The Lunatic (4 page)

A little river, then a bridge,

After which a row of white homes

With well-trimmed lawns

And a fat, bowlegged dog

Walking slowly from the curb,

Carrying a paper in his mouth.

DRIVING AROUND

And then there is our Main Street

That looks like

An abandoned movie set

Whose director

Ran out of money and ideas,

Firing at a moment’s notice

His entire filming crew,

And the pretty young actress

Dressed for the part

Standing with a pinched smile

In the dusty window

Of Miss Emma’s bridal shop.

SUMMER EVENING

Lingered under a tree chatting with a bird

I could hear, but never did see,

While night fell and lights came on

In a few small homes along the street

Surprising a cat with something in its mouth.

In the next block, there was a travel agent

With a poster of Venice in the window

I studied for a long time in order to determine

Whether the boats on the Grand Canal

Had moved any closer to their destination.

Beyond the tracks overgrown with weeds,

There was a small, dimly lit carnival

With a merry-go-round, a shooting gallery

And a young couple trying their luck

With a rifle on a row of marching ducks,

While I rambled on, thinking, sooner or later

I’ll find my way home, alone or in the company

Of some real or imaginary companion

Tapping the sidewalk with his white cane,

Or delivering Chinese food in the neighborhood.

THAT WAS SOME NIGHT

A small troop of merrymakers,

Most likely shown the door

At some party in the neighborhood

Or an after-hours dive,

Still whooping it up

As they stagger down the street

With a girl in a wedding dress

Trailing after them on bare feet

Carrying a pair of white shoes

And walking as if on eggshells,

While calling out to someone ahead:

“Hey, you! Where the fuck

Do you think you’re going?”

ETERNITIES

A child lifted in his mother’s arms to see a parade

And that old man throwing bread crumbs

To the pigeons crowding around him in the park,

Could they be the very same person?

The blind woman who knows the answer recalls

Seeing a ship as big as a city block

All lit up in the night sail past their kitchen window

On its way to the dark and stormy Atlantic.

THE LIGHT

Admittedly, yours is an odd

Sort of work, galactic traveler.

I watched you early this morning

Get on your knees by my bed

To help a pair of my old shoes

Find their way out of the dark.

MEMORY TRAIN

Back to Mandrake the Magician,

The man of mystery often seen

In the company of swells and

Denizens of the underworld,

While Mother kneads pie dough

And sways her hips to the radio,

And the fat, bowlegged dog

Drools over a red rubber ball,

When there is a flash of lightning

Followed by a roll of thunder

And sudden darkness upon us all.

THE HORSE

I awoke in the middle of the night to find

A horse standing quietly over my bed.

My friend, I’m so glad you’re here, I said,

It’s snowing and you must’ve been cold

And lonely in your stable down the road

With the farmer and his wife both dead.

I’ll throw a blanket over you and check

If there is a lump of sugar in the kitchen,

Like the one I saw a man in a top hat

Slip to a mare in a circus, but I fear you might

Be gone when I get back, so I better stay

And keep you company here in the dark.

WITH ONE GLANCE

That mirror understood everything about me

As I raised the razor to my face.

Oh, dear God!

What a pair of eyes it had!

The eyes that said to me:

Everything outside this moment is a lie.

*

As I looked out of the window today

At some trees in the yard,

A voice in my head whispered:

Aren’t they
something
?

Not one leaf among them stirring

In the heat of the afternoon.

Not one bird daring to peep

And make the hand of the clock move again.

*

Or how about the time when the storm

Tore down the power lines on our street

And I lit a match and caught a glimpse

Of my face in the dark windowpane

With my mouth fallen open in surprise

At the sight of one tooth in front

Waiting like a butcher in his white apron

For a customer to walk through his door.

*

It made me think of the way a hand

About to fall asleep reaches out blindly

And suddenly closes over a fly,

And remains tightly closed,

Listening for a buzz in the room,

Then to the silence inside the fist

As if it held in it an undertaker

Taking a nap inside a new coffin.

MIGRATING BIRDS

If only I had a dog, these crows congregating

In my yard would not hear the end of it.

If only the mailman would stop by my mailbox,

I’d stand in the road reading a letter

So all you who went by could envy me.

If only I had a car that runs well,

I’d drive out to the beach one winter day

And sit watching the waves

Trying to hurt the big rocks,

Then scattering like mice after each try.

If only I had a woman to cook for me

Some hot soup on cold nights

And maybe bake a chocolate cake,

A slice of which we’d take to bed

And share after we’ve done loving.

If only these eyes of mine would see better,

I could read about birds migrating

Over vast oceans and deserts

And their need to return to us every spring,

After visiting many warm and exotic countries.

SCRIBBLED IN THE DARK

Sat up

Like a firecracker

In bed,

Startled

By the thought

Of my death.

*

Hotel of Bad Dreams.

The night clerk

Deaf as a shoe brush.

*

Body and soul

Dressed up

As shadow puppets,

Playing their farces

And tragedies

On the walls of every room.

*

Oh, laggard snowflake

Falling and melting

On my dark windowpane,

Eternity, the voiceless,

Wants to hear you

Make a sound tonight.

*

Softly now, the fleas are awake.

PASSING THROUGH

An anonymous,

Inconspicuous someone,

Smaller than a flea

Snuck over my pillow last night,

Unbothered by me,

Abject and humble,

And in a rush, I bet,

To get to a church

And thank his saints.

DARK NIGHT

Because life eternal is boring,

Angels play pinochle in heaven,

Devils play poker in hell.

You can hear the cards smack the table

In the dead of the night.

God playing a game of solitaire,

Satan playing one as well,

Except he cusses and cheats.

PEEP SHOW

Behold! A snowball in hell

Next to a burning lake.

One of the devil’s little imps

Is about to throw hard

At the back of some naked,

Newly damned woman

Still wearing her bridal veil.

OH, I SAID

My subject is the soul

Difficult to talk about,

Since it is invisible,

Silent and often absent.

Even when it shows itself

In the eyes of a child

Or a dog without a home,

I’m at a loss for words.

BIRDS IN WINTER

These wars of ours with their daily horrors

Of which few ever think or care about,

While others go off quietly to fight them,

Returning to their loved ones in coffins.

The early darkness making it difficult

To chase away such thoughts

Or distract oneself with a book,

Find again that passage of Thoreau

Where he speaks of the grand old poem

Called winter coming around each year

Without any connivance of ours, or perhaps

The one where he pleads to heaven

To let us have birds on days like these

With rich, colorful plumage to recall

The ease and splendor of summer days

Among the frozen trees and bushes in the yard.

A QUIET AFTERNOON

Generously donated for our use

By an unknown benefactor

Who made sure the sky is blue,

The breeze mild and caressing

As we lie in the shade of a tree,

Our eyelids heavy, our yawns

Lengthening and lengthening

In the stillness of the afternoon,