Wrong Heaven

I was just sitting here, with my pajamas on
then I was meeting the dead.
Was there an accident?
A slow sickness?
It was a rainy night and everyone
had their slickers on.
Someone from the crowd offered
me one and I put one on too.
I was pretty wide-eyed but relieved
at the same time.
At least there was something
and I was still sort of myself.
Hey! someone said.
Yes? I said.
Did you own a cat?
Yes.  Yes I do...I did I mean.
Do I get him here in heaven?
Do I get my cat?
No, but your cat is the reason why you're here.
Then I started thinking backwards.
What happened...what happened?
Did Peevee get caught up in my feet?
Did I fall down the stairs?
No, your cat called us and gave a good rec.
Oh, I said.
So who do you want to meet first?
I felt...unlikely. That this was a biggest decision
of my...limbo...I guess?
I tightened my slicker.
My mother, I said.
That seemed like a sure thing.
Good choice.
Thanks.
I took my seat in a small cafe.
I ordered a tea.
My tea came.
I waited a long time.
The rain filled my cup.
Finally someone came up to me and said,
She's not coming.
What? Why I'm her son?
Yes I know, but she's not coming.
Well, what do I do now?
Can I see someone else, my father, my wife?
No, he said.
You see, we are all cats here.

When This Happened

her backed dropped like apples
through the bushels of the outdoors.
I didn't have the skeleton for it
but I walked up to her and told her
she was dreaming.  This made her wake
but only into another dream.  A more
bony, more stunningly abstract one
like the zenith of dust.  I could
tell only by the timbre of her heart.

With a Pie and a Sad Luck Story

When yesterday happened a singular mood swept the room.
I had been walking down Elm road lower than the elms,
but when no one was lingering with a pie and a sad luck story
I came in and picked up the tinsel.  Stephen was telling a story,
"Do you know what a Brahman is?  A Brahman is a very good
and gentle kind of man who lives in India and who treats
all beast as if they were his brothers.  There is a great deal
to know about Brahmins but that is enough for the story."
I had once crooned with my setter over an instinctive
loneliness but that was about all I could muster from my unborn
penmanship.  I 'd thought I'd head for home, but the house
snuck off to Long Island.  The afternoon survives but
becomes a darker representation of itself.

When Wednesday Walks Home

I know I'm a loner
with a fine bottle cap collection.
And I know you call me honey
and trespass anytime you like.
But when Wednesday walks home
tousled like a young pilgrim
I could do her laundry.
Bake pies just to keep the heavy
scent of pastry in the room.
She is as good to me as an unexpected lunch,
a profound hammock, a Chilean stamp
with fountains and, look!
Neruda in the distance.

That Was Good Salsa

In a sad tobacco voice
I stepped into class
A trumpet was scrambling
back to its seat.
More importantly
my wrist, laid open
by a butterfly wing
caught it.
I have seen this before
but never
with the eggy film
that covers the whole
celluloid.
The whole story
like the last line of a classic.
I will never return to you
though you did taste good.

Why He Met Her For

We would spend our days
jumping from stool to stool
and talking of Rossetti.
She was a glad daft
wasn't she? And then
the trees would shudder
and a leaf would bend low
enough to lap up a puddle
And like fools we'd lap up
right beside it
And in the end there
would be such joy
in remembering
the sadness that we felt
when a swollen snowflake
dampened our eye
and we called it by name.

Morning at the Zoo

Morning at the Zoo

The orangutan told me that I was wasting my life.

That I should quit my job and go move out to Idaho

and fish.  "That is what you want to do anyway." he said.

"Look at you."  I said angrily.

"You, you're stuck in a cage."

"Who are you to give me advice?"

Who is in a cage? he said.

"Ha, don't try that on me," I said.

"I don't buy it."

"You were probably raised here

by baboons." I said

"What do you know about being out?"

He looked at me with his sad eyes.

I said, "I'm sorry."

"It's just that I felt you kinda of attacked me."

"No," he said

"I was just trying to give you some good advice."

"You come here every day and we talk and talk."

"And I just thought, I could finally be myself around you."

"And since we are friends, I could tell you how I felt."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It was the sweetest piece of advice I've ever got."

I decided not to visit the other animals

and left the zoo shortly after that.

Time to Jump

The plane was loud and noisy.
Larry took out a chocolate bar
and waved it in the air.
I waved my hands back at him
to tell him I didn't want a piece.
I was on a diet and rubbed my belly.
I thought this was a rather simple
way of expressing myself.
And for a moment I thought how easily
my gesture could be misinterpreted.
And also I wanted to thank him
but I left that out.
He was too far away for me to mouth
a thank you.
I was really lying anyways. I wanted a piece
of that chocolate bar and had he insisted
I would have easily taken a piece.
Larry shouted at me but I could barely hear him.
I raised my hand to my ear
and shrugged my shoulders.
He took out a pen
and wrote something on a piece of paper.
He passed the piece of paper to the left of him
and around the fuselage.
I watched how everyone unfold the note and read it.
Their eyes looked to the next person
and then they passed it on.
Each hand did the same and this is how it went
until it came to me.
The note was folded and beginning to wrinkle
I opened it and read it
It said, "The chocolate bar was never intended for you."

Stalling for Time

Larry was a fine cop
until he got beaten up by Ramona
He'd always come into the bar
and just sit there for hours after that.
After a long week and a
long night of just sitting at the bar
I asked Joe to go over to Larry.
"Why do you want me to go over to Larry?" he said
"I don't know, to cheer him up." I said
"He's just been coming into this bar
for this past week and just sitting there the whole night." I said.
"So have we." he said
"Maybe you can say something to cheer him up" I said
"You know how bad you feel after your wife beats you up."
"But I am not good at cheering people up." he said
"After I tried to cheer my son up for flunking out of college
he moved to Montana."
"Maybe you should go and cheer him up yourself." he said
"Maybe I will." I said.
I sat there a long time and said nothing.
The bar, if it could get any darker, did.
I got up and Joe looked up at me for a second.
I walked right passed Larry and out the door.

Staying Up Alone

I do not understand your patient
 pessimism your image in the unemotional 
water of the quick tempered pioneer
my brother your inconsistent wit
changing into sand into a dogmatic mane 
into shy harshness
for the gullible ideals 
of the obsessive night
 or the careless philosopher
able to sew a few days of fabric together.

Vocabulary Test

Nelipot - Someone who walks around without shoes

Pulveratricious - Covered in dust

Dorty -- portly, obese, fat, plump.

Gussock -- a gunnysack or a Russian sock

Slaney -- cinema or a play house

Gabbart -- Given to grocery store talk (especially near the yogurt)

Balatron -- The center of a gala

Qigong -- The mud where a pig just stepped

Acolous -- A peep-show instrument

Gradgrind - The act of saloon dancing either in an open floor or in tight quarters

Leggiadrous- For the purposes of half the population, art

Anglewitch - A  letter that once showed up between two letters

Whose Eyes Were Watching God

the first thing the morning
landing on my finger
beautifully darkening drums
emptying like a fist fighting
til the infinite ceilings break
as bad as that my lucid
remains remaining where my eyes
fell well dusk fell well
footprints and the electric
outlet breath the muscle
faucet and mirror meetings
mooring throats and wonder
welling in the pockets of
cities and in rivers

Poem

The poem arranges itself

It is in first person

It is entitled poem
It has a color
It is from a book of poems
It slips outside when you are not looking
and lives another life
It is in time
It does not mock words
it is limited and repetitive
but unravels in front of a theater
and throws on a scarf
lives on an island
at the end of a century
the word noodle makes it sound silly
in a rather other worldly
series of ideas
it is your responsibility
it is skittish
it lacks what stars lack
and what planets lack
and looks in both directions
it thinks of itself as a country
or a fire started by apples
it sits beside a river
it lives alone
it has always wanted to live alone
it listens for insects
it knows its own secret
it sleeps in the doorway
and in woodpiles
it hates people
it loves your eyes and smile
it is neatly wedged in-between two pages
it is a promise that listened
it is memorized
and blistered
turns its face away
turns a cheek
it is not a structure
or a wire or milk
or entirely monogamous
it is the intermission
that awaits a good mind
it is placid like a bead
in a world of ever
expanding beads
a constant rehearsal
for oblivion
a bar full of hostages
it doesn't matter
a bait trap, fresh grapes
might be it
it is none of thee above
It is thinking of itself as a poem.

The Reading

And sometimes I dream

of being asked to read my poetry

at a very fine college.

I am picked up at the airport

or the train station

because of my poetic

disposition or for fear of flying

by a young poet too

who is full of nothing

but little bits of beauty

I enjoy the car ride.

I look out and see the landscape

I even think of a few lines

and jot them down
they will make a fine poem someday

I am well received
by the muffled voices as I pass
I have a wonderful dinner

and I don't have to pay

for any of it.

I meet the other poets

who teach there

and find we have a common friend
I tell them they have
found a good way to make a living.

I feel my ego rise like the head

of a giraffe, but when I understand

this I become quiet.

I give a good reading
I even have some good liner notes
which surprises me

I teach a class filled with admonishment

I sign my book
and the several others
that I have published.

the people at the college

are happy and say

they will invite me back.

Tossed

Tonight I
am tossed

by the great wave

It has thrown me

to where I

cannot tell

I know it

but I do not

know it

it has thrown

its waters into my mouth

and choked me
with its emptiness

I cannot fill it
with mud nor sand

but heavy silt

deposits in the branches

of the lungs and

brittle stars have taken

up residence until
I am as indistinguishable

as a shoal to a boat
When the tides change

my bones bleach like shells

poking through the sand

my heart cannot save it

nor can I fill or hold it.

Upon Hearing of a Poet I didn't Know had Died was Dead

You know I heard that poet had died
like an actor of any sort
that father used to talk
about as he sliced an apple
or pealed an orange
to share a piece with me.
As we watched TV.
"That is Ray Milland or that is Josephine--
He died, and she is dead" he would say.
I am young, we two are young
as he hands over his collection to me.

Finding this Poem in a Used Bookstore and Reading it

I might not be here with you
the old drum in the mountain

stars living separably apart
eyes blooming out of the hay

likely to sneeze the sleep off the shelf
or the one after that

kindly breaks the void
and free rises in showers

into the warm garage where sits your heart
and my thermometer compact with autumn

that I am as good as watching you now
for all you cannot see me

Visiting James Merrill

If you picture this architecturally
we were both looking through
a two-way mirror at each other
the way one might look
in the morning into his eyes
with heartfelt exploration
He was there alone
before or after the rush of similes
of wit before humans
were to come in and ruin it
no voice, no words
to break the law of silence
no voice, no words, but poetry
suspended and we looked
from between the bookshelves
at each other and then up at it.