Tag Archives: poetry

Man on the bus

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Back when I worked at Charlie’s

on Broadway,

in Seattle not in New York,

I got it for once from both sides –

the dreamy looks and jokes,

the ever-in-my-section, thumb-rubbing-

fingers like the promise of money –

and the thing itself – big tips and a

206- just for being me.

The money part’s the part that made me not

mind it overly much – though I’d hustle in and out

when it was a group of guys,

with their hush-before-arrival and

giggle-when-I-was-gone.

They could hope for their

“maybe later at the–”

where I’d never ever be. And so

it was nothing, nothing at all

until one day on the bus I

looked at a girl and she looked at me

till she looked away uncomfortably

and got off the bus.

Only then did I recall

the man who’d scared me off

with that same hunger on that same bus,

and thus became clear

what was ever clear to a girl:

Men will ever be menacing,

and I will ever be of them.

How certain loves could have gone

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There was the one of castaways on the island,

how he’d have not have had her

except for that island and his being the

alternative to no one –

and of his having been dumped by her

after “love” followed by rescue.

Then, too, there was the older man of money,

once handsome but now well past his prime –

and her,

and what won’t money buy if you’ve enough of it?

Well, except for actual love.

And so now I’m wondering about that kind,

and how love has gone,

and what that has to do

with what I’ve to say here.

Mr. Cantankerous

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They say we’re evolving into robots,

or rather,

six-million-dollar men, adjusted for inflation,

or actually deflation,

since we’ll become cheaper to make,

and we’ll be everywhere, like plastic stuff

no one wants (not now, though later they will).

“People 2.0” we’ll be, they say,

though no self-respecting robot

would use that term. We don’t

go around calling ourselves

“the chimps” now, now do we?

So yes, we’ll be off flying ourselves

through space in ships oiled to light

beams, just ahead, I suppose,

of the bombs we’ve built

and the rising sea with all the

dead fish in it (it’s a vision

of hope, as I understand it, a new

chance to get it right).

Meanwhile, though, I’m stuck on this

future trash pile on Good Friday

2017, clinging to my cross,

a chimp and chump weak in the wind

of God 2.0

A detailed map of the road ahead

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I have often thought Purgatory would not be some

hot fire of God, but, knowing me and what

would be excruciating for me, a

glimpse of every witless and witty,

witting and unwitting hurt I’d done –

all played back in the clarity of lovelight –

God at the back, wordless, with me left to

make of this story what I could –

the reputation-slicing jokes, the

cold overwhelming power to ignore –

even for years, even to this day –

boots on flowers, the girl crying

as she shuts the door, the friend who

knows I was never a friend –

and in answer to this nothing but

my own tears, the endless stream of them.

 

I almost welcome it. Why not

start now? Why not separate

the spirit from the salt and get the jump

on what so obviously must be done?

 

I thought of this yesterday, seeing a man

doing just that, though invertedly, being  on

on this side of the divide, and not

regretful but grateful.

He was engaged in a kind of

love summation, going back over the old ground,

reviewing blessings –

the man who’d said, you’ll need a trade,

the doctor who’d cured tuberculosis,

the girl who hadn’t turned him in.

He, too, was in tears,

but here at the splendor of it all,

knowing you couldn’t contain it,

couldn’t hold even one of those blessings –

not in your little cup,

not in your little hand.

The Zen Master Speaks

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I stood up and went to my wife and daughter and asked,

Did anyone ever read my poem,

Pairing Socks in the Morning Light?

It’s about a doctor of philosophy whose

carefully-cultivated skills of discernment

are unmasked in domestic tasks

of harmonization.

 

To which the master spoke:

When the disciple sees no difference in the sorting,

then others will see no difference in the wearing.

This is as with the pan with encrusted food.

If it doesn’t come off in the dishwasher,

it won’t come off in the meal.

 

Chastened, I returned to my task,

where light alit

as a bird in my nest.