41. GATE 21 (06/09/05)

I near the rostrum by Gate 21.
The entrance to the jetway is a bookcase.
A bishop dressed in red checks credentials.
A nun is waved on through. The shelves slide open,
Then close as she slips vanishing beyond.

Perplexed, I realize I left my luggage
Unguarded In a rancid cinema
And must retrieve it or miss my departure.
I hurry and find it in the front row.

Returning breathless I find no bishop
And no one else waits at the podium.
I must be cleared to proceed through the bookcase.

Yet no aircraft stands waiting at the gate,
And no one else is in the terminal.

  42. THE BALLERINA ON PIER 81 (05/25/05)

How many bowlines have been tied and tugged?
How many sheepshanks have been woven tight?
How many Carrick bends have stayed the sails
Of this black ship ascending New York Bight?

I debark at the rotted pier, looking for her.
Her face is not among those at the dock.
Fear drains me as I stumble down the gangway.

Hope fading, footsteps leaden, I enter
This vast echoing building. Then I tremble
As a wispy ballerina speeds to me.
Hair jumbled, face contorted with gladness.

Thin arms reach out across broad splintered boards,
Tears. Tight embraces. Both of us frantic,
We search for privacy to slake our loneliness.

  43. THE HEAD IN A POOL OF MUD (03/22/-05/25/05)

I sit at a battered desk in an office
Of a downtown building long-ago razed.

Once-familiar colleagues have vaporized.
The almost-empty rooms are filled with dust
Which blankets remains of scarred filing cabinets.
Dirty scuffed linoleum covers the floor.

I rise from my desk and drift to the window
To look far down at cracked asphalt pavement.
I see two people. One is male perhaps,
The other looks familiar. She is dressed
In a man's suit. It seems unclear whether
She is male or female. She sinks in a pool
Of gray mud until only her eyes show.
Expressionless she gazes up at me.

  44. MARTHA, WEIGHTLESS BRICKS OF BLACK (07/28-31/05)

From nowhere you appear and stand beside me.
Our shoulders, hips, legs touch with sparkling heat.
Our fingers tightly interlock, your sweet
Perfume denotes that nothing is denied me.

We walk along this evening avenue.
Our hips, our legs, our shoulders closely brush,
Our arms around each other's waists, we view
Leaf-shadowed streetlight glimmer. Through the hush

Of swarming night a distant foghorn bleat,
Reminds us of the upper bay nearby.
You steer me toward the sound down a side street.
And suddenly aware of this sad cry

I flinch at flying weightless bricks of black.
Of course you vanish, never to come back.

  45. ALICE 07/31/05

A brand-new deluxe multi-roomed penthouse,
Leased for a conference of unknown purpose
Is full of hallways, parlors, bedrooms, baths.

Bright violet, pink, green, blue, orange and white
Coordinated coatings, carpets spotless,
Furniture, appliances new and gleaming:
This suite is a hotel within a hotel.

O Alice, I rejoice at your emergence.
Tucked somewhere in my mind for many years,
You reappear in stunning elegance,
Unchanged, northern, blonde and beautiful.

Together, smiling, we investigate,
Strolling, exploring many ells and bedrooms,
We finally find our bed and slowly disrobe.

  46. EMOTIONAL WORDFALL (10/05/05)

This life seems always full of vestibules.
Wandering through hallways of pleasant strangers
About whom I care nothing, and they care
Nothing for me. We parade without speaking,
A promenade of heedless nodding, smiling.

I become resolute, my mind on business,
I look for numbered doors, for gathering
Groups of listeners awaiting seminars.

There are none. I become somewhat uneasy
At this lack of structure. Why am I here?
I stop and ask someone for a program.
He smiles and tells me that there isn't any.

Where am I? I begin to look for light,
Knowing darkness is the state of the lost.

  47. SHADOW OWL (02/18-4/24/06)

The day becomes beset by rising shadows.
An owl at night I fly through faint halos
In search of sleeping prey among the branches,
Talons extended, swooping on a morsel
Of mouse or sparrow unaware below.

Wind currents lift me up and cast me down;
I should alert all senses to the ambience
Of this pitiful little universe.

I need to know the whereabouts of angels,
To seek among them everlasting peace.
Their origin is points of brilliant light,
Resembling bull's-eyes in radiant targets.

I seem to have escaped life just in time:
The sound of rust pervades the atmosphere.

  48. DISCREET MAGNETOS SOMEWHERE IN THE AIR (4/24/06)

Discreet magnetos somewhere in the air
Are switching the dead on and off at midnight.
You might consider this capricious action
A scandal in the local cemetery.
But let's have fun when folks discover it.

Then, giggling softly, smirking, we observe
Communities of calm disintegrate
As mobs with flashlights scramble through the graves,
Profoundly shocked at shuddering tombstones.

Brandishing picks and spades they cry for clergy,
Who threaten scriptures, shouting imprecations.
These histrionics, although well-intentioned,
Force corpses out of tombs helter-skelter
Like ants escaping from a poisoned hill.

  49. TO HELL WITH THIS PARTY (05/21/06)

Surrounded by midlife sophisticates
I wonder if I belong at this party.
A woman with an artificial smile
Assails me with vacant pleasantries.

She must be the hostess. I hope she will
Simply move on to another victim.
Finally she does, regurgitating rote.

Turning slowly I feel somewhat obliged
To look for anyone I recognize,
Realizing that this might validate
Attendance at this milling matinee.

I recognize the back of an acquaintance.
But do not recognize the backs of others.
I turn my back and walk out the front door

  50. FOREVER HERE A MIDSUMMER CHILL (08/21/06)

Flows the cold swift Androscoggin beneath
A rusted unsafe one-lane iron bridge
To tumble through a milldam at Topsham
And drift to rest in Merrymeeting Bay.

Visit the cemetery on the hill
In Bath where ghosts of grizzled sailors lie
Beneath tilted granite and marble stones
Alongside spirits of women forlorn,
Whose high-button shoes wore on widow's walks
Above steep stairways in ancient houses.
Perched on the shelf above the Kennebec,
Its tidal stream once rife with wooden shipyards.

One yard remains, constructing lethal vessels
Destined for ruin in seas around the globe.

  51. FOOD FOR THE EVENING WOLVES (12/09/06)

You who are left must never fall asleep,
For if you do the horses will descend,
Swifter, more fierce than leopards with riders
Who swing broadswords decapitating thousands.

Blood spurts in dark rivers from naked necks.
Some prisoners are caught, but it is known
That soon their captivity will become
Victim to carnage wrought by scoffing vandals;

Black blood commingles in the thirsty sand,
With other sticky lakes of butcher-blood.

The predators sweep on, fleering their foes,
Their aim is violence; they scorn strongholds,
Befouling fields and fortresses with slain,
The dead devoured by howling evening wolves.

  52. ISAIAH (c.740-681 BCE) SPEAKS (1/20/07)

Has it not been told you from the beginning?
He sits upon the circle of the earth
And men are billions of grasshoppers
That buzzing, stretch the heavens as a curtain,
Thickly billowing as a lethal tent,
Devouring all in whirlwinds of stubble.

Crops neither can be sown nor harvested.

Have you not known from the earth�s foundation?
World leaders, helpless, are brought to nothing,
The law and judges meaningless vanity.

Yet power of hope is given to the weary:
They lift their eyes to the one creator
Who makes men mount up with wings as eagles,
Who knows the name of every grasshopper.

  53. PASSING PROBSTHEIDA 1977 (05/18/07)

Berlin lies scruffy thirty years postwar:
The Brandenburger Tor pockmarked by shrapnel
Broods dirty above Unter den Linden;
The Allee�s large-leafed trees fall prey to autumn.

We bounce through Koepenick in rattling van
Southeast to Leipzig on the Autobahn.
We pass through Probstheida in the city:

The 1813 Battle of the Nations
Saw armies of six hundred thousand here
Create one hundred forty thousand victims.

In swamps of blood where once Napoleon stood,
Where Saxons fought three days for either side,
A hulking ugly monument salutes
The tarnished ghosts of silent marching corpses

  54. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? (05/29/07)

This ghost stands at the foot of where I sleep.
Black, a silhouette in the orange glare
Of bedroom flames, his flailing arms heat-driven.

I try to cast my counterpane aside,
But as if bound I cannot leave my bed.

He opens wide his one-dimensional mouth
And I can see the smoke and flames behind.

In furious hiss his stark harangue begins:
�If only you could get it right just once.
My God! To think you can't do one thing right!
You are the one responsible for this.�

I weakly croak, �What do you want me to do?�

�You have been involved in this from the start!�

�If that�s so, what do you want me to do?�

  55. THE EYELID FACTORY(05/30/07)

We at the Eyelid Factory believe
Relief from your nagging nightmare reflections
Portraying horrid visions when you sleep
May be alleviated by replacement
And we have come to give you new eyelids.

Oh, incidentally we might mention that,
While removing the old eyelids, it's wise
To excise worn-out eyeballs at the time.
Or they'll just give you trouble later on.

I assure you at the Eyelid Factory
That no such procedures as you propose
Will make the slightest difference in my brain.
My lifelong fever fades, my sole remains
Are footprints on the beach before high tide

  56. LAST TRAIN TO MOONLIGHT (6/17/07)

Evening rises driving daylight down.
The border becomes everywhere and spangled
With aurora borealis pastel plinths.
Resembling rainbow organ pipes of sounds.
Transformed to muted rippling multicolors.

A railroad dwindles each way into distance.
Block signals for miles both ways emit green
Pinpoint perspectives in the cactus desert

I stand alone on this foot-splintered platform.
Clutching a satchel full of contemplation.

I look each way for an approaching headlight.
The shabby depot behind me is silent.

Then rails creak, a block signal flicks bright red.
A giant locomotive squeals from nowhere.
I climb aboard the last train to moonlight.