Leaving

Leaving

Like Persephone,
you leave for six months.
I mourn, then resign myself.
But then, when I have grown
expert at pinching in
feelings,
my diet of the soul,
and manage to navigate
my day without tears,
you plan your return.

Demeter
must have steeled herself
to endure,
hoping that being with Hades
for the half year
left her daughter
with light enough

to greet the sun
without burning
each time
the underworld
released her
and spring warmed
her mother's heart through
from six months
of frost

only to go dormant
when her daughter
left again
and again
and made winter
of her soul

until another spring
thaw

Yes, I Know You Like to Fly (To Someone Flying Tomorrow)

Yes, I Know You Like to Fly (To Someone Flying Tomorrow)

You should have been an eagle.
When you wing,
your body floats.
Feelings pull free.
Thoughts balance,
flirt with limbo.

Not-so-inner space man
flashes the stars.
storms the clouds.
menaces the sun,
dances on rain.


Fine.Take the sky,
Ride the air,
Own the heavens.
But please touch down
safe.

A Neighborhood Concert (Simon and Garfunkel Reunion Concert in Central Park, 1981)

A Neighborhood Concert (Simon and Garfunkel Reunion Concert in Central Park, 1981)

We all cheered
when Paul Simon said it
because we knew
the neighborhood stretched
from Central Park
a fine and fancy ramble
to the East Side
to the West Side
to Brooklyn
to the Bronx
to Queens
even to Staten Island.

The neighborhood concert
included sellers of loose joints
lovers and haters
of Ed Koch,
lovers of madness,
lovers of wild.
As we all walked off
to look for America,
we found it again.

And lost it
in the wars.

But looking at the troubled water
and the bridge over it,
we sailed on somehow
easing our minds

when we just couldn't

anymore

Humam Chickem

Humam Chickem


Simce a comgresspersom outlawed
the letter "n,"
we are forced to sigmal our
choice of Humam chickem.
Just thimk: humam (people) chickems
rum away.
Humam take out chickems
get soy sauce.
Humam (people) thighs, hopefully,
do mot.

This is also a commemt
om capitalism
and our society
slidimg head first
imto third worldism.

Home rum!

Recalculating

Recalculating

Now people use smartphones,

but remember

when GPS Mary ruled

and told you quite

dutifully

how to proceed.

but when you struck out

on your own,

labeled you an insufferable

goose egg

in one syllable:  “Recalculating.”

You could hear her sighing

for the woe of the world

and her erring GPS children.

A world in that term:

reworked treaties,

revisited stratagems,

reappraised networks.

The road not taken, Mary,

and against your advice,

but mostly

because we dreaded

making that unwieldy left turn

with the vengeance of dozens

bearing down on us

as we slipped just past

the warning

of flashing red.

Split second decision, Mary.

Like an owl deciding

to flag a mouse

and swooping down

to carry it off.

Please forgive us, Mary.

We knew just what we did.

Marblehead Calling

Marblehead Calling


I'd stare out to sea,
not like the wives
of  captains
loving dead husbands,
but instead
asking that it not change.
I'd take my daily constitutional,
rounding the fort
and the walkway,
sitting on the benches
with other tough old farts.

Sunset!

Then dinner at my favorite
small restaurant,
slightly darkened,
quite cool.
with a finger plate of cheese
and fruits
for dessert.
Ice cream later,
with judicious chocolates.

Then home, James,
although there would be
no James
because I like to walk.
I would nod to the stars,
approving their sky walk
and their appearing in place
for the season.

A longer nod
to the moon.

At home again,
with tea
and a biscuit or two.
Writing for time,
then reading
to calm me.


Last look at the sea.

Last listen to waves.

Turn out the light.

Sleep without dreams.

Amen.

Anabatic (The Fart)

Anabatic  (The Fart)

I come with the dust
and I leave with the wind.
Who said I didn't have
a poetic soul?
If you hadn't eaten something
extremely delectable
I would still be inside you,
gearing for a rush.
Don't sniff
or pretend disgust.
There is nothing as fulfilling
as expelling me -
that intake, outgo,
exquisite relief.

And don't worry.
I know sarcasm.
I am down with nose
wrinkling.
I even sympathize
with parental
admonishment.

After all,
I am a million mile
aromatic, anabatic.

I am a mature fart.

Gangsters

Gangsters



Bess Myerson,
former Miss America,
once flirted with you.
I grant that I was more
amused than angry.
And why should she not?
You charmed even
insomniac owls,
soothing them
with your well modulated
tones
and your choice lectures
on gangsters.
You sat and smoked
like a 40's movie star,
giving great play
to the abrupt removal
of the cigarette
from your lips
and puffing almost
furiously,
as if you had an ax
to grind
with the cigarette paper.

Now you are married
and your house
has been museumed
by your artistically expert
spouse,
who showed me the jewelry
you'd bought her
when I came to visit.

Her cat hung out
in the kitchen
and nosed for treats.
I liked her cat.
She did not like me.
As we left,
she said, "Have a great trip,
whatsyourname."

Bess Myerson,even,
was more polite
in the midst
of trying to nab you.

I hear you do not smoke
these days -
spot on your lung.

A pity.

Thunder and Lightning - Or, Pizza and Tamarind

• 
  
  Thunder and Lightning - Or, Pizza and Tamarind

In Sri Lanka

the thunder and lightning

were unexpected guests

in my sleep. 

When I looked out

from the balcony

I saw only moonlight

off the Indian Ocean.

In the dream that followed,

I ordered pizza, plain,

but for some reason

it shimmered

like the most pleasant 

of ghosts
-or like still undwarfed Pluto,
which I couldn't possibly see-

in the moonlight,

perhaps because

an owl rose

from the garden

and alerted

an actual mongoose

with whom I had words.

The following night,

the biryani I ordered

for dinner

housed just a tinge

of tamarind

in the masala,

sweet as rhyme,

sour as envy.

I am ashamed 

to admit

that I gobbled it

and then turned,

stomach still craving,

to lanced pineapple

for dessert.

• 
  

Summer Night Music

Summer Night Music


The music is different
on summer nights;
it makes you want.
You don't even know
the shapes want will
assume
and the music could even
be coming from your own
window
from a  device you've known
all your years
and yet you'll feel
there's something
want is inspiring
that you would scream
or fly up
or unbecome
to capture
and yet you don't know
you cannot know
and you will never know
just what it is,
cannot name one syllable
of it
or the time it encases
which is just as well
because by now the music
has stopped teasing
and become pretty well timeless
and unshaped

and the night to which it belongs,
a hazy summer night
has uncurled
into smells of far off thunder
and something you hardly
recognize
as day.

Goodbye to Dr. Class (Omar Sharif: 1932-2015)

Goodbye to Dr. Class (Omar Sharif:  1932-2015)

For most of us,
it was Dr. Zhivago.
For me, Nicky Arnstein.
He'd show up,
unannounced,
or have some side deal going
but all through it,
stay as debonair
as an unrented tux.
The real NA was
of course
nowhere near
as insouciant
or dashing
and gave
the real Fanny Brice
tons more heartache.

But, Omar,
your trace of accent,
flashing dark eyes
and constant warmth
amid controlled cool
nailed me
the first time I saw you.

And to find out
that you loved for life
a French Jewish lady
thrilled vicariously.

As Fanny Brice
said in Funny Girl -
class. Pure class.

And it really had
nothing to do
with those 7 toothbrushes.

Jazz Girl - For Belinda

Jazz Girl -  For Belinda


Flapper girl
Belinda belts
her dress
at the hips,
her hair in a turban,
her cigarette holder
poised between
her forefinger
and her third.
"Darling," she intones,
"coffee or tea?"
(Of course coffee
is the last thing
you'll find in the cup.)
As she dances
her arms swing up,
her legs open and close,
her eyes swirl around
hypnotizing
calculating
insinuating;
 her mouth,
lipsticked bright bright red,
remains tight, cynical,
the pose of the year.

Jazz girl, they say.
She does not care
how many
lust.
She's had the ones
she wanted
with her eyes.

Just Out Of Reach

Just Out Of Reach

Our entire school
fell in love.
Grade 5 were the Jets.
The leader of the Grade 6 Sharks
had dark hair
and piercing dark eyes.
I sang the movie songs
to him but really only
to myself in the mirror
without breathing
lest my parents
hear and ask
why my mouth
kept twisting.

Not possible,
for smart girl,
special gifted class,
to talk to the hood.

In college,
the movie still
in my head,
I danced it
on the bar table
for him
wherever he was.

Then I heard Robert
ended up in prison.

I knew I would
never find out,
but kept hoping -
as I took English 279,
The Brontes,
and wrote about Heathcliff,
of whom my professor deeply
disapproved -

that he'd escaped.

Skunk Juice - A July 4th Poem

Skunk Juice - A July 4th Poem


The skunk
must have hidden
at least a mile down,
but you can smell
the spray
as if it were next door.
It spilled into the air
last night.
I thought it would be
gone today,
but the humidity,
the heavy breath
of a rain sky
kept it close to the ground.

Now booming.
earth echoes
and colors
drench a sky
without stars.

If the skunk travels late,
it may rest
in the last parcel
of unbuilt land -
scared, hiding,
skunk juice bursting
in thick South Jersey air
now giving proof
that we hear only firecrackers,
not gunshots.

But banners that yet wave
set churches aflame.

Not the skunk's fault.

The dawn brings no light.

Duck Visit

Duck Visit

If you live near a pond

or if the rain drifts

and makes the ground

wet but not muddy,

they may fly in

thinking that the land

feels as right as the

river or creek

not far away

but somehow 

firmer or cooler

and pleasing

to set a foot on

and survey 

trees, sky

and other water.

They won't stay long.