Nikita Kruschev

My grandmother puts the dead in heaven,
and fixes supper.
Sometimes hearty stew
from the Winter Soups book,
and sometimes stuffed peppers,
hellishly hot from the oven,
the recipe, her mother's mother's.

She is of an age,
and I can hear the trepidation in her voice
when she talks about a year or two from now.
I can hear some kind of emptiness
when she speaks of five or ten.

Once I saw her fall,
on the stoop of the home of her friend.
I had driven us there and was waiting in the Buick.
I saw her ring the bell,
and checked my hopeful phone.
My gaze returned to the house
when I sensed a small commotion,
and all of her bulk was there on the concrete
face down and not moving.

There were two moments:
My god she's dead.
Running.

She was sitting when I reached her,
drugstore glasses all askew,
mussed hair mussier,
wild with its glass-white sheen
and patch of yellow in the bangs
from some chemical experiment
she conducted back in the 50's.
Bit of blood on her forehead,
and a broken arm and laughing.

When I think of the 50's
I have an idea
of Elvis, and Eisenhower,
Ozzie and Harriet and Kruschev.

The Big Lady has the decade in the flesh -
a starter home and diaper rash,
a beagle, the stove pipe leak,
another in-law from Brooklyn,
a packet of seeds for a vegetable garden.

But like Nikita said
to those Western ambassadors in Moscow,
History is on our side.
We will bury you.

I have an iPod and an iPhone too.
And five or ten or twenty years at least
to learn how to make stuffed peppers.

Along Came a Spider

Granddad used to wash his hair with Ivory soap,

ignoring the shampoo in the corner.

I brush my teeth

and medicate my face.

I'm alone in bed

except one tiny spider,

scrambling away from my giant pen.

Flick it away and it lands,

clings,

and continues

across the expressive sheets.

Flick it away,

it regroups it goes, goes.

The moon here is not my Athena.

It is chalk on the huddled downtown spikes

and all the highway overpasses, billboards, and gas stations,

the first meager trappings of some eventual hell.

I remember thinking 2004 -

a svelte apartment,

new year’s eve parties,

salvation in the afternoon -

now I'm sleeping inches away from the floor,

in the company of spiders,

not yearning for revolution as my youth would warrant.

I have no, like, screenplay to sell to Jollywood.

I gave up on

what it was,

what was it?

What it was

was Granddad’s soapy white hair.

The Monk and the Scorpion

His mother was young and beautiful,
and a scorpio and when he came of age,
this played a little on his heart and mind.

One of the girls he met was the same way,
and the music that they made
sounded like the old story:

Two monks fishing at the river's edge
notice a scorpion drowning. The older
of the two immediately scoops it up and
sets it on the bank. The scorpion stings
the monk, who goes back to his fishing rod
until again the scorpion falls in, and again
the monk saves the scorpion, and again
the scorpion stings the monk.

"Why," the younger asks, "do you continue
to save the scorpion when its nature is to sting?"

"Because," the elder answers,
"my nature is to save it."

I spread my love so thin,
trying to cover you.
Cursed to that nature,
but blessed,
for my love
is not a thing tied.
My heart is eternal.
And yours.
Fragments of the sun and moon.

Unbreakable, bouncy,
Indian rubber balls.

You can't imagine the zen I got,
when I realized my love was my own,
yet didn't belong to me.

Rabble on the B

Let's just say,
I thought I would raise
a particular type
of child, but I won't.

I am waiting for the A train when I see
a fluttering file of bright green trees,
little children being herded
uptown to the museum.

They have their own natural history,
bopping their bowling ball heads
to unseen music, and laughing with
hysteria at empty soda cans and benches.
"Keep away from the platform's edge!"

I hope the text books are not too heavy
in your knapsacks, Little Ones.
I hope you know the rules
are not made for any badness in you,
but only for the makers,
so they can drink black coffee
at the local.

A woman wearing STAFF hut huts,
"No one should be singing!"
and gratefully, the savages and me
continued Singing Any Way.

Vigil II

I have gone somewhere,
where no one else has gone.
I have seen the worry lines,
I have tabulated every plastic smile,
I have felt the soul of fire in every
handshake.

I look up at the sky now -
the piece of it afforded us
residents of the parking lot - and can see
how it extends to every other borough,
and beyond.
I can see how I am small,
look down at my legs, and feet,

my hands, my torso, into my head,
and can see
the body of me,
the smallness of me,
and I can know my power.

We are offered insight,
and how much can we drink?
I have traded in cups,
many times a year.
I go to my shrink and come back
next week
new man,
every week,
two times a week.

How much can I drink,
of the Truth Cup, our grail?
How much wine, or tequila,
amaretto in my espresso?
How much truth imbibed?
How much libido?

How much Buddha?

How much nicotine, or God,
can I smoke?

I see my small body,
in this large world,
I remember the world itself,
is a small thing.
A spec of light amidst unfathomable darkness.
A dust mote on the table top of time.

So you think:
My god I'm so small,
I must fight.
With all I've got,
contending,
tight belt,
gloves.

My god I'm so real,
I must preach.
With all I am,
sermonizing,
totems,
goblets.

My work is to find my work,
and pour all of my self
into that work, and drown in it,
and drink of it, and fight for it,
and preach it.

In Catechism
they told us what were sins
and what were not.

At public school
they told us
aptitude and Xerox.

In the risky wisdom of the greats,
there are sprinklings of it, Truth.

For this is the body,
and the blood.
Eat this,
drink this,
and be made whole.

The greats were speaking softly.
But we were listening with keen ears.

Pack Night

Tribal at Bembe,
whip-cracked by the congas and djembes.
The DJ was so there that he wasn't.
Nicky got roughed up later,
when the girls we took home
attracted some stragglers
who were smoking trees on the corner.
He plugged the dam,
took some kicks to the abdomen
and got out of the corridor fast.

The cops.

The vino frizzante after.

The morning, hung.
I had smoked my mind,
played video golf while the boys dropped rhymes.
We had wrestled our women away from the others,
we were fathers and sons,
tribesmen and brothers.

Meeting With a Slug

Slug on the door,
you give me the willies.
You are near the bottom.
I noticed you when I stepped outside to smoke.

You shimmy along on your own mucus,
and you are a mollusk,
this I know.
You are a snail without a shell.
And perhaps that is the reason
why you give me the willies tonight.

If I salted you,
you would shrivel,
as you did when I was young.
What would you say
if I blew smoke on you now?
What would you say if I spat on you?
I suppose I could crush you,
boot you, stick you, door you,
I've been pissed on too.

You are thinking your way to the bottom
and I hold the door open just enough
so that you will have an easy path
to the ground there below.
You take your time.
You are naked in every way.
I help you down.

Your Young Son

Your young son died of scarlet fever
which is incorrect,
because that is a Victorian disease.
And your shrink correctly told you to picture
your young son on an island
which you can always visit,
but always have to leave.

You said, How do I get there? The backstroke?
Laughter is the best medicine.
Any port in a storm.
What the hell do I know?

I have some memories of the future
which will not come to pass,
but nothing so real-formed
as a living boy.
His gate was awkward,
but there he was running.
His stroke was erratic,
but there he was setting down
his mind.
I have nothing so solid as a wedding ring,
hiding under the cuff links, keys,
and change,
but there she is tarnishing.
Death do we part.

I am still young.
I think of your young son,
and the father I may be
someday and would I
die if he died,
and could I save him,
save the marriage
afterwards,
when all you see
in your lover's eyes
is loss?
And I think of your young son
alone on his young island, smiling,
waving at his drowning father.

Judy is Painting My Bathroom Red

Judy is painting my bathroom red

so I have to bathe next door.

She is divorced, works cheap, needs the work, does good work.

But I do not like the color we chose.

A bathroom should be surgical white,

and I should be in it,

rinsing off the film

that accumulated here last night.

Penn Station

The arrivals and departures are announced,

but you cannot hear them.

The rats outside the station scamper

up and down the planters, sniffing out each other’s asses.

A TRENCH COAT by the column shifts

to get a better view of three SHOPPING DAY TEEN GIRLS

in matching winter hats,

with their names painted on cardstock by Chinese street calligraphers,

and they themselves are appraising the MODEL COUPLE floating through,

in their Burberry and Polo,

and the MODEL COUPLE, they themselves in turn are realizing

the arrivals and departures are being announced,

but you cannot hear them.

And then there are the lost ones

sifting through the station trash,

throwing empty beer cans at me,

spitting bile as I pass and try to silence the change in my pockets,

and they sometimes smash the rats on the planters,

and sniff each other’s asses.

They sustain somehow on the refuse and the rats,

and bleed into the linings of their military jackets.

I make the next train.

PANDA PARKA squeezes next to me,

struggling with her bottle.

She’s going on a blind date in Rutherford, New Jersey.

It is so late and so dark,

and I cut my finger opening the lady’s beer.

I call my old girlfriend to tell her I didn’t.

I tell her about this wedding I went to.

I held the pinky of a typical bridesmaid,

as I puked on both our place cards.

She worked at the zoo, which is mythical,

and I kissed that bridesmaid in the cold traffic,

while the groom danced with his mother,

and wept tapioca tears,

and the bride danced with her father,

and owned him once again,

but none of it was real.

I hang up hard.

My old girlfriend is one of those,

who will be looking for the perfect kiss until she dies,

and now because of her, I suppose,

so will I.

LEOPARD SKIN in the corner of the car is on to me.

She wants to taste the salt of my young skin,

she wants my young eyes on her leather.

The conductor charges me the difference.

ALL THE DENIM IN HER CLOSET explodes on my other side,

all over her paperback,

god bless her.

And bless us every one,

and I plug my ears, and the LEOPARD SKIN,

and the station announcements which you cannot hear,

and my old girlfriend's naughty valentines,

and the blithering SATURDAY NIGHTERS,

their open mouths which are blinding me,

their chatter eating through my music,

drowning out the announcements,

the station stops,

the conductor’s face,

a tussle-topped child in the vestibule squawking,

Keep moving

more seats up front

keep moving

you don’t have all day,

but no one hears him.

I don’t hear him.

And my nose is stuffed up,

and I cracked the skin on my knuckle at some point

opening a lady's beer.

Out the window there are plastic buildings,

lychen trees, and cardboard mountains,

plexi-glass rivers, and working stop lights,

and everything is quiet as snow.

There's the King George Inn,

and the Methodist Church,

and the cemetery across the street,

and Pop's Saloon,

and The Old Opera House,

and the post office

with its famous slogan,

which we all know by heart,

and will recite again:

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor fear in the mirror,

nor ashes to ashes, nor dust to dust,

will keep these rats from sniffing each other’s asses,

and falling into mythical love,

and wrestling with styrofoam angels,

and climbing ladders with broken rungs,

and wanting to live in all time/all place -

anywhere but here.

ANYWHERE BUT HERE.

The end of the line is announced,

the arrival and departure,

the last stop,

but no one hears it.

Not even the innocent.

Thoughts on Day and Night

Everything must change now,
as I've seen Brooklyn itself,
the very face of her,
turn all the way toward the sun.

Our neighborhoods and towns -
the little places we are at -
will always arrive at daylight,
having groped their way through the relative dark
of what we call Night.
We huddle as if it has fallen,
the moon and stars a window shade pulled down in old cartoons,
the feeling that night has a smothering weight,
the pioneers who mumbled, "S'getting dark,
and best we camp here 'til the morning."

The night is not a time of day,
but only a place we've gone to:
the other side of the world.

And the light and the dark
will hold hands running in this way,
long after our fingers have stopped their tapping,
and our legs have stopped ambling Westward,
and our wounds have stopped bleeding for good.

As your body rotates in its sleep,
so that one moment, waking, you feel the heat
of your lover's breath on your lips,
and in another wake to find the cool, flat wall,
or the bedroom's mute abyss,
or a dream that is your own,
so too is the planet hurled through the void.
So too does the earth play peep-eye with its brilliant Ma, the sun.
She seems to come and go,
come and go,
but we're the ones who are turning.

Karma Box

One great wish,
is not so much a certain kind of car,
or other thing,
but to not be watching my self
as my self tries to live.
To not be seen from above or below,
as I, unaware of the act,
live.

Another great one,
is not so much to find someone
who gets me,
or is got by me,
but puts me in confusion.
Not so much for the challenge
of figuring her out,
but so I can't see just precisely,
what it is she needs,
and have no obligation then
to give it to her.
And on the dark side,
so I can't withhold it too.

And the third great wish,
would be a sort of synthesis of the first two:
To live without fear of self-rebuttal,
with a woman - a woman -
who is far too complex to fit inside a karma box.

Thoughts on Marriage

My brother is holy
as he hands me his ring.
The damn thing is transfixing,
like the oyster is to the otter.
What lightening must have fried the mind
of the first man ever saw a diamond,
glancing it as he speared a fish
and thinking, That, that!

My brother is talking.
This much down, this much per month, this much insurance.
This much he loves her.
My brother's love is holy.

He'll take her to Venice, ask her there.
The gondolier will have seen it a thousand times before,
the trembling fingertips of pride,
the birdflap breath,
the very stone.

There's every kind of light in the damn thing!
I squint and see a thousand eyes squinting back.
My brother's eyes are patiently smiling.
He is quiet as a dying priest.
I hand him his ring,
and the gondolier poles onward.

This Summer

And so we play our little game,

wherein the victim is betrayed.

We build our garden walls stone by stone,

around our precious little diamond selves;

we knock down the walls with mallets,

and then begin again.

The first to act is first to win,

The winner gets a crown.

The crown is made of cardstock,

and bejeweled with plastic gems;

We trade it back and forth,

and wear it on our heads,

and for that precious moment

(til it is stolen back again)

we have the right to say,

"ME, I have the crown and I am KING!"

We take our crown to the merry-go-round,

and ride from start to close.

The buskers and the ticket-takers

cannot know the FUN we have

while riding our ride,

and trading back and forth the crown,

and finding hidden spots

where the white skin is exposed,

and thrusting our plastic swords,

where they'll really cause some pain,

and twisting the hilts,

and bearing our teeth as we're

grinning our stupid I am KING grins.

We say, Fie, Love, you demon witch!

We will kill it here and now!

And we try to catch minnows with boxing gloves,

and try to punch the clouds,

and try to make love to our own reflections,

and they always say I love you back, and say it just as loud.

Have pity on us, for we will disappear.

Before the summer’s light has shifted

Southward for the fall,

we will have gone so far away

as to never have been here at all.

Still Not Sorry

You are sipping chai and I, American black.

You speak of The Last Just War,

and in a breath condemn the administration

for its evils in Iraq.

We should not be over there, you say.

But I can’t commiserate,

for what do we know of war – evil or just?

War is war, is what it is, is what happens,

but war to us

is our fathers,

and our fathers’ fathers,

baseball standings,

movie stars,

the nephew of a friend from school,

something to discuss.

War is not our business, what we do.

You are a teacher, and I am a bum.

We do not own guns, or hold office,

or protest in public, or boycott anyone.

We lock our doors at night and that is enough.

So they fight in your name, you say,

and that perturbs you.

But you’ve changed your name so many times,

it would be hard to pin the purple hearts on you.

A name! They’ll slap a name like Freedom on a bear trap if it suits them,

and you will not be anywhere near the woods.

We pay for the coffee and tea,

we pay the crazy price,

the exorbitant tax,

and tip the pierced barista for her scowl.

I wash my hands,

and I’m still not sorry.

I will not join your cause,

or theirs.

There’s always been the fighting kind:

Our clan came upon another, stouter, hairier clan of others.

We needed their meat, and it was time to take it.

The sounds of aggression – the high-pitched and the low-pitched –

called me to the moment.

And my brothers went rushing, and I was struck,

and I grabbed what struck me, and it was a girl one,

and I twisted her neck, and she screeched and showed her teeth and would not die.

I knew to twist her neck, but a thought came up inside me.

I scanned the earth around for something hard or something sharp,

to hit, to pierce, to stop the screech, to kill the sound (she would not die).

I found a branch with a pointy end, and grabbed it,

and jabbed and jabbed and struck.

It was clumsy to me, the space between the idea of it and the action.

There was blood, good,

but the screeching became snarling and the eyes locked with mine, bad.

I had to end it soon - an animal nearing death is evermore powerful,

everless predictable, has ever so much less to protect.

I twisted the neck all the way,

and it was ended.

Dropping the body, I turned to my brothers, and found them all engaged

I brought my branch and another I had found into the center.

It was enough to shake the branches in the faces of the others,

the leaves, like teeth, dappling the forest light.

The chattering leaves, the angry trees,

our enemies were frightened.

We left with meat, and minor wounds.

We left in haste, away from the madness.

I clutched my branches tightly at the moment that I saw

no brother of mine ahead of me on the retreat.

I was leading us back to home.

And I’m still not sorry.

We came to a clearing and I saw us there.

We looked clumsy to me, the space between the years had collapsed.

We were sipping chai and American black,

speaking of wars with numbers,

sitting in chairs,

clothes on our backs,

speaking a language,

punching at keys,

giants we seemed,

wrestling with our tired minds

over what I did not have the words to say.