all those years.  Then he resumes

taping with one eye aiming as they

drive off. The eye not looking

through the lens surveys what’s left. 

When he re-enters his twice-mortgaged,

mostly run-down house, the echo

of uncarpeted floors is louder

walking alone. The video player

is also broken but he doesn’t need

a replay to be glad she’s finally gone.

ROCK PEOPLE

He brings a bottle of fast-

drying glue and searches

for faces, bodies among

small beach stones,

fixing them into statues.

If it has two eyes or just

a wink. If it has a dot

of nose or pitted mouth. 

Misshapen head, seaweed

hair, crab claw for hand.

These creations from

what could be a nuisance

at any tide. Some bake

under a dangerous sun.

Others acquire oyster

ashtrays. Beach-glass

aficionados yearn

for well-cooked glass.

MIGHTY JOE  MEETS LOPEZ DE VEGA

A five o’clock shadow was like high

noon next to your face.  “Lopez

De Vega,” you’d tell me.  “Now there’s

a real guy.”  What did I know,

me a freshman, and you

an ageless Grad Dog. 

In those days, there were

the undergrads, the hangers on

and graduate students—like you,

who seemed eternal.  We coined

a term for all the talent in the world

who never focused, never finished:

“Despies,”  Short for “desperados”

who stole through life,

the consummate underachievers. 

Did you know you were a Despie,

destined to be borderline famous,

like the great Lopez himself? 
Somewhere grad dogs, to this day,

still study De Vega, when he was born

when he died, the plays he wrote.

There have been billions of souls

who have lived and died, forgotten.

Perhaps some Ph.D. will write

his thesis on you and title it

“Dark Vision: Desperados

in the drama of Lopez DeVega

and Joseph Krausman.”

FOR DOCTOR FOURMAN

Even interning he was known

as the one who talked.  Now,

seated, knees akimbo,

on a low stool, he’s bubbling

about his own son after

examining the eyes of a worried

father.  “You won’t go blind.” 

The line in the waiting room

grows longer.  Patients

who haven’t met him yet

check their watches. 

“Tell me what you want,”

he coaches.  “I want

to see my boy grow up.”  

“Don’t worry, we can fix you.” 

There are miracles of modern

medicine, pharmaceuticals,

well-trained hands. But it’s rare

when the doctor listens,

rarer still when he knows how

to cure with reassuring words. 

Leaving,  his patient whispers

to those seated, “Don’t worry,

he’s worth the wait.”

POOR-GIRL WAYS

Eunice McMullen, you lived

on Mill Street where

four-story wooden walk-ups

housed hundreds like you

in your pleated skirts,

white blouses, brown hair

banded by a single ribbon.

Your father was one

of the drunks, off work

from the factory, but your

mother was famous for

carrying home the bacon fat

from houses she cleaned

to make Mrs. McMullen’s

Lye Soap, ten cents for each

grayish-green brick.

You’d sell them when you’d

go on evenings to babysit.

Forgetting how your mother

had just scrubbed and swept

you dropped crumbs on

the owner’s carpet.

“There’s pie in the cupboard.

help yourself.” A wedge

of apple, a glass of milk;

watching brand new TV.

The little ones tucked in,

you could explore those

secrets in the drawers.

And when they woke,

when they were wet, 

you would change them.

A little wiping with a cloth,

a finger to probe where

girls should not,

a little penis to place

between your lips.

RETIRED IN LAKEWORTH

1.

The very little lady on the large

concrete bench on South Ocean

Boulevard, a three-wheel walker,

V-handlebars with bike brakes,

her hands high, still holding on.

Her husband used to ride her

on his big motorcycle.  She’d

hug him round the middle,

close her eyes and fly.

2.

The gangly old jogger, hands

dangling hip high, hardly

faster than a walk, not just

huffing, wheezing toward

the condo where his girlfriend,

just sixty-eight, awaits—

a real looker!  He stayed strong

for his wife through her last year

of cancer.  Now she’s two years gone.

3.

The retired barber by his ‘88

Fleetwood he polishes daily—

more a massage; cream

on the upholstery; whisk

broom in his pocket.  His shop

would shine with  the latest

equipment for forty-six years

until it closed when his wife passed—

but how he loves that car.

4.

Grandma paddling in a gray

one-piece and rubber flowered

cap.  The grandkids splashing

so wildly she winces.  For her,

68° is freezing but they insisted.

At least the pool is heated

and she wants to please.

How often do they visit and now

they can brag “I swam on Christmas.”

SIMPLE BLESSINGS

(for “all those who keep the earth in orbit.”

      David Leavitt, Family Dancing)

Bless Connie Townsend

who, visiting when

a cousin’s son fell,

climbed the twenty

basement stairs to dial,

“His neck is probably broken. 

These things happen.”

Bless her husband,

George, a Ph.D., Divinity,

Master of Psychology,

who told the girl, sixteen,

“1 to 99, the marriage

will not last.  Get

an abortion.”

Bless the Townsends,

married for eight years,

and tow-haired Johnny

seated in his walker

as they serve the meal.

“His leukemia is in remission. 

Who will say grace?”

WALKING TO MONTAUK

(another of Paul Agostino’s spirit quests)

The roadside is littered

with fast-food wrappers,

cigarette filters.  Recycling

opportunities abound

but you didn’t bring

a plastic sack, only

beef jerky and a change

of underwear in your nap-

sack, and a walking stick

carved from a cedar branch

from a bulldozed lot. 

Sixty miles is not Battan,

nothing monumental,

but you learn a dozen wild

flowers by name and

the virtue of arch supports. 

No one notices you

walking—except a dog.

WE DID DAN

We did one for Dan last night

who died about a month ago

but no one told the local news

which listed him still reading

       Poetry Tonight 8 p.m.

         Chancellor’s Hall

            Dan Murray

and it was duly somber

duly weird. Tell me he’s

knocking down shots

coughing his cigarette cough

in heaven. Like hell.  He’s

gone and we do this

for why anyone does a wake

or funeral—for us.  Willis

was honest enough to say

how Dan got screwed

hanging out with the famous

who never helped him.

His aging former students

thanked him for their own

nonmeteoric lives.  But we

knew this Dan better than

contest judges, better than

the gods who seldom invite

mere mortal to dine.  We,

sagging fellow poets,

thinning hair, heavy max-

illary lines, stiffening slowly

toward our own last strophes

marching to the mike to read.

Then off in a crooked caravan

to the local bar where a few

folks bought shots and left

them on the bar for Dan

until the wee hours when

we couldn’t pretend anymore

bullshit and we drank them

ourselves and staggered home.

SUICIDE

(Zorg zich nit. Du nicht vermissen es.)

“I want to die ,” he’d say. 

“Don’t worry,” my
Grandma would answer

one or another of her

depressive sons,

You won’t miss it.”

She didn’t, though

fading, fading was

no way to go. 

When even warm

sun, sweet ocean’s

scent doesn’t work,

you may be ready

but wait, wait.

Why kill yourself?

You won’t miss it.

UNCLE HARRY

It didn't take the Pope

to tell folks Harry was a saint.

He hit it off with everyone

of all religions: more than just

the perfect salesman.

Among the brothers

he was the gentle one

(another, clever; a third,

ambitious).  Harry, in their

furniture store—fine blue

suit, black hair slicked back

with style—could coach

a couple into a complete

living room after their

bedroom was set.  (Harry

gave them the ottoman.)

Even after he retired,

no one could stop his hand

from reaching in his pocket

to give his wife and kids,

relatives, even strangers

money.  Unlike King Lear,

he traded his kingdom

for love.  His only complaint:

“I'm just too busy. The kids

call all the time.” Some say

he's gone now, but somewhere

Harry's enthroned on a velour

credenza, blue suit swapped

for a cardigan his good wife

made. See him fidgeting

in his pants pocket to give

some little angel

a twenty dollar bill.

SHE VISITS ME

As I sleep in the bed above

where she slept, the bell

she'd ring for help awakens me

though even the hole for its wires

is now long gone. "Why don't you

remember happy things about me?"

she demands. "Remember how

I’d hug the letter my soon-to-be

husband wrote saying

come to America?"

Indeed she'd dance a frailech

even at eighty remembering

how a three-piece klezmer band

bragged from the synagogue

to her sister's that Esther

and Philip were married.

"I lived a Kosher life,

cooked for everyone."

Good enough to fuel

five children to successes.

"And how I loved my children!"

Her pride! Even Uncle Charlie

who died at birth she secretly

remembered.  "I only cried

because I wanted even better

for them and maybe to live

to see you married." I've told

a hundred laconic stories

about her last years, her

catalog of regrets, her fear

of pogroms even in this country.

Forty years since she is gone

and now I see more clearly

Nanny, you're right,

it was a good life,

aleha ha shalom.

NANNY’S GARDEN

In the side yard beside

the banking you fenced

off the neighbor to plant

tomatoes.  Made dowels

like pikes to defend against

their racial slurs—“Dirty

Jew.”  Tied thick stems

with terry cloth against

hands that pushed them

down. Planted zinnias

which grew from seeds

to heady beauties though

fingers reached to pinch

some blooms. You could

have fenced higher but

something about chain-link.

Instead you circled each

plant with small mud dams

to assure watering.

With an old tin spade,

you made fruit grow.

AT THE PIANO

Every piano I play first elicits

“Yiddisha Mamma,” which is what my

own would play and sing in the accent

she otherwise never had so that I

grew up respectful of the mother

tongue if not great music.

Eight years of piano lessons

harmony chords classical repertoire

and I got to playing a brisk

Turkish Rondo, nailing the left

hand like a drum and thinking

concert hall while friends smiled.

Then the summer of serious study—

Beethoven's first Piano Concerto.

Hours and hours and of course hours

until my debut before my mother

who said "I haven't played that

for thirty years" and sight read it

better than I could.

MY OLD MAN

Ma says my old man is slowing down,

doesn’t insult his brother-in-law

the way he used to.  No more

“We’re leaving hungry.

Cheap son of a bitch, you

didn’t even feed us.”

And sometimes he’ll sit a while

without jumping up, no TV,

not a word, not even sleeping.

That’s how it works, entropy.

Even the ones born all wound up

wind up loose springs.  “I never

thought I’d miss him swearing,”

Ma says.

THE OLD MARRIEDS

He lies sleeping,

head on her lap,

not less than eighty,

She, too, is old

and could not care

but she does,

caressing his hair

as he shifts, sighs.

The sun warms

his eyes. He smiles.
Sixty years

if a day, together.

Somewhere in

the next world

a house of love …

MY FATHER’S PACEMAKER

looks like a lighter in a pocket

under his very silky skin

there below his clavicle. 
I imagine wires to his heart.

I could heroize him: how

he passed out alone at home,

awoke, dressed, drove

to his doctor, only to be rushed

to the hospital. “No one

ever walked in with a heart

rate of fifteen,” the doctor said,

installing my father’s pacemaker

which isn’t susceptible

to microwaves, he says,

though we joke about a jolt

that could cook him.

The marvel of micro-

circuitry,  the incredibly long-lived

battery.  Will they have to cut

to change it eventually or

will my father’s pacemaker

outlive him?  Oh Ronson,

fire of life.  Oh medal of honor,

oh ultimate personal computer,

do your job well.

MILDLY SUICIDAL

is like half an execution

or half an abortion.
“You’re depressed,”
she says in her helpful

nursing-home voice.

“I’m not depressed,”
he says, “I’m unhappy.

Who would want to live

like this?” The catheter

that drains him, the bag

full. The rash from sitting

sitting sitting sitting sitting

and the hand that should

reach, paralyzed.  Who’s

there to scratch?  Barely

able to speak, to move.

“You aren’t dying of anything,”
she thinks she’s reassuring,

“We can give you something.”
“To kill me,” he hopes but

instead it’s stupid pills so

he sits with a grin.

AT THE SEDER IN THE JEWISH NURSING HOME

Why Passover? We want you angel

to stop this very night for mercy

do not forsake those in nursing homes

first born or not, take them.

We are waiting for you old dependable,

doer of God's work, to set us free

of choking fits and catheters,

of recalcitrant attendants, of waiting

every day for you. So don't pass over,

rather come quickly, as we've

let the lambs live and scrubbed

the doors to our rooms and will laugh

at your countenance and welcome

you even as you prey.  We pray

for you let our people go.

“WHY REMEMBER

(these things?” people ask.)

Dusk deepened into

umber illuminating

the new fall sky.

It could have been

a happy moment—

returning from

the playground,

supper waiting—

but he was bleeding,

a pattern of droplets

on his new brown

coat—ruined—

and the sun setting

over the factory,

smoke from a high

chimney catching

a last glint.  Even

hurrying didn’t

stop the bleeding

or the shouts

of the boy who

hit him: “Dirty

Jew.  Kike Bastard.”

It could have been

a time machine like

the ones he read,

a scene from Germany

a few years before.

No, it was his home-

town, now, and even

a perfect sunset couldn’t

stop the bleeding or

the boy shouting

at him, “Chicken shit.

Dirty Jew,” as he

hurried home to tell

his mother knowing

she would say “There’s

nothing you can do.”

PILGRIMAGE

If I were going to Mecca

and the ferry sank

it would be destiny

but boarding here

by tourist shops

and Bayle’s Dock

overbuilt with

convention rooms,

the trip is hardly holy.

Still, it is to home

and the aging folks

who, if they don't

believe in a deity,

did live good lives,

worthy of a pilgrimage.  

An aging traveler

wants only to nap

on the hard benches

of the Cross Sound Ferry?

HOME

If I were asked where’s home

I wouldn’t hesitate: Massachusetts—

cold, old, austere at least for

the Cabots and Lodges whom

I was asked to admire if not

emulate, coming, as I did from

the wrong kind.  New England’s

winters are less charming

for me now. The old estates—

the Hydes, the Lynches have

crumbled, castles built on sand. 

Thirty plus years on Long Island,

when I dream it’s still not home.

WHITE CARPETS

My friend in third grade’s parents

put in brand new white wool

carpets and we had to take off

our shoes even in the kitchen.

Of course we weren’t allowed

in the living room.  So we’d

venture to the edge to hear

“I told you, stay out

of the living room!”  A push

that propelled my friend

toward the plastic-covered

couch evoked a rush

of steps, a grab, a shake

and a shout,  “Didn’t I

tell you to stay out

of the living room?”

so that we began to play

outside in any weather

even in the frozen world

of a New England winter

where one wants only

the warmth of a radiator

and a soft chair in

someone’s living room.

A PLEA FOR CONFESSIONAL POETRY

I'm waiting for the poem

about his daughters, already

grown, worlds away.  DNA

connects them.  He must

feel the pull. And the son,

the golden boy he had later

in life with a woman we

thought he'd tricked. 

The precocious son—

after three fine daughters—

enough to make a liberal

sound sexist just describing him.

Where is the poem for his son?

And what about the wife, 

so frail we worried, what

with money in her family…?

Some said he was a “digger”

but it's stayed together.

I want the poem about the wife

(and the son, and daughters)

that tells the secret—of how

he creates new poems every day—

keeps creating—so maybe

I can do it myself.

NEAR DEATH

(a sonnet for Aaron Kramer)

“Do not go gentle?” Dylan missed the mark;

as if we all must think of death as dark.

I think that death’s more gentle th