Ordinary Time - Kean University



ORDINARY TIME

by

Raymond T. Caffrey

MORNING

"Introibo ad Altare Dei . . ."

Father Wily would say, too fast, all too

early in the day for me to call up

my memorized Latin. "Ad Deum qui

laetificat juventutem meam,"

I would answer, nervous, not quite awake

so early in the morning before school.

Not much of a crowd those dark March mornings.

The church was cold and every sound echoed:

a stifled sneeze; a late comer tiptoed

up the aisle; a cough. Someone turned a thin,

stiff missal's page, trying to keep pace

with Father Wily's quick, breathless Latin.

I smothered a yawn and my eyes watered

while I sat through the Epistle: Saint Paul

complained about rough seas, ship wreck. Dawn's first

glowing light colored the stained glass windows:

Saint John, in dark blue, emerged with a book;

Mary, in blue and white, stood on a gold

lined cloud and rose toward the sky; a young man

with long hair and a halo, his hands tied

above his head, slumped down beside a tree

and looked upward while he bled from arrow

wounds: seven arrows. The rising sun's shafts

of light trapped brilliant specks of fast moving

dust and rose to light up bits of gold high

in the cathedral's dark mosaic dome.

A steady, cold draft blew round my ankles

while I knelt, watching closely for my cue

to ring the gold bells when Father Wily

raised up the host and his bright gold chalice:

the church became still for that long moment;

a huge silence would gather to embrace

the music of bells ringing their finest

tones, and like a great organ sustaining

a note, the empty church echoed and sang

the bells' cheerful song, then let it fade out

slowly, gently, till it was the faintest

hint of music gone from perfect silence.

The taste of the host was still in my mouth

when I took off my surplice and cassock:

it made me hungry. The cold sacristy

chilled my coat and made me anxious to leave:

I took my books, my lunch bag and I hurried

down the aisle. The church was dark, oddly still,

vacant; the sun now sent shafts of colored

light down through dark stained glass windows. Each dim

beam lit an empty space in the dark pews.

My quick steps echoed through the hollow church

till I pushed open its heavy, arched doors.

The skies were blue and not a cloud behind

bright sun that warmed my face and eased the chill

from morning air. I was awake and glad

for a donut I found in my lunch bag.

The last church-goer drove his car around

the corner and the grey stone parking lot

became our school playground: I wandered

alone, curious to find beer bottle

caps, cigarette butts, broken glass, bobby

pins, the telling signs of a playground's

life after school and before morning Mass.

The school was shut, silent, asleep; its sand

colored brick sparkled in the bright sun

like the brief, faint smile of a pleasant dream.

Not a soul about and the place so still--

it seemed impossible that soon noisy

bus after yellow bus would come to pour

streams of boys and girls in blue uniforms

scrambling onto the playground to await

the shrill, piercing bell that signaled the start

of another day. Such a fine morning!

I wished I were free to go home and play.

Morning Prayer

Lord, grant me greater correspondence

Between motive and action, intention

And result.

I am sick with a slow decline

Over long years of working hard to do

Nothing to earn a day’s pay.

Days are ruled

By their need for pay.

We do not rule the day

With work of our own invention.

We work at nothing, putting little ones into

Big ones, hammering the huge rock, reading

Long, dull reports, adding vacant numbers,

Stuffing envelopes, collecting money, loading

Trucks . . . and who was born to load a damn truck?

There's no telling

what you won't see

if you don't look.

Conversation with the Wall

In mocking hesitation,

old Whiskers bowed his head:

"It's mostly of this era

to live in fear and dread

the push along the subway,

the stranger with a gun,

the organized militia

armed and having fun,

the nuclear reactors,

the IRS, and more,

the nagging threat of living

through the very last world war.

No telling what they're thinking,

down there in Washington's Mall,

but everyone who goes there

sits on Humpty's wall.

So fare you well this fun house,

wisely choose your way:

we'll know you by those things you do.

Not by those you say."

Love Poem

What fiction will it be?

Shall I play Lancelot

to your golden

chaste Queen?

Can fated love be stayed

by the press of state?

Or you as Dectora

raving and mad,

while I, the strange

harp playing pirate,

transmute your rage

to desire that burns

like kindling?

Or are we simply

the streetlight

and the moth?

IF THE SHOES FIT,

DANCE!

HIGHBROW

IS NOT

FAR

REMOVED

FROM BALD

Conversation with the Wall (II)

There's kinds

and kinds

of suicide.

Fred wasn't

sixty

yet, when he died.

He got

the pains

upon his chest

and took

no heed

until the best

doctors

were too

little too late:

not fair

to life

to call that fate.

Crying out

It's a sad day

when you lose your ass;

and with it go

your thighs.

Happens a little bit

at a time; then

suddenly one day,

Slam!

gone for good

and very noticeable

too.

Whiskers and The Victorian

She was a shallow stream,

a wader's dream,

and he liked fishing

up minnows.

Hers was a fetching gleam:

the moon's full beam

conjuring a steady

under-tow.

He splashed on self-esteem,

to an extreme,

and thought to give her

a good row,

but, t'was her secret scheme

to reign supreme

whilst he was bathing

his ego.

Their puddle sure teemed

and raged, till it seemed

like oceans about

to overflow.

All those words

Mother taught

me not to say

come in handy

once or twice

every day.

I have always wanted

an Aeolian Harp

and a house in a wood

near the city.

Crazy

Well, that boy is crazy! Yup.

He just love the Red Sox!

But he don't get no

money out of it.

And he don't get no

fun out of it.

'Cause they StinK!

But he just love the Red Sox!

That boy? He is crazy! Yup.

Good Friday

Lily's eyes stared wide and round

as if stuck open with startled dismay.

"Come on," she said, "what's all these

clothes doing here? I didn't finish

yesterday's wash yet . . . ."

Pink Floyd's Wall filled the hall,

too loud--"We don't need no . . ."

The washing machine clanged;

the vacuum cleaner roared its angry

scream and the dog barked and jumped

as if he would attack its every move.

An ill-conceived Spring with sudden snow

burying limp crocuses too quick to live.

Easter eggs boiling for dyeing--

at three the stress of Lent is gone.

Lazy, graceful, languid snow dancing,

drifting down, floating slowly down

this Friday in April.

Melancholy lilies hang their heads

in mournful shame in Shepherd's

chilly hot-house. "They've been forced,"

Shepherd said, "along with the mums

and azaleas. Lilies don't take it well.

They're no fun," he chuckled.

Tomato soup and tuna fish--

dinner for a damn snowy

Friday in April.

Conversation with the Wall (III)

I lost my sense of yesterday:

an angular woman

reluctant in bed who had

her way with men

eluded insight, hopped down

the underground steps

into a subway car

at Forty-Second street.

She had something to say

at the last, something

indistinct--a woman's voice

vaguely lost in the fast fading roar.

When she was gone, she was gone:

no residue of feeling hovered

round the platform. I was alone

to notice the old tile walls

of richly decorated mosaic

street signs, and the hollow

silence of the place

between trains.

The Garden

Then Jesus prayed like you and I:

“Father, I would rather not die.

I'd be content to step aside

and, in time, grow old with my friends.

I would rather avoid prison.

No one values lambs, doves, the pigeons

we kill. Scapegoats take men off that hook

but that hook still hangs in the water,

baited, waiting for them to take

another day, and these men here,

these, my sleeping friends, what can you

ask of them? Such as they are? Not

much, I fear!” So He prayed, then stood,

and woke Peter and James and John

and He waited with them, alone:

as He lived all his life, alone,

a stranger among men, apart,

puzzled by puzzled crowds who came

to see they knew not what, to hear

the words of one whose words escaped

them. They came like the puzzled soldiers

who came that night, armed and wary,

fearing the moment, the darkness,

to capture one who would not flee.

Scum's

what we called

it . . .

when we was

young . . .

Yup.

Scum.

Ordinary Time III

I've got some paper,

half an inch or so--

my fountain pen's

ready to go.

I've got some time,

a rarity,

and no one's here

to bother me.

There's a cool breeze;

the rose in bloom:

I'm at peace

this afternoon.

But what to write?

What to say?

To hell with it!

I'll sit today.

This poem came to me

like a pigeon that passed

over my picnic table

and left a semi-permanent

impression:

You need your seat

to fly your plane,

to ride your bike

(comfortably)

to drive your car;

you can swing from your neck

and walk on your hands

or crawl on your knees,

(if you want to)

but you cannot

sit while standing

unless you’ re a pigeon.

Nor Rainbow

A drab sunset

gone grey, opaque,

wet by summer's

thin, dull drizzle;

neither thunder,

nor rain, nor wind-

swept cries of bent

trees, neither light-

ning nor rainbow

to signal the end

of tearful days

and anxious nights

while we wait, wait

for some new start,

for some new hope

of love's return.

Chaos

Sometimes I think

God is a wizened

Old man, gone mad,

Senile and nasty

Ordinary Time IV

I'm fond of my new umbrella

with its slick black web, like the wings

of bats sewn together. My type-

writer is new. I'm only now

finding its feel, learning its touch.

I'm certain my new typewriter

has something to say, if only

I can learn which keys will allow

it to speak. My silver and gold

fountain pens each had one or two

magical tales to tell, and if

my foot did not hurt I would have

that sense of well-being that comes

with luxuriant equipage

when one can walk with a lilt.

Conversation with the Wall (IV)

In as much as it pleased

God to take Bob in June

at sixty and Alice,

Oh, Alice, at fifty seven

in July, we cannot

but submit to his will

and we go on Monday

to bury Bob and we

go again on Thursday

with Alice, and we wonder,

through silent tears about

God's pleasures.

When you show your horse

to the water, you

do not expect that

he will throw himself

in and drown.

My study is cluttered with papers

Papers everywhere: papers

in notebooks, papers on file,

papers in boxes,

papers piled

high;

papers in folders

papers galore,

papers

in binders

stacked

on the

floor.

I've got papers

dividing papers,

paper to choke

a horse, yet

it takes so very

much paper

to capture so very

few thoughts.

Vietnam is a memory now:

remote as Korea,

World War II.

Once Nam was everything:

once,

for a long, long painful time.

"A brief war, as wars go,"

will say the books.

Hard to face then,

Harder now:

men, grown from boys,

eighteen, haunt

street corners like lost souls,

they beg in frayed uniforms:

spare change can not change

a life spared in war, doomed

to haunt lost souls,

victims themselves

of private wars,

wounded, scarred, numbed,

their own horror

haunting them,

they cannot hear

the anguished voice:

"Spare some change

for a vet, friend?

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

I'd like to thank you,

one and all!

So nice of you to come!

Let me thank you,

one and all!

Ho-ho, ho-ho-hum!

Goodness me, so nice

to see you!

Nice to see your face.

So nice to see your

furtive eyes,

your precious weighty grace!

So nice to see you

here again!

So nice of you to Come!

Ho-ho, ho-ho, ho-ho-hum!

Right when I say

Things can't get worse

the beetles kill

off the roses!

Well.

Old Jim's

busy now,

pushing up

those daisies,

I guess.

Δεσσερτ

∀Ωε∍ϖε σωεετ αππλε πιε

ωιτη χοφφεε χακε ιχινγ

σερϖεδ ωιτη α χινναμον στινγ;

τηεν ηεαϖψ σλιχεδ πορτιονσ

οφ χηοχολατε μουσσε

χηεεσεχακε σμοτηερεδ

ιν στραωβερρψ σαυχε;

ορ βυργυνδψ φλαμεδ

μερινγυε βακεδ “λασκα

ωιτη ρυμ−ταστινγ

πεαχηεσ ανδ χρεαμ.∀

Ηερ βλουσε ωασ υνδονε

ανδ σηε σποκε ωιτη εμοτιον

τηατ χονϕυρεδ υνεαρτηλψ

δελιγητσ: α λονγ νιγητ

οφ χηεεσεχακε, ορ πεαχηεσ

ανδ χρεαμ, ορ στραιγητ, ηοτ

“μεριχαν Πιε.

Ordinary Time V

The old guys get to know the supermarkets:

some wander round the gadgets while the wife

looks over the cookies.

Others push the cart in stone-faced boredom,

while the wife lumbers through aisle

after aisle, absorbed in her list, searching

the same shelves, day after day.

Some wait outside in the parking lot,

hours at a time, while the wife wanders

the store alone, having time for herself

every day from eleven till she remembers

to come back.

Then there are those who stew in silent

rage as they push the cart and check

the list: rice, canned hash, prune juice,

tomato sauce, olives, Raisin Bran for the wife

at home, who's busy watching her soaps.

That poetry stuff is hard work:

old man Lawrence did not know that;

he never knew the strenuous pull

his son, Bert, made.

He worked all his life

hacking coal

and spent his last years

sitting heavily

in a canvas strap lawn chair

swatting flies

with short

stiff strokes

too slow

for flies.

Bert fashioned his poems,

painted his pictures,

and wrote out his novels--

twice or three times;

he worked every day

like his old man

and

like his old man

he took home too little.

I did what I did

and got little done

but all that I did

I done in good fun.

Old man Jordan lived

in this house and raised

chickens in sheds and sold

eggs and ran a book

if the webs of phone

lines could speak the truth.

Now this house is mine

and heavy rain still

wets the cellar floor

but the sheds are gone

and the field is cut

into tight wedges

with smart, new houses

planted too close to-

gether round a small

black-top cul d'sac,

and this, it seems

is how it will be,

and I am pleased

to believe in that,

though secretly

I know that one

day a young man

will gladly say

he lives now where

old man Weston lived.

Uncle Jack's Last Address

We are meant to live well

and to gather a wise

sense of life as we go,

or as it goes; to raise

up a soul that grows tall

and strong as the old oak

that stands beside Sutter's

Creek in the snow and rain

and the bright, warm sunshine.

Wednesday (on the road)

Heavy rain and turnpike trucks: the wiper blades

are shot. Radio news promised sunshine before noon.

Invisible planes--muffled roar above. Suddenly one begins

to emerge from low grey clouds, just above the car; two

engines near the tail. The plane roars loud as it floats--slow,

too slow for its size--across the road and down, down;

just above the airport fence, it disappears with a fading roar.

***************

She said her name was Helen, but I think of her

as Cathy: nearly called her Cathy once, till I caught

my tongue and stammered, "Helen," with an odd smile.

***************

Freddie wants a 4 x 4. He means to sell his van.

"The truck will go for ten; the van will bring three

grand. I'll borrow some and pay the bank a little

bit each month, like I did with my swimming pool,"

he said, proud of his scheme and his means.

***************

The rain did not abate. From one to another, and no

luck at eleven: "You said I'd have it Monday!! Today

is Wednesday, and it's still not here!! Your company

is all be-cocked!!!" spat Doug, still stung with reprimand.

***************

Rain gave out and sun blew in. A cool wind thinned the clouds

to reveal blue patches of sky that shone bright on wet roads.

***************

Valerie got a swimming pool with her very own apartment:

she'd make a sight in bathing suit, but her heart is set

on money, big money, but plastic will do till then.

***************

Over-dressed and under-paid: "much too cool for tennis,"

Marsha said, made-up in hope of the dear, stray compliment,

"My but you do look pretty today," she hoped to hear,

thought she heard in her nine to five daydream.

I'd had enough for one day, perhaps three. "Bye, Marsha,"

I smiled a weary smile. "Windy, now the rain's gone.

Careful on the wet roads!" I refused to give in.

Late to bed;

early to rise;

makes one wish

one were wealthy!

If you look at what

you are doing while

you do it, you will

not have to look at

what you did when

you have done.

Eight-Two-Three-Eight-One

Stuffy, severe old Valdimir spoke

Sunday throughout the Times Magazine.

He'd a think or two left in him

about that maniac Dostoevesky

who "looks like literature

to balderdash readers!"

Though his quarters were cramped

he held forth against Buster Brown

with one stocking on, tugging another

from Tide's teeth, though Tide

was conspicuously unnamed,

being, no doubt, dead

as Valdimir, by now.

Bloomingdale's seduced with shower

shaving, a rite for one performed

with seven available items

and a mirror rounded by

black sweating tiles and dense steam,

and Geico sketched a happy ending

for a stick smart bride who prodded

her newly acquired to complete

the provided form that would insure

their new car!

Cramer's crystal chandeliers and Castro's

convertibles

squeezed Nabokov

into two inches

for D's education

and some unpleasant

years in Siberia.

Hand knitted hat and mittens segued

from Siberia to the miracle

of ascending stairs without walking,

with the simple installation

of an elevator in your flat.

Dupont waved three smiling kids

wearing jeans beside a toy

tractor while D’s going madder

in Siberia till he married

at the bottom of column two

just next to butcher block

desks and flash frozen steaks.

Old Nabokov worked deftly round

escargot and AALBORG SOMETHING

to say that Dostoevesky

at last succeeded with The Possessed

and a speech upon the occasion

of the unveiling of Pushkin's statue

in 1880; after which he abruptly died

before the only full column gets going,

and a good thing he didn't live long

enough to hear Valdimir

say he had no taste and wallowed

in the tragic misadventures of human . . .

something interrupted by concupiscent

photographs designed to conjure

a wish to hurry off to the Bahamas

in hope of finding that particular beach

with that particular girl,

or at least to be lounging comfortably

in a Carlyle couch of leather . . .

"Dignity." "Human Dignity" were the words

lost in the distraction of the Islands:

"the misadventures of human dignity!"

Nabokov then says the brain is the stomach

of the soul and Irving Trust says it's smart

to have a personal banker.

By now they'd had enough of Valdimir

who got shoved off to the back pages:

he next appears on 63

but hasn't the shadow of a chance

against two shapely versions

of the love-touch bra: one holds

its weight head on, and the other

shifts it slightly to one side.

Atop the ski ad, Nabokov makes his last

valiant stand: he shouts down Dostoevesky

who is "too rational," and uses methods

"too crude! His people don't live; his facts

don't exist: he's mere mechanical convention."

Period. Little black square.

From beyond the grave, the celebrated

ghost hooted his book with Macy's

and Bloomingdale's and the Bahamas:

he held his own too, till he got to ladies' lingerie.

School

Last year?

We didn't learn nothing:

we didn't learn nothing

off Miss Hackett.

She said she's not an ogre:

but nobody wanted to go near her.

She was like an ogre.

Ogres are large animals

that live in caves

and eat people;

they have sticks with chains

and a heavy ball on the end

but they can't come out in the light

they can only come out at night.

The teacher before her was old.

She was nice, but we didn't learn

nothing off her neither.

All we did was color,

but she was nice.

Miss Melon was her name

and we had her because

Mrs. Racket was sick all year.

So we didn't learn nothing

off her neither.

But you got to go to school.

WHAT I DONE FOR SUMMER VACATION

my old man got sick and he got operated on in a hospital in new york and got better after a month and come home but he couldn't do nothing for a long time after that. When he was home he told me what to do for the summer--paint the picket fence white. Cut the grass. Pull weeds. Trim the edges. Plant the garden. Weed the garden but don't touch the cucumbers--kills 'em. Wash the car. Clean out the garage. Catch worms at night for fishing. He fished in a lake and never caught nothing. Then he heard about the bay. Didn't need worms for that. We needed other fish to catch little fish. Small blue fish that were only sort of blue on top and white mostly. Then we caught fish. Lots of little fish. I learned to clean them. You cut off their head at the gills and cut them down the middle of their belly and get the little skeleton out and scrape the scale knife over them and get rid of the scales and when you're done there's not much of a fish left. But we had a lot of them and he liked them. Or he liked that he caught them after all the time on the lake with nothing coming up after the worms and the bobbins still on the water and the lines got tangled and we had nothing to eat or drink out there in that boat and there were mosquito bites. He liked seeing the red and white bobbins dive down into the water and stay there while something ran with the line. And the reel sung out. Then a priest that taught him something in school came and told me about girls and nice girls don't like it. They let you do it if they like you but they don't feel nothing and its a sin but I knew about girls and was scared because I wasn't supposed to, and when he asked me if I did, I said no. So I made faces like I was surprised and my face hurt after a while. He liked talking about it, and wanted to make sure I was going to be good. So he finished up and we went downstairs and ate, but I was tired. After a while he came back and I had to make believe I liked him and was happy to see him again. They talked and left me out of it, and I was glad, but then they came and said I was going with him to Canada on a bus with some people from his church. I wasn't sure I liked that much, but they wanted me to pretty bad and I made faces like I was happy. I stayed at his house and didn't like getting up early for mass the day we left. It rained. I met two girls I liked, one in a white pleated skirt that hung nice over her and made it look like she was nice and her friend was shorter and had nice long fingers and nice hair and eyes and she was pretty, and the priest kept trying to make me sit up in the front seat of the bus with him but I kept going to the back seat where the girls were. He didn't like me leaving him up there alone but I couldn't think up nothing to say to him. Couldn't think up nothing to say to the girls either. But I liked them and I liked sitting by them. We went to these shrines up there. They gave us little candles at night and we lit them up and walked around holding them and said the rosary in french. I didn't know french and it took too long but it sounded nice and they had crutches hanging up in church and wheel chairs from people they said got cured out of something without getting operated on. And when I got up the last morning, I met the girls and had coffee and I never had that before and it wasn't good, but I kept the jar they brought it in. When I left the restaurant the girls made believe they were shocked but they put it in a pocketbook and walked out like nothing. Outside the restaurant I saw newspapers in english standing up in a rack and one said ernest hemingway killed himself last night. Biggest print I ever saw.

The Wisdom of Eight

You don't call

a teacher

by its

first name!

Ordinary Time

(Trots More Or Less Iambic)

The leaves began to pass away

going, in dry season, to vague

fall colors.

Miss America crowded Atlantic

City with bus-loads of spectator-

gamblers.

Hot, humid, suffocating, yellow air

hung like a scrim before Manhattan's

silhouette.

The Feast smelled of Garbage.

San Genaro's band played

their old march through smoke hot

streets with imperfect rhythm:

aging musicians whose

spirits were high, though their

numbers had dwindled.

In Kennedy Park, little boys and girls

played fall soccer in fast waning light

while the sun fell huge, round, gold

behind thinned trees and burned

through crooked gold branches

with profound silence that drowned

out the sweating shouts of men

urging breathless boys and girls

to victory with excitement near

anger--the high pitched frustration

with side-lines and the short-lived

concentration of small boys and girls.

On Canary Bond

(Late October)

This paper is so-so;

it will not take ink.

The cold air is pushing

summer to the brink

of a fall to prolong winter.

The Series is awful--

the best they can do

is not even baseball:

St. Louis in red,

Milwaukee in blue.

Nothing to remember.

Nothing.

I'm restless with yellow,

eager to exchange

the last of this old ream

for the white one,

to change the way

I'm seeing October.

October again,

and damn it,

the leaves have gone to color:

reds this year,

and yellow-orange and red-orange,

all becoming circles of brown

debris beneath bare bones trees:

the harvest.

Birds fly low in elongated Vs

chasing this way and that

circling round

reluctant to leave

nests that lie exposed

high in the crooks of spindle

branch trees.

It was then Artie died--

not suddenly, but finally

at fifty-seven:

his heart gave out

just as the sap descended

and the leaves colored

and fell

and birds circled in frenzied formation

searching out the breeze

that would take them south

for they seemed to know

the reaper takes his cut

of the harvest.

'Tis always sad

when the life goes

out of a happy

man

Halloween and early dark:

no tennis, no bikes riding round

the park; westbound traffic

snakes its way into a huge

glaring sun that melts, molten,

like gold flowing into the road.

The Dodgers lost two then won

four straight from executive

Yankees who had lost their vigor

for World Series overtime--

some working for too little pay.

That tantrum strike knocked hell

out of the summer; here it is the end

of October with summer games

eating into mid-autumn.

It's later than it seems. Thanksgiving

soon, and Christmas shopping--cold

nights, winter coats, dead-looking trees

tossing their leaves into the wind. Still

the prospect of snow has its charm

and Christmas can be nice--after

the rush, though Grandma's moved

off to the Pine Barrens this year,

and Janet left old Duane and the two

girls, and Donna's gone to Denver

with her three and that one she married.

Seems too bad sometimes, too bad.

Turning Back The Clock

Now, as if all at once,

without warning,

the inevitable

is upon us.

Spring has grown

to full summer.

Summer has slipped

into autumn:

and we are

suddenly

without the sun!

We set the clock

to catch the sun:

at ten till two

it's ten till one,

but even this

daring stroke

can't keep the sun.

Not In Harlem

Hey Joe! I was reading that bit Saint Charles

sends round to touch fond alumni, and damn!

After all these years, there you were, as bold

as life in black type under "Sixty-five;"

so I read on, eager for news of you:

"Mr. Joseph Brady," it said, "an ex-

patrolman in New York City, died May

twelfth, we are informed in a recent note

received." I had overlooked that faint cross

they put before your name, or I did not

want to believe it. That was them, though--no

grief; a final faint cross, another name

off the list. No word about your life! Did

you marry? Have children? Had you been ill?

And . . . what does "Ex-Patrolman" mean? Huh? Sounds oddly like "ex-convict." "A recent note

received . . . ." Sounds like someone scribbled

in pencil on scrap paper in late May and old

Father Hardtflece filed it away, after

a nice lunch, in that tomb of an office

until November when he dug you up

for burial: a terminal faint cross

beside your name to mark the spot. Amen.

So! An Irish Cop! An ex-cop--you swapped

seminary black for New York City

blue--uniform cum arma . . . well. Had you

kept your habit of smoking cigarettes?

you'd hold it down and meet it half-way: bend

your head, almost furtively, lip a quick,

intense drag, inhale, turn your head and blow

the smoke aside, absorbed, still listening

to the talk around you. Now and again

you'd be caught up: someone would say something

that made you start to laugh while all the smoke

was still in your mouth--you'd stifle your laugh,

swallow the smoke, turn bright red, then burst out

laughing--the smoke would pour out from your nose

and mouth and you'd look like your head had caught

fire: you'd hack, cough and choke on the smoke.

I can't remember much of what you said:

it was usually little--and sly,

like that phone call when I was in Harlem.

You were somewhere: I had an old number

for you and called. I had just married. We

were visiting with my wife's girlfriend, Jo.

It was getting dark. You were laughing out

loud, skeptical: "Seeing an ex-nun are

you? I Harlem?" you snickered. "Yes, that's right,"

I said, with my straight seminary face,

dead-pan, politic. Jo read my matter

of fact tone and guessed your thoughts, "Yes," you were

eager to see us, one and all, but not

at the risk of your life--not in Harlem.

That was Sixty-six, I think. Autumn. Was

it October? The last I saw of you.

Do you remember our last train ride

back to school after Easter vacation?

We both left the cloth to mend itself that

year, in May. I thought it odd that fortune

threw us together in that crowded train.

Later, though, it came to me that you got

on in New York and kept watch as the train

rolled into Newark. The crowd dragged me along

to the narrow door. I was unhappy,

thinking, "Shit! Standing room to Baltimore.

Again!" I did not want to take this trip

back. I had had enough. Then, there you were

in your black suit. We were compelled to wear

the uniform for travel. You knew where

to find me. You smiled, then chuckled, slyly

waving instructions with your head and bright

eyes. I threw my things up into the rack

where your were, and you led me calmly through

the thick, scrambling crowd, smiling back at me

now and then with the devil in your eye.

We found the dining car empty, quiet.

No one at the bar: I had orange juice

with vodka. You drank good scotch--neet. Doubles.

Two to my one. Christ! We leaned on the bar

and drank our way to Baltimore. The car

seemed to stand still and vibrate while outside

sped by--a blur that darkened as we went.

The car windows went black--became mirrors.

The crowd found us out and pressed in on us,

but we held our ground. Somewhere along the

way those two girls appeared behind us

like a vision emerging from the crowd:

would we buy drinks for them? Black suits, black ties,

black shoes, black socks? You looked at me and I

looked at you: "Damn! What luck!" our eyes laughed.

"Okay," I said. The Lynx talked for them: dark

glasses, fur coat, black stockings, black topless

shoes. Her friend stood near you: red dress, red coat,

not nearly fur, thick legs--she wanted none

of it. We bought their drinks--I think you paid

first. They thanked us. They turned away toward one

another and talked make-up, shoes. The Lynx

talked fur. I gave you my look: disbelief.

You blurted a laugh. The red one blushed: had

We offended them? The Lynx shot a look

at you through her dark glasses. You shot one

back. "Enjoying your drink?" I smiled. She cracked

a quick smile and reached her empty glass toward

me. I felt a shock--her smile: she'd bad teeth!

To set off her fur coat. I turned and placed

her glass on the bar. You turned to me: "Nice

girls!" you said, under your breath. "What is this?"

I asked, under mine. You flashed your sly smile,

and shook your head. I paid the black porter,

who seemed to know and had that look about

him: he'd earn himself a good tip this trip.

I felt a jolt of fear as the train slowed,

and the dark blur outside became a slow

rolling scene of sparsely lit abandoned

lots, brick walls, old brick smoke stacks--back doors

of nameless factories. The dark blur still

sped behind my eyes. I felt numb and faint.

We looked at each other without a word,

and turned to pick our way through the crowded

cars to find our luggage. You handed my bags

down to me, grabbed your own and led the way

to the door where we waited for the slow

rolling train to stop. Those two girls walked just

ahead of us on the platform. I waved

to you to wait a bit--you understood,

stepped aside, and kept an eye on the crowd

while I caught the one in fur from behind

and took her arm: she knew. She turned around,

tilted her head and waited for my mouth

to find hers: she had thin lips--I was gone,

suddenly lost in the dark swirl of her

cool, liquid kiss. She never flinched. Darkness

sped through my blood like the train. I searched her

fur--her breasts were small, soft, silky beneath

her warm fur that began to take the chill

of the night air. Suddenly she stopped cold,

took one step back, looked at me through her dark

glasses, turned and slipped off into the crowd.

I had searched her dark glasses--an odd shock--

her eyes were skewed--I watched her back as she

slipped into the steady current of slow

travelers carrying bags up the wide

stairway--then she was gone. I felt puzzled

and dazed. I felt I was moving--a dark

blur sped outside while I stood dead still.

You broke the spell with your look of concern

and led the way into the stream that poured

out on to the street where the night had gone

cold. We gravitated toward the black coats

that accumulated near the taxi

cabs like debris collected by a snag

along the river bank. You worked a cab,

and we packed in with others like dunnage

stuffed round out luggage. We sped away

through the dark night. I was crushed between you

and the window, inert. I closed my eyes

and felt the thin cold air stinging my face.

The street lights shone a stead beam that burned

through my eyelids like a torture. I turned

my face from the lights, and summoned a vague

image of that girl . . . I must have passed out.

I woke abruptly when the taxi stopped

by the concrete dock behind the school; white

gloss bricks glowed in the odd light of one street

lamp. We came and went through back doors: the new,

modern dormitory shell had no front

entrance, no front at all: a four story

rectangle that stuck our the right hand side

of that ancient gothic heap with its huge

arched front doors of carve mahogany.

They opened those doors on the first and last

days of each school year . . . to see that they worked.

We grabbed our bags and climbed the back stairs

to the second floor where the Prefect lived:

Father Klotts. We called him Scratch for his cue

ball head: tall bones, young, big bony hands, thin,

huge teeth in a big mouth--he was an act:

if it was time to smile, he'd get up a big,

bright smile; if it was time to be severe,

he'd get up his flimsy bit of hollow

severity. We'd talk him out of it,

though: "Father, are you being too severe?"

He'd flutter and fluster and wave his hands,

groping with the air; then he'd give it up,

"Oh!" he'd walk away confused, embarrassed.

You left me at the second floor entrance:

a look to ask if I could manage it.

I nodded a "yes" and off you went up

the stairs to your room. I opened the hall-

way door, took a deep breath, stiffened my back,

and found Scratch's door open: I wanted this

to be over. I dropped my bags and knocked

on the open door. My eyes burned, stomach

churned, and I fought off the darkness that closed

in on me. I summoned a smile and walked

into the room: Scratch was lost in one

of his thick books. His eyes bulged; his eyebrows

arched and etched wrinkles into his forehead

that pushed up a bit into his bald head:

he looked amazed, absorbed in his big book.

Scratch did not hear my knock and I shattered

his composure with, "Good evening, Father!"

"Oh-ho!" he exclaimed. He began to whirl--

his face shifted to its forced smile, his hands

fumbled, juggled, then tossed his book: he dropped

his smile, focused and caught his book before

it hit the desk. He sat forward and held

his book tight and set it down on his desk

with careful attention. He searched the desk

with his hands, like a blind man, looking straight

ahead, seeing nothing, groping for his

leather roll book, a pencil. His set smile

returned to his mouth, and his big eyes bulged

as he opened his book. His composure

returned: he was prepared to welcome late

comers who rode the train to Baltimore.

"Well," he said, as he ran his pencil down

the list of names: I felt certain that he

searched the list, trying to recall my name--

I was tempted to help him, but I let

him fry: he'd taught me history four times

every week for two years, and gave me "A"s;

now here he was struggling to decide

which name to check off in his roll book! Shit!

I'm not sure he got it right, but he checked

off a name, looked up with his vacant smile

and said, "There, now! And! How was vacation?"

"Fine, Father. Thank you," I held my fixed smile

and it made my numb face ache. He looked down

his list of names again, still struggling

to remember mine. "Well," he said, "You're in!"

"Yes, Father. Nice to be back." My fixed smile

ached. "Yes. Yes." He held his fixed smile, "Welcome

back!" "Thank you, Father," I ended and turned

to go. "Night prayers at ten o'clock," he said,

hurriedly, as I reached the door. "Right, ten!"

I said, over my shoulder, determined

to escape, "Good evening, Father," I stepped

through the door. I was out. I took a deep

breath and stood still for a moment, let drop

my aching smile, took my bags with a sigh,

relieved--it was over--I'd got past him.

Next I woke on a cold tile floor be-

side a toilet, with Scully lifting me

to my feet. "You all right?" he asked. He knew

better. "Yeah. I guess." He led me away

to my room, opened the door, threw my bags

in, and said, "Half an hour till night prayers.

You gonna be okay?" "Yeah. Thanks." He left.

I closed the door, left the light out, and lay

back on my bed. The darkness was quiet,

nice--the room began to spin. Dark walls sped

by like the night outside the train windows

and my bed began to spin as the walls

and ceiling gathered speed. I fought against

the spinning darkness, struggled to stop it,

gave up and swirled in the fluid whirlpool.

Next thing I knew the room was bright with sun-

shine silhouetting Tom against the wall

of windows. He was wearing his black bathrobe,

his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched

forward. He looked out the window in thought,

not quite seeing the brook running below,

nor the wooded hill rising up beyond.

We were forbidden to climb up that hill--

beyond was "The World," that dangerous place

against which we were being fortified

in holy confinement: "Happy Valley."

Tom turned round as I began to rouse.

The musty scent of stale alcohol filled

the room. I was shocked to find my bed stripped:

no sheets, no pillow cases, a single

blanket. "What happened?" I asked. "What happened?"

Tom mimicked with nervous indignation.

"You are a nice room-mate," he said, "but you

can be impossible at times." He was

a first year man, a "poet" as they called

freshmen. We were "Rhets," the upperclassmen--

the terms dated back to the gothic stones

of the main building. The freshmen studied

poetry and the sophomores studied

rhetoric: once upon a time, long, long

ago. "What happened?" I asked. My head ached.

"You came in drunk! Dead drunk! And you threw up

all over! All over everything--clothes,

bedspread, sheets, floor, walls! I had

to clean the whole goddamn room while you snore

like a bum sleeping on a sidewalk, dead

drunk. I worked in the dark, hoping no one

would come by and hear me, and I was up

the whole goddamn night washing everything

in that little goddamn sink!" "Oh," I said,

"sorry about the mess." I looked around

and found a huge ball of wet clothes, towels,

and sheets sitting heavily on the floor

near the foot of my bed. The stale smell seemed

to radiate in waves from that wet heap.

I severed my connection that night--there

was light ahead, a few weeks more: exams,

graduation. I would study as hard,

maybe harder--Seton hall was a real

school--but the subtle, perpetual strain

of Sulpician suspicion lifted.

I felt better, almost happy, and spent

the last weeks at ease: the routine became

pleasant. The weather warmed. I read Browning,

and Poe, Williams, Camus, Sartre. I wrote

about The Great Gatsby and fell in love

with Zelda and the Twenties, Hemingway.

"How in hell did you get in here dead drunk?"

Tom wanted to know. "How did you get past

Scratch?" He was under their spell and amazed

that the net had not closed on me: I had

come in drunk, missed night prayers, and nothing

happened. The sky did not fall. The sun rose.

He lived by the fear they hoped to instill

and felt cheated. He did not want trouble

for me, but the infallible had failed--

he was confused. Imagine what he'd feel

if news of the homosexual priests

among the faculty caught up with him.

He was naive. Good. Sincere. He believed

in the righteousness of Happy Valley,

but he was not shrewd enough to become

the Prince. He was a good man--saved my ass!

I kept my faith, but it's hope that sustains

me, though it declines a little each time

I try to realize that you are dead

at forty-three. I feel a bit like Tom--

cheated, confused. I wanted to know why

or how, so I looked you up in the Times

microfilm. I sped through May, slowing down

for every obituary notice,

like a train rolling into a station.

I caught some news for each day as I went:

it's all the same. Back streets get front page: cops

and robbers, drugs and sex, floods, disastrous

winds, volcanoes, money, rape, politics:

we still elect thieves and liars--bigger

liars get bigger votes. A woman killed

herself: parked her Grand Prix in her garage,

started it up and let it run--May tenth,

but not a single Brady all that May.

One Burns every day. Sometimes two, three,

but not one Brady. Burns was a fertile

strain, like rabbits, or Chinese. One of them

was ninety-five, survived by a wife, three

years older and flourishing still, it said.

You were not there. I was disappointed.

You simply disappeared--like a vision

that faded into the crowd without a trace:

in an odd way that makes it easier

for me to think you're okay, laughing it

up, having a good scotch--neet--doubles--

somewhere in New York City.

Two to six is four;

six to ten, four more!

If what you need is eight,

ten's not sleeping late!

Ordinary Time

Week Six

Have you seen that homeless

man shuffle off to bed:

cardboard on a subway grate

his hands around his head?

Have you seen that tunnel

lady advertise her breast:

she winks a blackened, swollen

eye that says she needs some rest.

Have you seen that drunken

man talking to the wall?

Have the windshield raggers

scared you with their drawl:

"May the good Lord bless you, Mister.

Merry Christmas one and all.

One can roundly dispatch

two thousand sound men

with a single wag

of the female's ass,

but no heap of sense

has ever quelled

the resounding bellow

of the donkey's jaw bone.

Poetry Night

I rode the elite elevator and stood among the elite

in elevator silence as we sped to a vertiginous height.

A man in full, greying sideburns with a smooth,

shining head perched atop a blue turtleneck sweater,

his three button tweed jacket buttoned up tight, stood

silent and glossy as his polished mahogany umbrella handle.

A woman, separate and large in shining black fur looked

soft as a panda; her black boots rose well into her long

fur, and her dark eyes glowed as she stood apart; her acrid

silence hummed through tight clenched, dark red lips,

like the sealed elevator that hummed its way upward.

I stood in a metal corner and watched blinking lights

flash numbers from left to right where it stopped at twelve.

Dull metal doors parted slowly and disappeared.

Black fur exercised female prerogative and pushed

her way through the crowd and the opened doorway.

She turned right turned right and lumbered away,

making haste with short, heavy, slow strides. The shining head looked round with the quick movements of a small bird,

and marched off.

I stepped from the emptied elevator to a brass picket rail that overlooked the floor twelve stories below: the distance tugged and drained blood from my groin and my legs felt weak; the fall was steep; the distant floor of black and white rose in three dimensions, jagged like hewn rocks sadistically set in perfect diagonal rows--an Escher etching, over-enlarged, magnified, compelling, dangerous.

******************************************

An elder sentry in thin lapels, his hands folded over

his zipper in watering hole pose, barred entry to the hall:

a slight woman of some years sat, officiously stiff, behind

a bare table and exchanged entry for cash, tickets,

or passes. She checked off names with practiced, and absorbed concentration.

Three tiers were expected: those who would pay, those above paying, and those beneath paying: the coerced, students of the venerable Whisp, the uninitiated.

I produced my summons; the elder lady found my name

and with a stiff back, a serious look, and her short pencil,

she carefully drew a check mark and waved me on with a nod. Her quiet sentry, politely chagrined, winningly mustered a bland smile, and asked, near embarrassment, if I would be kind enough to point out to him the young lady, Laura Blume.

Ms. Blume had risen lately, beyond elite, straight

up from coerced. She'd ascended, some said, indecently,

like helium balloons let loose.

"No," I smiled. "Can't say as I've ever seen her."

Who has not heard her name? From behind me

came a feeble voice that said, "Yes, I can." I looked

round to find a fellow student who overheard

the gentleman's hushed question and could not

resist the urge to raise his hand with a right answer.

He leaned toward the tall, thin grey sentry, surveyed

the room with a shrewd eye, and careful not to point,

stood still as a dog trained for the hunt, aimed his

deliberate stare toward the very center of the gathered

crowd, and said, "She is the one in the white blouse."

The distinguished old gentleman followed the line

of the young man's nose and blinked in recognition:

"Ah," he said as he slowly, politely licked his lip

and wrinkled his forehead in some slight confusion.

Laura Blume, her hands folded and buried

in her ample lap, sat straight up with the plump

calm of a queen planted like the center-piece

of a small, unruly garden.

Professor Whisp, the main event, had not arrived.

******************************************

The crowd, fully swollen, was lost in the hall

whose rarefied air breathed with détente,

disappointed in this small gathering,

whose loudest din echoed like the buzz

of an insect circling high ceiling lights.

I chose a seat near a side exit and surveyed

the door; a heavy dark grained wood hung

snugly on elaborate brass hinges. I stepped

to the door and turned a smooth handful of brass

knob to test the route of my early escape. A shrill

bell sounded a shocking alarm that echoed aloud

in the hall's spacious quiet.

The crowd's buzz died of a sudden: a startled hush

fell on the floor. Stunned eyes searched round

and found me standing below the lit exit sign:

I was caught as if with my finger in the pie.

Disinterest returned and the silent pause gave

way to a slowly rising hum that reascended to buzz.

At length and later than she liked, a lady, whose pure

antique charm shone like a mirror veneer poised

with a stiff neck, stood. Her head tilted slightly upward

and to one side to display, to some advantage and without

ostentation, her short string of yellowed pearls:

"May I have your attention!" she insisted, leaning toward

the microphone, "May I have your kind attention!!"

She waited with watchful persistence.

A deferential hush fell over the hall and amplified

the echo of metal folding chairs banging: a moment's

clamorous clanging shuffle and all were seated.

Laura Blume rose up in mid-declaration and trotted

heavily from her central seat, her head slightly bent,

she picked her way modestly, slowly hurrying till she

sat at the long bare folding table beside the podium,

next Whisp's right arm: for Whisp had arrived.

******************************************

"It is our enormous good fortune," the stiff necked

pearls insisted into the microphone clamped

precariously to the podium, "an honor and what

a distinction, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and extreme,

talk, talk, talk, among above, talk, talk, talk," she smiled.

Up popped Whisp, though not far enough. He reached

up for the microphone, pulled it down, then down again.

He fumbled his thick black-framed glasses, caught them

in mid-air and struck them against the microphone,

nearly tossed his papers, grabbed them, slid his glasses

over his ears, propped them on his nose and opened

a book of his own doing . . .

As from a cupboard, like a politician cock roach,

with a bow and a blink, Whisp nodded and began:

"The purpose and aim of the poetry talk talk talk talk.

I'll show you what I mean by reading a poem talk talk.

A blurred title and on sung Whisp:

something a mermaid off on her own in the sea.

The microphone lisped and hummed,

Talk, talk talk talk," and Whisp had done.

******************************************

Laura Blume rose up, bumped into Whisp

as they danced round one another in a tight

circle. Whisp sat, smiling broadly, while Laura

stood, discretely raising up the microphone.

With intense calm in her tight, quiet voice,

Laura lamented that her light was dimmed

by forever trailing Whisp's golden glow,

though her tone told the silent she was every

bit of it equal to the task: "It is the bane of my

life, the curse of my career to have always

to follow Professor, dear Professor Whisp. Talk,

talk, talk, talk. Talk, talk talk talk . . .

******************************************

I leaned back in my folding chair and thought

of the river as it was when I drove beside it on

my way to this chair: the water was still, frozen,

jagged; it gleamed like glass debris, stuck, caught

as if in a ragged mood while the sun settled

distant and cool behind the factory silhouette

skyline on the Jersey side.

******************************************

talk, talk talk, talk, talk, talk . . ."

Laura was suddenly reading a poem of her own:

an Irish coffee, a misty field and shadowy exchanges

between vague figures in the dew cook rain talk, talk

talk, talk talk talk, talktalktalktalk!"

"Are there any questions," she paused.

Whisp blinked hopefully, dangerously

drawing his glasses from his nose . . .

An elderly gentleman stood, and as he stroked

his beard, he said he thought Talk was good

so far as Talk went, but it made too little sense

to him and did not at all account for talk, talk, talk,

and talk!

Whisp restored his glasses to his head and looked

though his papers, leaving Laura to lurch for herself:

"Talk means talk, and talk, talk, taalk," her voice

pitched higher, "talk, talk, talk," and squeaked, "Talk!"

Whisp drew his glasses from his nose and shone

brightly: he did not rise, and from his chair, while

Laura stood turning toward him, he said, "Talk. Talk.

Talk, talk; talk--talk? Talk: TALK! ! !" and he conciliated,

"I should have grown a beard for having said that,

it was so wise."

The silence tittered and the gentleman sat, shaking his head.

Whisp beamed for more when up popped declining elegance

to say the hour had come for this distinct honor to end.

"Some of us must go and others can stay, but all are welcome and we must express our deepest gratitude, talk, talk, talk . . ." She'd not finished before chairs began to bang and raise a metal clang that echoed in the grateful hall which breathed more easily knowing that this buzzing insect would soon cease to trouble its solitude.

I squeezed into the first elevator with the crushed elite,

hopped across the jagged stone floor on my way to the door, ran to my car and raced to be gone.

Conversation with the Wall (VII)

Not much call for carrousels these days.

Merry-Go-Rounds spin to carnival music

But the horses creak as they rise and fall, their brass

poles tarnished; their chipped saddles carry no riders.

Rainbows are split: their arches decay

and their struts erode with an iridescent glow

of purple and pink and yellow and blue that say

the fabled gold gave way to plutonium.

Tis’ a chastening experience to visit the dying

and bury the dead. "Life comes to that," they say,

and those brave words help one not look too hard

at the face with its eyes shut in imitation of repose,

and its lips sealed with sutures: those lips might tell

quite another story of what becomes of life.

Not much call for adoration these days.

The gods have gone the way of carrousels

and rainbows. We visit the dying and bury

the dead with clenched teeth and vacant stares,

too stunned to scream, too stunned to notice

the plaster Virgin who looks on through cracked

eyes, her broken smile beyond repair.

Ordinary Time

SEVEN

One can weary of the sun

as symbol

as one wearies of the symbolic

rose.

One can weary of the earth

transcendent

as one wearies of the romantic

pose.

But the sun burning white

on bright, new driven snow

as it lies on branches

of the dormant rose

gives hope for the new spring

and rouses my soul.

Conversation with the Wall (VIII)

No sops for Cerberus;

so let him growl,

while we fetch Persephone

who's been to long gone.

Long toothed Winter

has made us irritable

with excess.

The romance of fire

cools when we must keep it

alight through too long

and too cold a winter.

We learned that in March

when this withered old

wretch conjured twenty

tornadoes and two

volcanoes and winds

to agitate seas,

and snowstorms to kill

off the crocuses.

Conversation With The Wall (IX)

When you can't see the wall

for the writing

and the last bit of light's

for igniting

new sparks of contention . . .

When you can't see the trees

for the forest

and the last couple years

were the hardest

to still old resentment . . .

When you can't see the scene

for the close-up

and a grimace tells all

or most of

your tale of dissension . . .

it seems not to matter

that spring has come.

Introit

He wandered the long concrete walk

that ran along the side of the house:

a tall house, enormously high,

and a long walk from back to front.

His head ran even with the slight

shadow line below the grey edge

where the lower row of shingles

slipped neatly under the second.

He'd measured and watched as he walked.

The sky glowed bright, piercing blue, high

above the house and the sun's bright

distinct morning yellow warmed his face.

He beamed with bristling calm.

No need to find his green plastic

soldiers who assembled on dirt

hills to contemplate, with quiet

concentration, the enemy,

invisible, behind the back

fence where his numbers gathered

on other days. Nor was he pressed

to think where he left his baseball

glove and ball, nor moved to rouse

his red bike that slept on its side

in sparkling wet new green grass,

glowing in the morning sun.

He ran his fingers over grooves

in the grey shingles, and wandered

slowly toward the tall front hedges

that hid the street and poked branches

through wide holes in the cyclone fence.

He surveyed the whole expansive

yard with its dull silvery fence

and its new green grass and its still

swing hung from a tree near the wood

fence that hid railroad tracks beyond.

The brown square sandbox his father

built enclosed a brilliant patch

of sparkling light that danced and rose

from bright sand, and the tiny leaves

just sprung on the tall tree flickered

in the warm, bright sunlight that coursed

through him with quiet, bristling calm.

Introit

He wandered the long concrete walk

that ran along the side of the house:

a tall house, enormously high,

and a long walk from back to front.

His head ran even with the slight

shadow line below the grey edge

where the lower row of shingles

slipped neatly under the second.

He'd measured and watched as he walked.

The sky glowed bright, piercing blue, high

above the house and the sun's bright

distinct morning yellow warmed his face.

He beamed with bristling calm.

No need to find his green plastic

soldiers who assembled on dirt

hills to contemplate, with quiet

concentration, the enemy,

invisible, behind the back

fence where his numbers gathered

on other days. Nor was he pressed

to think where he left his baseball

glove and ball, nor moved to rouse

his red bike that slept on its side

in sparkling wet new green grass,

glowing in the morning sun.

He ran his fingers over grooves

in the grey shingles, and wandered

slowly toward the tall front hedges

that hid the street and poked branches

through wide holes in the cyclone fence.

He surveyed the whole expansive

yard with its dull silvery fence

and its new green grass and its still

swing hung from a tree near the wood

fence that hid railroad tracks beyond.

The brown square sandbox his father

built enclosed a brilliant patch

of sparkling light that danced and rose

from bright sand, and the tiny leaves

just sprung on the tall tree flickered

in the warm, bright sunlight that coursed

through him with quiet, bristling calm.

Apocalypse

In the end

it's over.

Done.

If it starts

up again

as something

new,

it's not

over and

done.

In the end

it's done.

Over.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download