THE BRONZE FROG (short) THE SONG OF JUAN SINMIEDO (For Sobiah Nawaz) THE SOUNDS OF LIFE THE BRONZE FROG (long) IT SOUNDS LIKE RAIN THIRTEENTH STREET CYNTHIA
I think the happiest thing I’ve done all year
Has been to buy this green bronze frog.
He sits atop my toilet tank
Where daily he greets me
With sparkling black glass eyes
And an eager, wide-open-mouthed smile.
Now every time I go to take a piss
I share in his felicity, his bliss.
In all the world there is no ass sweeter than
my own;
For you to find his match, señor, him
you’d have to clone!
See him as he stands demure, his burnished
feet so close;
You’ll see why it’s hard for me not of him to boast!
His eyes are sloe, his coat is thick, his mien
beatific.
Oh, when we’re apart it hurts! Aiyee,
it’s like I’m lovesick!
Each day I wake I wake with joy to know my
burro’s here
For with him I have a livelihood, free from
want and fear.
Oh, how I love him so, my dear, dear Conejo!
Together you may see us go round about the pueblo
Stopping at the likely spots where tourists
may be found
Who’ll pay to pose for a photograph, mounted or on the ground.
And what a picture he does make, with garlands
gaily freighted
And upon his close-cropped mane, paper flowers
plaited!
His saddle blanket’s brightly hued, his saddle finely tooled;
To me he’s like a princely steed, caparisoned
and bejeweled!
The day be done we head for home and a
currycomb.
I fill his manger with fresh oats and hay
that’s newly mown.
The other night I had this dream, of
God it was, not men:
I saw our Lord upon an ass entering in
Jerusalem.
A swelling crowd hosanna! cries, when in the
ebb and flow
Lo! I catch a glimpse of Him upon my dear
Conejo!
________
Note: Juan Sinmiedo, or
Fearless John, is an epithet by which our subject is known about town. The epithet seems to have been inspired by a
popular story and television series.. I can only guess how our hero feels about
this (I was reluctant to ask him). The burro’s name, Conejo = Rabbit or Bunny.
Puerto Vallarta, November, 2007
Oh,
daughter, go, fetch me a towel,
Wet
it, and place it on my brow.
The
day has been long and I am weary.
I’ll
take my rest here in this room
--
The one beside the rose garden --
The
one your mother loved so much.
Look,
the eastern mountains blush
As
a maiden might at a suitor’s touch
Purple
and pink the distant crags
But
red the nearer rock faces
A
red that calls to mind the blood
Shed
daily now across the land.
Ah,
a cool draught, a breeze I sense
Coming
from these selfsame peaks.
(The
air there must indeed be cold
To
hold its freshness to the plain.)
Come,
my daughter, and sit by me.
You
are fair and gladden the night --
The
night and the rose-scented air.
______________
Note:
Ms. Nawaz is a native of Baluchistan, the province comprising S.W.
Pakistan
Such
authority in the slamming of a door
Such
competence, it’s truly hard to ignore!
The sounds
of life are jarring and they mock me
For I
cannot write a single line of poetry!
I think the happiest thing I’ve done all year
Has been to buy this green bronze frog.
He sits atop my
toilet tank
On a hand
embroidered table linen
Where bride and
groom in loving stitches
Wed amongst the
flowers.
Above
this tableau
A red paper flower’s
hung
By its green wire
stem
I’ve wrapped about
the copper water pipes
Protruding from the
bathroom wall.
The verdigris’
applied, I know,
It’s been produced
in a chemical bath. So?
Only a purist or a
prig would care
Just how long it
took for the green to get there!
The frog’s
insouciance is irresistible.
Every day, no matter
how I feel,
He greets me
His broad head
lifted up expectantly
His black glass eyes
a-sparkle
His mouth agape in
an eager, ear-splitting smile.
Now every time I go to take a piss
I can’t help but smile and share
In
his infectious bliss.
Puerto Vallarta
November 2007
It sounds like rain
The rat-a-tat-tat-ling
Outside my paneless window
Or is it the wind I hear
Rustling the dry leaves
And clacking them like castanets?
Or scissoring the palm fronds
-- Rasping them --
Like a locust its hind legs?
The advance of the light
From the corner of the rooftop
Suggests it is a star I see
And that the night is clear But
The branches of the tree outside
Never do seem to move
And the cool draught that now pours
Through the open window
Insists it is the rain I hear
_________
Note: Cool downdrafts are associated with
raining cumulonimbus clouds.
I want to drink
Till every molecule of me
Is dissolved, rent
Reduced to more elementary forms
-- Amino acids, atoms, ions --
All afloat on a simmering sea of lipids
The nondescript color of vomit
(This I somehow strangely envision)
Every particle of me a smiley face
Looking up at me
Absolutely, divinely drunk.
(For Dee H.)
… The spics sleep on Thirteenth
Street
Their jungle bongos beat
…in perfervid dreams
Of rut and rot, of purple mountain tops
And breaking glass. Toward Avenue A and up
Up the blank-eyed tenement walls I look
And
I own it all, the city and the night, the light
Enhaloing
the streetlamps, the still warm asphalt
The
fretwork of fire escapes, I own it all
Behind
me a few doors, San Sebastian
Twists
in agony in his gilt cappella
His
hermaphroditic plaster form pierced
By
a dozen well-fletched Roman arrows, his gaze
Through
the store-front chapel’s plate glass window
Imploring,
piteous, ecstatic. And next door
My
own apartment the year before the plaster
--
Like my youthful pride -- would buckle and fail
Dee,
I loved your lisp and how you said
The
first line of this poem The sthpics sthleep...
I
loved your body and how you looked in jeans
How
the springs of the folding bed would complain
As
loudly as that AA Wendy bitch
Across
the dingy sounding board of a hall
And Bach on the bare old Zenith by the
bed
And the warm orange light of its vacuum tubes
Spare as a monk’s cell I imagined it
My apartment, no stockings, no woman’s
evidence
As callow and ascetically inclined I was
I was lucky to have missed the eye of
celebrity
That that pot-bellied poet-pederast of Tenth
Street
Never
wrote a poem for me entitled
“Gimme
Yr. Ass Boy” not among his best
If
there were any best after his youthful Howl
And
dear Kim, who quit Balanchine
Before
she was fifteen, and Roger, the seminarian
He
was as close I got to faggotry
And
proud I was, not that I was stiff
And
he limp, but that Mother would not approve
…The
spics sleep on Thirteenth Street …
Indeed,
I envy them their sleep, their dreams
For
what I loved and lost on Thirteenth Street
New York, April 1965; Puerto Vallarta, April 2009
The long-ships arrive festooned
And laden to their oarlocks
With bride-gifts for Cynthia
Olaf’s fair daughter.
Furs from darkest Rus
And silks from Samarkand
All sorts of precious gifts
They bring to Bergen’s king
To celebrate the wedding
Of Cynthia, his daughter
To a Christian prince.
The flood of dragon ships
Fills the great harbor
Buoyed by bright Selene
Upon her heaving bosom.
Oars are sharply shipped
And sails are sudden dropped.
And a clangor now is heard
In Bergen’s great hall
As servants carry baskets
Of bread and set down trenchers
And tuns of mead are opened
While in the royal kitchens
Spits turn with veal
And with venison and lamb
And divers fowl are roasted
And baked In savory pies.
Mulled wine is ladled
For each arriving guest.
The galleries are full
Of musicians come from France.
Hear them as they practice
For a night of song and dance!
In the tents of Ishmael
The timbrels are silent
The flute laments a loss
And Yemen’s moon is pale.
The emirs all discuss
When Elif will return --
Elif, their August moon!
What caravan will bring her
From Egypt or from Aden
She of noble lineage
Her journey to complete.
Lines composed on the news of the wedding of a
friend
Puerto Vallarta, July 2009