New and Selected Poems (21 page)

Surely, he could make it easier
When it comes to inquiries
As to his whereabouts.
Rein in our foolish speculations,
Silence our voices raised in anger,

 

And not leave us alone
With that curious feeling
We sometimes have
Of there being a higher purpose
To our residing here
Where nothing works
And everything needs fixing.

 

The least he could do is put up a sign:
AWAY ON BUSINESS
So we could see it,
In the graveyard where he collects the rent
Or in the night sky
Where we address our complaints to him.

Night is coming.
A lone hitchhiker
Holds up a homemade sign.

 

Masked figures
Around a gambling table?
No, those are scarecrows in a field.

 

At the neighbors',
Where they adore a black cat,
There's no light yet.

 

Dear Lord, can you see
The fleas run for cover?
No, he can't see the fleas.

Extraordinary efforts are being made
To hide things from us, my friend.
Some stay up into the wee hours
To search their souls.
Others undress each other in darkened rooms.

 

The creaky old elevator
Took us down to the icy cellar first
To show us a mop and a bucket
Before it deigned to ascend again
With a sigh of exasperation.

 

Under the vast, early-dawn sky
The city lay silent before us.
Everything on hold:
Rooftops and water towers,
Clouds and wisps of white smoke.

 

We must be patient, we told ourselves,
See if the pigeons will coo now
For the one who comes to her window
To feed them angel cake,
All but invisible, but for her slender arm.

 

 

 

XI

 

I never run into anyone from the old days.
It's summer and I'm alone in the city.
I enter stores, apartment houses, offices
And find nothing remotely familiar.

 

The trees in the park—were they always so big?
And the birds so hidden, so quiet?
Where is the bus that passed this way?
Where are the greengrocers and hairdressers,

 

And that schoolhouse with the red fence?
Miss Harding is probably still at her desk,
Sighing as she grades papers late into the night.
The bummer is, I can't find the street.

 

All I can do is make another tour of the neighborhood,
Hoping I'll meet someone to show me the way
And a place to sleep, since I've no return ticket
To wherever it is I came from earlier this evening.

for Li-Young Lee

 

The likelihood of ever finding it is small.
It's like being accosted by a woman
And asked to help her look for a pearl
She lost right here in the street.

 

She could be making it all up,
Even her tears, you say to yourself,
As you search under your feet,
Thinking, Not in a million years . . .

 

It's one of those summer afternoons
When one needs a good excuse
To step out of a cool shade.
In the meantime, what ever became of her?

 

And why, years later, do you still,
Off and on, cast your eyes to the ground
As you hurry to some appointment
Where you are now certain to arrive late?

I'm the furtive inspector of dimly lit corridors,
Dead lightbulbs and red exit signs,
Doors that show traces
Of numerous attempts at violent entry,

 

Is that the sound of a maid making a bed at midnight?
The rustle of counterfeit bills
Being counted in the wedding suite?
A fine-tooth comb passing through a head of gray hair?

 

Eternity is a mirror and a spider web,
Someone wrote with lipstick in the elevator.
I better get the passkey and see for myself.
I better bring along a book of matches too.

These rows of tall palm trees,
White villas and white hotels
Fronting the beach and the sea
Seem most improbable to me

 

Whiling away the afternoon
In a cane rocking chair
On a small, secluded veranda,
Overrun with exotic flowers

 

I don't even know the names of,
Raised as I was by parents
Who kept the curtains drawn,
The lights low, the stove unlit,

 

Leaving me as wary as they'd be
At first seeing oranges in a tree,
Women running bare-breasted
Over pink sands in a blue dusk.

I miss you winter evenings
With your dim lights.
The shut lips of my mother
And our held breaths
As we sat at a dining room table.

 

Her long, thin fingers
Stacking the cards,
Then waiting for them to fall.
The sound of boots in the street
Making us still for a moment.

 

There's no more to tell.
The door is locked,
And in one red-tinted window,
A single tree in the yard,
Stands leafless and misshapen.

Bearded ancestors, what became of you?
Have you gone and hid yourself
In some cabin in the woods
To listen to your whiskers grow in peace?

 

Clergymen patting chin curtains,
Soldiers with door knockers,
Sickly youths with goatees,
Town drunks proud of their ducktails.

 

Cousin Kate, was that a real mustache
You wore as you stood in church
Waiting for your bridegroom
To run up the stairs someday?

 

And you, Grandpa, when you shouted at God
To do something about the world,
He kept quiet and let the night fall,
Seeing that your beard was whiter than his.

Only you understood
How little time we are given,
Not enough to lift a finger.
The voices on the stairs,
Thoughts too quick to pursue,
What do they all matter?
When eternity beckons.

 

The heavy curtains drawn,
The newspapers unread.
The keys collecting dust.
The flies either sluggish or dead.
The bed like a slow boat,
With its one listless sail
Made of cigarette smoke.

 

When I did move at last,
The stores were closed.
Was it already Sunday?
The weddings and funerals were over.
The one or two white clouds left
Above the dark rooftops,
Not sure which way to go.

Everything about you,
My life, is both
Make-believe and real.

We are a couple
Working the night shift
In a bomb factory.

 

“Come quietly,” one says
To the other
As he takes her by the hand
And leads her
To a rooftop
Overlooking the city.

 

At this hour, if one listens
Long and hard,
One can hear a fire engine
In the distance,
But not the cries for help,

 

Just the silence
Growing deeper
At the sight of a small child
Leaping out of a window
With its nightclothes on fire.

Nobody reads it but the insomniacs.
How strange to find a child,
Slapped by his mother only this morning,
And the mad homeless woman
Who squatted to urinate in the street.

 

Perhaps they've missed someone?
That smoke-shrouded city after a bombing raid,
The corpses like cigarette butts
In a dinner plate overflowing with ashes.
But no, everyone is here.

 

O were you to come, invisible tribunal,
There'd be too many images to thumb through,
Too many stories to listen to,
Like the one about guards playing cards
After they were done beating their prisoner.

“In the land of turkeys in turkey weather”

—W. STEVENS

 

The president smiles to himself; he loves war
And another one is coming soon.
Each day we can feel the merriment mount
In government offices and TV studios
As our bombs fall on distant countries.

 

The mortuaries are being scrubbed clean.
Soon they'll be full of grim young men laid out in rows.
Already the crowd gurgles with delight
At the bird-sweet deceits, the deep-throated lies
About our coming battles and victories.

 

Dark-clad sharpshooters on rooftops
Are scanning the mall for suspicious pigeons,
Blind men waving their canes in the air,
Girls with short skirts and ample bosoms
Reaching deep into their purses for a lighter.

The Emperor must not be told night is coming.
His armies are chasing shadows,
Arresting whippoorwills and hermit thrushes
And setting towns and villages on fire.

 

In the capital, they go around confiscating
Clocks and watches, burning heretics
And painting the sunrise above the rooftops
So we can wish each other good morning.

 

The rooster brought in chains is crowing,
The flowers in the garden have been forced to stay open,
And still yet dark stains spread over the palace floors
Which no amount of scrubbing will wipe away.

There are one or two murderers in any crowd.
They do not suspect their destinies yet.
Wars are started to make it easy for them
To kill that woman pushing a baby carriage.

 

The animals in the zoo don't hide their worry.
They pace their cages or shy away from us
Listening to something we can't hear yet:
The coffin makers hammering their nails.

 

The strawberries are already in season
And so are the scallions and radishes.
A young man buys roses, another rides
A bike through the traffic using no hands.

 

Old fellow bending over the curb to vomit,
Betake thee to thy own place of torment.
The sky at sunset is red with grilling coals.
A thick glove reaches through the fire after us.

A small, straw basket
Full of medals
From good old wars
No one recalls.

 

I flipped one over
To feel the pin
That once pierced
The hero's swelling chest.

Watch it spin like a wheel
And get stuck in the mud.

 

The truck is full of caged chickens
Squawking about their fate.

 

The driver has gone to get help
In a dive with a live band.

 

Myrtle, Phyllis, or whatever they call you girls!
Get some shuteye while you can.

The devil likes the chicken coop.
He lies on a bed of straw
Watching the snow fall.
The hens fetch him eggs to suck,
But he's not in the mood.

 

Cotton Mather is coming tonight,
Bringing a young witch.
Her robe already licked by flames,
Her bare feet turning pink
While she steps to the woodpile,

 

Saying a prayer; her hands
Like mating butterflies,
Or are they snowflakes?
As the smoke rises,
And the gray afternoon light returns

 

With its wild apple tree
And its blue pickup truck,
The one with a flat tire,
And the rusted kitchen stove
They meant to take to the dump.

The last customer will stagger out of the door.
Cooks will hang their white hats.
Chairs will climb on the tables.
A broom will take a lazy stroll into a closet.