New and Selected Poems (18 page)

Talking to yourself on the front porch
As the night blew in
Cold and starless.

 

Everybody's in harm's way,
I heard you say,
While a caterpillar squirmed
And oozed a pool of black liquid
At your feet.

 

You turned that notion
Over and over
Until your false teeth
Clamped shut.

I could've been that kid
In the old high school photograph
I found in a junk shop,
His guileless face circled in black.

 

In another, there was a view of Brooklyn Bridge
And a tenement roof with pigeons flying
And boys with long poles
Reaching after them into the stormy sky.

 

In the third, I saw an old man kneeling
With a mouth full of pins
Before a tall, headless woman in white.

 

I had no money and it was closing time.
I was feeling my way uncertainly
Toward the exit in the evening darkness.

The brightly painted horse
Had a boy's face,
And four small wheels
Under his feet,

 

Plus a long string
To pull him this way and that
Across the floor,
Should you care to.

 

A string in waiting
That slipped away
With many wiles
From each and every try.

 

•

 

Knock and they'll answer,
My mother told me,
So I climbed the four flights
And went in unannounced.

 

And found the small toy horse
For the taking.

 

In the ensuing emptiness
And the fading daylight
That still gives me a shudder
As if I held in my hand
The key to mysteries.

 

•

 

Where is the Lost and Found
And the quiet entry,
The undeveloped film
Of the few clear moments
Of our blurred lives?

 

Where's the drop of blood
And the tiny nail
That pricked my finger
As I bent down to touch the toy,
And caught its eye?

 

•

 

Wintry light,
My memories are
Steep stairwells
In dusty buildings
On dead-end streets,

 

Where I talk to the walls
And closed doors
As if they understood me.

 

The wooden toy sitting pretty.

 

No quieter than that.

 

Like the sound of eyebrows
Raised by a villain
In a silent movie.

 

Psst, someone said behind my back.

1

 

The moths rustle the pages of evening papers.

 

A beautiful sleepwalker terrorizes a small town in Kansas.

 

I was snooping on myself, pointing a long finger.

 

In my youth, boys used to light farts in the dark.

 

Whose angel wings are that? the cop asked me.

 

If only I had the instruments for a one-man band

 

I'd keep the Grim Reaper laughing all the way home.

 

Oh to press a chimney to my heart on a night like this!

 

2

 

Madame Zaza, come to think of it, stays open late.

 

Go ahead and cut the cards with your eyes closed.

 

Hangman's convention: ropemaker's workshop.

 

A hundred horror films were playing in my head.

 

Mister, would these shoes look good in my coffin? I asked.

 

Next time, I'll go beddie-bye on a ghost ship.

 

Next time, I'll befriend a few thimbleweeds

 

And roll across the Nevada desert as the sun sets.

 

3

 

Small-beer metaphysician, king of birdshit,

 

Coming down from the trees was our first mistake.

 

The insomniac's brain is a choo-choo train

 

Dodging sleep like a master criminal was my only talent.

 

As for Virginia and her new red bikini,

 

I hear she's been made the official match vendor

 

Of my dark night of the soul.

 

Unknown namesake in a roach hotel, go to sleep.

 

4

 

And whose exactly are these whispers in my ear?

 

The colonel on TV praised the use of torture.

 

He had a pair of eyes I once saw on a dragon riding

 

The merry-go-round in Texas with a bunch of kids!

 

The air is sultry, ice melts in a glass alongside a dead fly!

 

Is that Jesus turning up scared at my bedroom door

 

Asking to sleep in my old dog's bed?

 

Selling sticks of gum door-to-door will be all our fate.

 

5

 

When I toss and turn and bump my head against the wall

 

I'm the first to profusely apologize.

 

That's the way I've been brought up.

 

On the gallows, with a noose around my neck,

 

I'll pass out cookies my mother made,

 

Lift the lid of my coffin to tip the gravediggers,

 

All because some girl thumbed her nose at me once.

 

O memory, making me get out to push the hearse!

 

6

 

There must be millions of zeros crowding for warmth

 

Inside my head and making it heavy.

 

St. John of the Cross and Blaise Pascal coming

 

With a pair of scales to check for themselves.

 

Every day, gents, I'm discovering serious new obstacles

 

To my guaranteed pursuit of happiness.

 

Naked truth you ought to see the boobs on her!

 

Here, throw my hat into the lion's cage, I said.

 

7

 

What could be causing all this, Doctor?

 

The old blues, the kind you never lose.

 

I'm not just any flea on your ass,

 

I told God apropos of nothing earlier this evening.

 

Your future is your past, the rain sang softly

 

Like a scratchy record left to skip on a turntable.

 

Clock on the wall, have you at least once

 

Taken a sip of the wine eternity drinks?

for Charles Wright

 

It's like fishing in the dark.
Our thoughts are the hooks,
Our hearts the raw bait.

 

We cast the line past all believing
Into the night sky
Until it's lost to sight.

 

The line's long unraveling
Rising in our throats like a sigh.

 

•

 

One little thought
Leaping into the unthinkable,

 

Waving an imaginary saber,
Or perhaps a white flag?

 

The fly and the spider on the ceiling
Looking on in disbelief.

 

•

 

It takes a tiny nibble
From time to time
And sends a shiver
Down our spines.

 

Like hell it does!

 

•

 

Say it in your prayers:

 

In that thou has sought me,
Thou has already found me.

 

That's what the leaves in the trees
Are all excited about tonight.

 

•

 

Solitary fishermen
Lining up like zeros

 

To infinity.

 

Therein the mystery
And the pity.

 

•

 

The hook left dangling
In the abyss.

 

Nevertheless, aloft,

 

White shirttails and all—

 

I'll be damned!

 

 

 

IX

 

They showed me a dashing officer on horseback
Riding past a burning farmhouse
And a barefoot woman in a torn nightgown
Throwing rocks at him and calling him Lucifer,

 

Explained to me the cause of bloody bandages
I kept seeing in a recurring dream,
Cured the backache I acquired bowing to my old master,
Made me stop putting thumbtacks round my bed.

 

When I was a straw-headed boy in patched overalls,
Chickens would freely roost in my hair.
Some laid eggs as I played my ukulele
And my mother and father crossed themselves.

 

Next, I saw myself in an abandoned gas station
Trying to convert a coffin into a spaceship,
Hoarding dead watches in a house in San Francisco,
Spraying obscenities on a highway overpass.

 

Some days, however, they opened door after door,
Always to a different room, and could not find me.
There'd be a small squeak now and then in the dark,
As if a miner's canary just got caught in a mousetrap.

It was early one Sunday morning,
So we put on our best rags
And went for a stroll along the boardwalk
Till we came to a kind of palace
With turrets and pennants flying.
It made me think of a wedding cake
In the window of a fancy bakery shop.

 

I was warm, so I took my jacket off
And put my arm round your waist
And drew you closer to me
While you leaned your head on my shoulder.
Anyone could see we'd made love
The night before and were still giddy on our feet.
We looked naked in our clothes

 

Staring at the red and white pennants
Whipped by the sea wind.
The rides and shooting galleries
With their ducks marching in line
Still boarded up and padlocked.
No one around yet to take our first dime.

They like shady rooms,
Peeling wallpaper,
Cracks on the ceiling,
Flies on the pillow.

 

If you are tempted to lie down,
Don't be surprised,
You won't mind the dirty sheets,
The rasp of rusty springs
As you make yourself comfy.
The room is a darkened movie theater
Where a grainy
Black-and-white film is being shown.