Canterbury
We arrived in Canterbury
on the anniversary
fifty years ago
when the skies
tore open
smashed in the doors
ripped the limbs off
split the street
filled the gutters with glass
A noontime crowd
office men, shopgirls, nannies,
assembled beneath the balcony
where the mayor declaimed
unveiled the plaque
praised the people.
a baton raised
the brass band played
the sun shone on the horns.
A helicopter chattered overhead
an absurd and solemn bird
stirring up the dead
thunderclaps and fire
in the bloody square
paved and bricked,
as we rattled
from shop to shop
over the cobblestones.
Crete
I recall the scent of sage
rising up from the parched hills of Crete
as we trampled it
for hours under the sun
hope full,
on the way to Paleokastro.
From the crest of a rise we saw
blue silver green
shimmering
where scrub slipped
into the sea.
A shepherd, his wife, their infant
emerged
curious,
from their stone house
On that peak
half lost, half found,
we drank from the stranger’s cup
as the island exhaled
sage full.
Blues
T he guitar whines
and the bass thumps
against the trembling piano.
J.B. Hutto makes the air smoke
singing “Jealous Hearted Woman”
with a voice rolling like a broken boulder.
In the next room where
the sun is yellow
a cartoon plays
on my son’s eyes:
a stone age farce
where pink cavemen
ride green dinosaurs
monkeys are orange
sabretooth tigers too.
Adults are dim,
children bright
and only the sky is blue.
Thanks to God
Seventeen, pink
heart-shaped mouth
lips permanently parted,
She climbs the long-legged stairs
clings to the banister
elongates
into a sinuous curve
for a glimpse of the reader.
The poetry glides among the chairs,
the words slide between the rafters.
The coffee grinder obliterates
the rhyme as she sighing
draws back
disappointed.
Returning to sit at the window
she becomes a silhouette
indeterminate
female.
Thank God
for making young women
yearn after poets.
Royal Avenue
We pioneered
that prairie patch
of treeless grass
and dirt bound
by rails, ditches, and dairy farms
too young for danger
we marvelled at the diggers
gleeming caterpillars
as wide and tall
and bright as the sun
at the huge pit
deep and wet
a new house sprouted
between the slippery mountains
that had blossomed overnight
we cowboys,
soldiers, spacemen,
cavemen
slid and dug,
climbed the yellow clay
of a miracle landscape
day after day
on the rim of the pit, carving it,
aligning its declivities
to our shifting alliances
till mothers called
and we knew
under the pinpricked black of night
there was no better place to be sleeping
than in the fresh concavities
deepening our prairie mountains.
the lawns skin over
mountains re-interred
trees flourish on the boulevard
where the round sun
sets its burden down
the cavemen have prospered
and moved away
today
yellow clay is shifting
the groundwater is coursing
restlessly from house to house
the foundations are heaving
brittle and grey
seething with cracks.
The Walk
Look, she said
that fellow
has the walk of someone
I knew awhile ago.
His gait, its
push slide push
filled his figure
with rhythmic force.
A trace, some signature
had been acquired
by a stranger, years
and miles from its source.
Years from now
will some feature I call
my own voice, walk, smile
go on living,
free of anchor?
jumping like a flea
from flesh to flesh?
Fat Boy Diving
Round as Buddha,
his pink toes curl firmly over
the edge of the swaying board
his face gleeming, wet.
He quivers over the water
testing the spring of the plank
His flesh wavers, rebounds,
then fervently pushes
into the turquoise air.
For an instant, he is borne,
then gravity reclaims him
as he spills headfirst
into the pool a white plume
flies up where he vanishes.
The briefest of cavities ripples
outwards, like a joke.
Mystery
were I by some trick
or turn of fate
to cast off this hood,
you would know
no more
on seeing my true and passive face
than you do now
surveying the folds and furrows
of my twisted shroud.
Nature
where I am held
so I am revealed
where I am bound
so I am made
where I am drawn tight
I strive
yet force will not free me
since sorcery makes me
my Nature is formed by the struggle.
Blank
Blind, bound,
enfolded
and featureless
in a featureless space,
my thoughts are swirling in the light
distilling disbelief
in gravity
Who made me
I would like to be
untroubled
by knowing,
by half-remembered instructions
and learned proscriptions.
Those reticent men
who conceived me
out of desperation
(out of mud laced with panic),
set my tasks:
they brought me forth and sent me back.
Now I am spent and ready to return.
Prayer
In my inverted soul
prayers are made flesh.
Utterance forbidden,
motion is the grammar.
Every tremor of hand,
every blink of eye,
every footfall
is a petition and a plea:
remake my muted tongue
that i may sing your Glory.
In the Attic of the Altneuschul
Dropping
in this sunless place
the air flaps at my shirt.
The air, its aroma a foretaste of eternity;
no scent here of river
or forest
or garden, or market.
Only talmud and torah
and wayward prayers
lodge in this place.
Here I will revert to soil.
Once I walked,
the streets were filled by my shadow.
Once I cut wood
for the hearth of my master.
I carried water
and felt the sun on my neck.
I honoured the Sabbath.
I defended the gates.
I awed the enemy.
Holy words enjoined with clay
readied my body for the breath of life.
I arose at the sun’s first touch
from the forest floor.
Made mute with terror
and dumb with wonder
yet my powers were boundless
My name was Joseph.
My true Name, Fear.
Now I am clay once more,
fragments of a magical life,
tied with weak string
like a bundle of old letters.
Spiders weave my shroud
and mice burrow in me.
If my people guessed
this head of mud was whispering still
they would not hesitate to trample me
into dust.
The Golem Amok
I am against the arrogance of princes
whose hot words fall
like coals on snow.
Their old pens are black with blood
Their laws are spittle.
I am for erasing all distinctions.
Forget the names given out
in Eden!
Listen instead to animals, infants, and painters.
Earth will speak, leaves will whisper.
Lightening will spell it out.
I am against the councilmen
and scraping courtiers
whose lexicon is affliction, torture, and ruin.
Their edicts stop up the gutters,
turn streets
into ghettoes.
There is a power which
bends in the rain
which does not rely on ink
for its authority
nor armor for its force.
It streams into me
through me
out of me
it connects All with All.
I must smash the faces of the constables
Tread the helmets of the pikemen
Rip the gates
Crack the presses
Tumble the rotting walls.
In the halls of the nobility
(G-d forgive me)
I will make the white throats tremble.
Mud and Soul
This body
animate mud of the Vltava
ruled by mind
is ruled in turn
by the Maharal
slave to his soul
servant in turn of his God
the mind of God.
In the forested depths
I hear only whispers
see only glimmers
of the exalted
emmanations
of the One.
My soul
if you can believe
that I possess one
is unknown
even to Him
nevertheless
softly its voice is singing
reflecting Him
as the moon reflects itself
in the wet mud
of the Vltava.
----------------------------------------------------
*The Maharal= Rabbi Loew of Prague
Crushed by Dreams
About in the streets
I pass the shops, houses
and dreams fly out to meet me
drape themselves over my back.
the baker’s dream is hot as an oven
his wife’s soft as flour
her hands cool
moist as dough.
the butcher dreams red as blood
frantic as a headless fowl
bound for the table
his knife hand quivers.
the grocer’s sweet as an apple
full of bounty and green fields
the teacher dreams of quills wet with ink
gliding like skaters on icy pages.
even the students’ daydreams
cling to me like raindrops
one dreams of peaches and chocolate
another of the riverbank, a red-headed girl.
the rabbi dreams of a wall, a gate
a court full of kings.
a mother dreams her children
swept up in her endless arms.
The widow, the drunkard
the beggar, the prisoner
dreaming day in day out
of a world other than this.
This night dreams are many
not one of them is mine
my breath is coming hard
from the weight of it all.
Childhood
Being not born but made
I wonder at the small ones
who clutch the very dawn
of every day that breaks.
My infancy was an instant
while theirs endures
shamelessly, year after year
carried, kissed, and coddled.
See them washed and groomed
dressed, paraded and hoisted up
in the streets of the quarter
beheld like the jewels of creation.
Their innocence astonishes,
my alarm doubles at their cries.
Their squeals and squawks
ring me like a bell.
In the shadows by the river I knelt
seeing my mother there.
She rocked sweetly at the riverbank
splashed softly in the reeds.
When the children came upon me
They turned and ran for home
little white legs flashing
as they vanished down the path.
I envy them their mothers
whose arms, lips, and breasts
comfort them and bring respite
in this land of monsters and phantasms.