ONLY IN RUSSIA
Only in Russia poetry is respected –
– it gets people killed
Osip Mandelstap
To have that kind of respect
that blood in the inkwell courage
audience and self hanging on every word
And yet
still hoping for a last chapter shift
from Russian novel to American movie
The last possible moment rescue
by a beautiful spy
the happy ever after ending
WHEN POPES COLLIDE
May 25th 2013
History is being made
two popes are having lunch today
I hope the waiter picks the wine
Just like in couple’s therapy
infallibility can get in the way
JANUARY 21ST 2013
Is is a mostly sunny day
in Washington DC
It is Martin Luther King Day
and his dream continuing to unfold
It is Barack Obama, as Mohammed Ali
celebrating successful defense of his title
It is Richard Blanco reading
a long and rambling inaugural poem
confirming once again
that a poet can be important
because his story is important
If it lacks gravitas, well it lacks gravitas
I am not sure that I would wish him
what he will have to pay to get it
And so I find myself
among the many millions
yawning in their morning mirrors
Except for that one line
that sweet redeeming line
“Pencil-yellow school busses”
all I require to love a poem and a poet
FIFTY PHOTOSHOPPED SHADES OF DORIAN GRAY
In Oscar Wilde’s novel
the picture ages while the man remains young
On Facebook
the man ages while his picture remains young
NUDE
Naked is not the same as nude
Naked is a baby
on a bearskin rug
Grandma in a nursing home
daily bathed by cold-eyed nurse
Nude is Venus rising from the sea
Nude is Marilyn
posing for a calendar
with nothing on but the radio
POETS LIVING TOGETHER
As it is wrong to shut
one’s eyes to dream it’s
raining while it is in fact raining
Keith and Rosemary Waldrop
The thing about poets living together
is all the noticing
And not only
the noticing but the noticing the noticing
And who and why and what about
and if not about me, why not
HOW TO WRITE GOOD
(for Maia, age eleven)
Granddaughter I might say
read some Ernest Hemingway
A good place to start might be
“The Old Man and the Sea”
Watch how he draws arrows
pointing to an empty space
until a picture appears
If we’re going to know it
you’re going to have to show it
And if you want to say you’re sad
don’t say you’re sad – that’s bad
Try something like –
She came home after the spat
didn’t even say hello to the cat
Threw herself down
and cried her way through
two
pillows
and a mattress
until the drops began to fall
on the head
of her sister in the lower bed
FOR VICTOR
The only trick an old dog can learn
is how to be an old dog
The minimum of turns one has to take
before lying down for that nap
That a bark is as good as a chase
for keeping squirrels off the deck
And that after all these years
of standing up for your standing friends
you’ve likely earned their kneeling by you now
DERVIL
Dervil was the only cat
I ever knew with opposable thumbs
He didn’t really have them
but you could see
that he remembered them
from a recent incarnation
as a slightly lower life form
Studiously unrolling the roll
and flushing it down the toilet
Standing tall to grasp and turn
handles on the doors
FUN WITH FRACTALS
Every snowflake is a turtle
see the four feet head and tail
No two turtles are alike alike
One cannot multiply
things from different sets
My love is not diminished