PARADE

Here they come down the asphalt avenue
First the donkeys, reluctant and unpretentious,
Braying, heads down, littered with strands of hay

Then the school children waving their crayons
Grinning into their armpits, shy and wary
As bewildered pollywogs morphing to frogs

Then come the trucks and floats and brass bands
Loaded with familiar attitudes from times gone by
Like old debris floating down a grand green river

Then come the reenactments of all recurring dreams
Where the dead are alive and you fly without wings
And you flee with feet of lead from raging fiends

Then come the sped-up cloud formations, surging
And mushrooming and defying their laid-back nature,
Electric as photo negatives, blinking like strobes

Then come those picnics spent with the opposite
Sex while the ripe fruits crawled through your blood
And wrenched you up and down, clammy, gasping

Then come the times sitting silently among a league
Of mountain men who gaze at the horizon, intone
Some favored syllables, bake bread, do their laundry

Then come the host of fears, dressed up like insects,
Teasing and threatening from behind dark glasses
Rasping with unholy wheezes and bass-note belches

Then come the aspirations, gaping wide-eyed at a
Sky of possibilities, unblemished by disappointment
Gleaming and heaving gifts to puzzled onlookers

Then come the animals you’ve never seen before
Creatures of another and yet another color, stalking
Each other like crazed hogs sniffing for truffles

At last the sky opens up, not to rain but to fire,
Flames licking and leaping through every seam
Of every mangled cloud and mountaintop, while

The crowd shouts and roars and the band blasts
Crescendos of unearthly-sounding horns and the
Choir of angels belts out eerie, ambient chords.

The parade winds down with a few elephants
Holding each other in tow along with raucous
Clowns riding kiddy cars and waving sparklers

And so the crowd disperses, shoulders shrugging,
Eyes to the littered ground, faces that seem to say
“I guess it’s all over now, time to go home.”

STOPPING BY LOON LAKE

We stopped there on impulse,
Just because we saw the road sign,

LOON LAKE, which beckoned to us,
Dared us, to meander down the

Gravel road that led us through
A serene and scented pine forest

Past burned-out houses to some
Mysterious ruins by the water’s edge.

There, as evening settled in,
We sensed an eerie residue of

Scenes and souls remembered only,
Perhaps, by faded daguerreotypes.

A few old novels and history books
Have told tales about this lake,

Where tycoons and presidents
Spent their lazy summers after

Stepping off luxury railway cars,
Valets hauling steamer trunks

To trophy-studded camps with
Plush couches and ottomans, ornate

Stone fireplaces, elaborate kitchens and
Handmade quilts on canopied featherbeds.

And at dusk, from Adirondack chairs
On breezy porches overlooking the lake,

The sound of genteel laughter,
Seasoned with cigars and brandy.

The big-bellied men gave the orders
But loosened their suspenders for

Sultry summer trysts with maids,
Nannies, the wives of sycophants.

And a murder or two out of envy,
Greed, or drunken jealousy, was

Whispered of and hushed up
By the servants of wary moguls.

Today, by the lake’s edge stand statues
Of wide-eyed nudes and winged gods

And a marble staircase whose steps go
Right down into the lapping lake

As if inviting one to keep descending
To a land of naiads and sunken palaces

We seem to hear faint echoes, the
Playful squeals of long-dead children,

The earnest chatter of bustled ladies
Standing over wicker picnic baskets…

So we spent the night on Loon Lake
At a rundown inn near a row of rusty trailers.

From our beds we heard the blare of
Country music and the muffled shouts

And raspy laughter of joking smokers
Perched at the beery linoleum bar below—

Hardly the long-lost Loon Lake that
Stirs our fantasies and haunts our hearts.

Resigning our reminiscence to an
Unseemly end, we drift toward dreams

But there’s a lull, a quiet moment, and
From some dark and faraway domain,

The faint, sorrowful, rippling cry
Of the creature the lake was named for.

REGARDING FEBRUARY 2004

Wandering off several times in my mind
Without catching any one of those fleeting
Birds of thought that come and go in a blink

How many memories can I count in an hour
And the answer is none given that they interrupt
Without announcing themselves and spin around so

Madly before their flavor wanes and without a sound
They disappear back into the mist they came from
Leaving me dazed and bereft and mysteriously used

Without an anchor or a clock aren’t those birds
Like so many agitations in a temporary wind
Of swirling personal snapshots inching toward loss

Loss is big around here and I feel it gathering
Momentum like an oncoming storm or like the
Ineluctable age spots tainting a parent’s wrist

At last those elder freckles come to my own wrist
As they will to yours and your daughter’s daughter’s
Again interrupting without announcing themselves

And leaving behind a mark of not-quite-finished loss
As surreptitious as those birds alighting on the mind
Who give us something to gaze at till they fly away.

ON THE NIGHT BEACH

On the night beach, to bass-drum echoes of pummeling surf,
A great flickering screen is showing movies of my dreams.
Couples have gathered on blankets, with coolers and kids,
As ghostly whitecaps bob on the black, rolling waves and
The moonlike screen casts silver glimmers on the sand.

In the movie, rain and roaring wind become a hurricane,
And there’s our house, and there I am insisting we get
Out of there, a flood is coming and we’re going to drown.
Mom and Dad decide to stay, to seal the doors and windows,
I ride my bike to higher ground with Gramma on the fender.

Now I’m at a bake sale on a great green lawn beside a pond.
Actress Ellen Burstyn, with the manner of a doting mom,
Is selling loaves of bread and cakes and fudge and cookies
At a table next to actress Louise Fletcher, who’s doing the
Same. “Are you twins,” I ask. The answer is “Yes, identical.”

Now I wander through a dorm to find a pretty girl I want
To kiss, when my stern and rigid boss, a harridan I also
Want to kiss but don’t know why, stops me and lectures me
With sharp words and awful frowns, so I curse her and spit
In her face and tear off her clothes and tell her to go to Hell.

Opening up the trunk of my ancient ’57 Chevy I see tons of
Personal debris, papers and books from college, forgotten
Clothes, a bicycle, vacuum cleaner, unopened gifts from girls,
My shiny saxophone with useless reed, dozens of diaries,
And the woman who dumped me because I couldn’t decide.

Now I’m in a lab the size of an airplane hangar where
People in white outfits do research on aliens. They’re
Questioning a woman whose body is tiny and whose head is
Huge, seems half human, half not. I ask her what it’s like
To be an alien and she whispers that she’s human, mostly.

Now the scene’s a hospital, where a woman who wanted
What I couldn’t give explodes at me like a raging badger.
She shouts, pounds on me and tries to stab me with two
Hypodermic needles, one in each hand, filled, she says
With deadly embalming fluid that will pickle my innards.

Back in the city a storm with high winds, maybe a tornado,
Is coming our way. Fire trucks are wailing and skidding,
Smashing into taxis, buses, gushing hydrants. A fire down the
Street, others to the north, and look, my own building’s on fire,
People mill around in a trance like zombies at a block party.

A woman I once lived with who made my life a misery
Is now a hog who sits, hostile and half-eaten, in a cage.
Although her head is now a ham and she has no arms or
Legs, she still can talk, most viciously, and threatens to
Bite. I’m sorry for the woman, but I’m glad she’s in a cage.

A talking snail fixed to my windowpane is bragging that
He knows the ways of Buddhism and will gladly teach me,
But my boss’s lackey, the one I’ve come to loathe, interrupts.
She takes me to the stage of a concert hall and prods me to
Sing corny, sentimental songs to a loud and loutish crowd.

The movie on the night beach keeps on showing, a marathon
Of episodes from my not-so-private land of REM and apnea,
Its reels of celluloid piled higher than the lifeguard’s throne.
Foamy remnants of just-broken waves sizzle at my toes, when
The nasty, nagging buzz of my alarm clock yanks me home.

LOOKING BACK ON HAPPY HOUR

Tune in to the Mediterranean at wine dot com

And try to multiply pleasure with each tick

Of the clock and you court a sleeping genie

Made to charm and soothe and comfort you

Till you wake up washed up on wave-soaked rocks.

Finding a way to everything, squared, consumes

So deftly it makes one wonder why we’re not

Born that way or blind as a sun-gazing shaman.

An encyclopedia of credulity opened our ears

Over the years while we tested all the waters and,

Trusting in phantoms, climbed to views from

Sugar-dusted mountaintops, where blueberries

Beckoned, satyrs leered, and sirens whispered

A supple sutra of enveloping, evaporating lies.

ON THE DOCK

Down on the marina dock at midnight there is no moon. A little breeze makes wind chimes of the rigging and metal masts, while light from who knows where flickers dimly on the black water. Two figures sit cross-legged at the end of the dock, one with a cigarette whose ember brightens with each puff. Their whispers are no louder than the lapping of the water under the dock.

---But Dad, can’t we just talk about it?

---We have talked about it, honey.

---But I want you to know something.

---What.

---That it wouldn’t hurt me.

---How do you know? How can you possibly. . . .

---I know.

---And your mother?

---She would never know.

---And what if, somehow. . . . Don’t you know what they do to people?

---No one would know. It’s between us.

---It’s wrong.

---Dad. Come on, you know how we both feel. . .

---Please, honey. Please…

---Dad…come on…let’s just try it. Let’s just do it, and not look back…

---Okay, honey. Maybe you’re right.

---I am, Dad, you know I am.

---Okay, honey. Okay…

 A few feet away, unseen, a muskrat crawls out of the black water onto the bank, shakes itself off, and disappears into the tall grass.

OUT OF ORDER

A telephone is ringing, constantly, and it
Can’t be answered, ever, as long as you live.
A train is pulling out of the station, you are
Running, gasping, to catch it, but it races away.
You order a cup of tea and are given
An empty cup along with a knife and fork.

As you walk along the street you look in the
Eye of everyone you pass, and no one looks
Back, no one looks at your face, as if they
Know already who you are, without looking,
And they want nothing to do with you, and
You think about this, and you wonder.

It’s time to sort through your old clothes and
Give them away to people you’ll never meet.
Where were you when you wore that shirt?
Who were you when that scarf was wrapped
Around your neck or when that odd-looking
Hat was on your head? Who are you now?

Look at it this way: a long time ago you were
Old and now you’re getting younger, working
Your way backwards toward birth. All those
Things to come, from the pinwheels to the
Long illness to the flirtations on the beach,
All those things never happened, and never will.

POÈME TROUVÉ

(from an alphabetical list of movie titles)

I accuse!
I aim at the stars.
I am a camera. I am a dancer.
I am a fugitive from a chain gang.
I am a thief. I am the law.
I became a criminal.

I believe in you.

I bury the living.
I can get if for you wholesale.
I confess. I could go on singing.

I cover big town. I cover the underworld.
I cover the war. I cover the waterfront.
I deal in danger.
I died a thousand times.

I dream of Jeannie.
I dream too much.
I drink your blood.

I escaped from the Gestapo. I found Stella Parish.
I have seven daughters. I, Jane doe.
I know where I’m going.
I like money.
I live my life.

I love a bandleader. I love a mystery. I love a soldier.
I love Melvin. I love my wife. I love trouble.

I love you again.
I love you, Alice B. Toklas.
I love, you love.

I married a Communist.
I married a monster from outer space.
I married a witch. I married a woman.
I married an angel. I met him in Paris.

I met my love again.

I, mobster. I, monster.
I never sang for my father.
I passed for white. I remember Mama.

I saw what you did. I shot Jesse James.

I take this woman.
I, the jury.

I wake up screaming.

I walk alone.
I walk the line.
I walked with a zombie.

I want a divorce.

I want to live!
I want what I want. I want you.
I wanted wings. . . .
I wonder who’s kissing her now.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

The solitary prop plane hums from above
A long and wilting sigh like the muffled tone
Of a faraway trombone.

So here we are, it’s Sunday afternoon
The time of the week that bleeds all hope
And seems to last forever.

What makes these hours so menacingly
Drab and dowdy and sapped of fizz,
One wonders every go-round.

Something to do with the unfulfilled
Promises of religion, robes, and ritual?
The yawns of Sunday school?

Why is this time grayer than oatmeal,
Than ghosts gathering in a steady rain,
Than a grandma’s bun?

Cups of tea won’t get you through it
Cups of vodka will, of course, but
They exact a penalty.

No handy button lets you fast-forward
Through this glum and doleful
Slow-motion pantomime

Sunday afternoon is a waiting room,
Musty, with no magazines, where
No one waits but you.

THE MAN WHO GROWS POTATOES

The man who grows potatoes

sits in an aluminum lawn chair

on a grassy hill out behind his house.

The sun sinking in the cloudless sky

is a pale orange ball.

The man takes a gold ring

from the pocket of the tweed coat

he’s had for twenty-two years

and holds the ring up to his eye

so the sun just fits inside.

As the man uncrosses his legs

and crosses them again

the old aluminum chair nearly gives way.

Its joints are weak and rusty

and the green and white plastic

straps are badly frayed.

The man, whose wife died yesterday,

is thinking about whether or not

to water his potatoes.

THE SKY IS FULL OF TEARS

The sky is full of tears
Shooting like restless stars or
Those things that jump around
In your eye or imaginary dragons
Consorting on the moon,
Don’t you know.

Meanwhile the sky tells us
Nothing. Like a blank screen
Keeping secrets or like Jove
The absent patriarch holding
Our attention for a while
Till it’s all tuned out.

Then again the sky does
Intimate or seem to promise
What it can’t give us right now
Teasing us to recall a time
Long ago when we had no words
When eyes were all we were.

BOB’S THREE WOMEN

The night Bob’s girlfriend
Didn’t come home because
She was with some other guy,
He shouted at her in his sleep
And woke himself up.

After she broke up with him
He dreamed he tried to
Win her back. In the dream
He wanted to impress her
By taking her to his new home,
A penthouse in a tall fancy building.
Bob was proud and hopeful
Until he saw that the penthouse
Had no walls or roof.

Once Bob met a beautiful woman
Who was married to someone else.
When the three of them were together
the husband would eye Bob
Carefully. Bob thought the husband
Was jealous, because the wife
Smiled at Bob in a special way.

Bob grew closer to the wife.
He wanted her to leave her husband
And come and live with him.
Many months went by until
Bob saw what was going on.
It was not the lovely wife
But the husband who wanted Bob,
And the wife was the lure.

Bob dreamed he fell in love with a
Mysterious, seductive woman.
He couldn’t get to her because
She lived in the mirror.
She smiled at him enticingly.
No matter how hard he tried
He could never touch her.

“When you’re happy
Let your mouth go free”
Bob’s girlfriend had said to him
When they were still together.
Bob remembered writing that down
On a piece of paper
Ten years ago.

FAMOUS PEOPLE

It’s the job of famous people
to make you feel small, and envious.
In the pages and on the screen
their lives are clearly bigger,
and better, than yours.

You spend your days in the gray
mushy trough of anonymity,
while they cavort hedonistically
in realms whose splendor
you can barely imagine.

You try to imagine, but there is
nowhere for your mind to go
but back to the photographs,
the gossip, the printed words, the
glamorous images on the screen.

All you can see is their fame
and your inglorious anonymity.
Something is missing, you think.
Something is wrong with your life.
Otherwise, you too would be famous.

Even those famous people
whose celebrity is brief, or whose
lives are hard, or even tragic,
have achieved a glory
you will never achieve.

Whatever dignity you may muster
whatever good you may do
in your little world of anonymity
is, by the standards of the famous,
not worthy of notice.

LOOKING AT YOUR PICTURE

In the photo you look about four years old.
You’re wearing a pink playsuit. (Is that what
They called those things, playsuits? A one-piece
Garment with shorts at the bottom, a top with
Two straps like overalls?) Your hair is short and
Casual, the color of sand, and you’re wearing dark
Glasses with big yellow frames that give you
The look of a budding eccentric. Your lips, either
Barely smiling or not at all, seem in a kind of
Halfway zone, like the lips of that low-key
Lady in the Louvre. Your expression is a mix
Of curious, perplexed, amused, surprised, and
More-than-ready-to-start-some-kind-of-mischief.
The thumb and forefinger of either hand are
Lightly touching, with the understated grace
Of a Bengali dancer or a serene, sitting Buddha.
You’re standing barefoot in the grass, slightly
Off-balance but not quite tipping over, left foot
Before your right, right arm before your left,
Behind you a rosebush and a red brick wall.
I keep this photo on the wall above my desk, so
Whenever I look up I see you standing there.
The picture invokes a merry mood, but at times
My eyes get damp and I have to look away.

WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT YOU

Have you ever wondered
what they say about you
when you aren’t around?

Should I tell you?
Maybe you’d rather not know.
You are afraid that
they have said some
nasty things about you,
aren’t you.
And you’d like to hear
what those nasty things are,
wouldn’t you.

That’s perfectly natural.
I’ll begin by
telling you the one thing
they all seem to agree on.
Are you ready?

On second thought, maybe
I should keep those things to myself.
They might hurt your feelings
and give you a distorted impression
of what they think of you.

I guess that’s what I’ll do.
I’ll just keep quiet.
I want you to forget I ever
opened my mouth.