A Southern California Houseguest

  

A part of the appalling grounds was laid

With pergolas, gazebos, and a brick

Pagoda. He saw statuary, thick

With aureolas, wee-wees, and flamingos.

He saw a plaster herd of rampant dingoes,

A Virgin Mary, and a gold-dust maid,

Who turned out to be real. At least she spoke.

"'The dingoes ate my baby," you were thinking,.

And "Is she live or astral? She's not blinking.'

I know you were." All true, he had to say.

"Oh, and are your breasts real, by the way?'"

That, too. Too true. Her pleasaunce made him choke.

The hurt, which he had put aside, as lent

And oft repaid, was rhythmic as a psalm.

All he had saved, he thought it had been spent.

And there she stood, beneath a plastic palm.

Congress Is Happier Than Your Hand

 

1.

It isn’t death, whatever princes say,
Not when I dreamed of sandwiches, and kites
Fell on us all, like panicked meteors,
Leaving us naked at the first alarm.
These sheets don’t wind. These covers aren’t for keeps.

2.
Conceive of dirt as history, says Prince.
If you don’t dust, you’re worth a Ph.D.
In Native Studies: who you were Way Back,
Who was the Who before you were, and who
Taught grease stains how to kiss my lady’s hand.
It isn’t Alexander in a bung,
Not necessarily, but someone’s some
Distance away now, never regretful, made
A building block, like calcium or beets.
Don’t sweep: it might be love. It might be sense
Of history in Bag Type H, sucked up.

3.
We are not quite immune. This ham was once
A pig among his peers, a Gadarene,
Alliteration challenged, equaller;
And now a sandwich of most perfect gist,
Chap-fallen, cheesy. We shall all be toast.
If better not to be done, then pourquoi
Are pillows only broad enough for heads
Solus and undistinguished in the dark,
Though full of these dramatic congresses
With faces blurred? You know it isn’t death.

Devolvus Still

 

Devolvus, underground, preserves,

By lying still, his fraying nerves.
Yet in the sun, his brother walks
Above, and steels himself with talks
And chatter, as if they were kids
And wonted. And no mom forbids
One’s shoes inside or singing loud
Or hamming it up to please the crowd
Of featured hangers-on. If he
Should wish to lie there quietly,
Devolvus doesn’t say or swear,
Since he has time to spill and share,
By wit, by verve, by joie-de-not.
What was that punchline? All forgot.

Pie Are Round

 

I  wanted to use perpendicular,

But settled for hypotenuse. I know.

Euclid is an old street in my home town

And Archimedes was a wry old owl.

This didn't help much, not in plane or solid,

Distinguishing which was my chef d'oeuvre. Right?

Jump cut to way back. You know Archimedes

Was slain, yes, whacked, while doodling in the sand.

Slow fade to years uncome. I cannot add

Quaint quiddities to peonies and mums,

Just so a sonnet seems to terpsichore.

I tried fried pi. Oh, it went on and on,

And never, like me, proceeded to conclusion.

Crisps for dessert. I am too square for pie.

To Robert, At The Vernal Equinox

  

There are a number.  This is one.  It's not

The one about the holy fool who saved

Others, if they had golden hair and spoke

Like cello music in a sitting-room.

Nor is it How the Great King Came to Grief

By Trusting to His Strength, though I have heard

That is a tale for little men to tell.

This is the one about true love, made hard

By hands of flint and counselors of pain,

By those who preached renunciation, those

Who'd nothing to renounce, the tallymen.

He loved from here.  She heard from there.  They sent

Their messages by email or by dove

Or friendly friar: messages mistook,

And blood ensued, and loneliness, and smug

Denunciations from fat senators.

This is that tale.  We all know it by heart,

Which tells you why we tell it every day.

Dead Grandpa, The Fauvist

  

The elder statesman of the neighborhood
Remembers giant elk and sabertooths
Engaging in the parkway. He recalls
Splashy bonfires from the age of ice,
Thick blue-gray sheets encroaching on the huts
His parents built from fronds and fallen logs,
And, oh, the wolves--foundation of the blues,
He tells the little children, who step back,
Hoping the white-coat men with nets will show.
He notices. He tells them of the times
He drove off fierce triceratops and saved
The vegetables for winter. Where were you,
He queries, when we carved out the first wheel,
When Og and I invented tempera
And wooden teeth and book reviews? And salt.
The kids have heard of black-and-white TV
And know that WWI preceded II.
They do not need a grandfather who laid
Great Caesar's ghost to rest and lent his ears
To Phoenix, over coffee, every time,
Until the bird was old enough for school
And snub-nosed scissors, juice boxes, and gym.
Old and burned and born again and again,
He lives the story of the Ice Age, too,
The story of true love and painted caves,
Of Artemis and pharaoh's swanky graves;
But giant elk are scarce today. Old Og
Has gone to dust, there, blowing down the block,
And Grandfather will follow, given time.

The Essence of Senescence

 Darling, I am growing old.

Silver threads are growing cold.