Namaste

Taking a break from Pushkin, this morning I produce a fresh new sonnet, in honor of a new friend, and my new apartment.

As with any apartment in New York, mine has its peculiar foibles: an asthmatic fridge, a somewhat lumpy carpet, a toilet that cries like the souls of the damned when it is flushed. But, apart from the wheezy fridge and the accursed commode, the place is quiet, clean, compact, and cool, and a steal at $950/month. And I enjoy its proximity to work immensely.

Perhaps the most wonderful feature of this new place is the party of Buddhist monks which appears, promptly, at 8:30 a.m., with wooden bowls, accepting alms from these elderly Asian ladies who live across the street. I see them through the shower window, which I leave cracked about 4 inches, to the let steam out, so I can shave my head.

This intersection of events has occurred every morning (So far as I can tell. I am not always up at 8:30 a.m.) for approximately the last 4 weeks—always at precisely the most embarrassing moment in my morning ablutions—when the plumbing system in the building falls into a maniacal bipolar fit.

I am not sure what the correlation between this beautiful Buddhist ritual and my wonky plumbing is, exactly, but 28 days of preliminary data suggests—to this writer, at least—that there may be more at work in the Universe I share with these hungry monks than pure co-incidence.


Rites and Rituals

Each day, while lathering my balls, six monks
Berobed in chocolate fustian appear
Across the street with wooden bowls, at once,
Mouthing the word, “Namaste.” I hear

Nothing but my plumbing, screaming pipes
Played by a malicious satyr—Pan—as I dance
From “Hey” to “Hot” to “Yaaah—!” I hop from ice
To fire—clutching a comet in my hands.

A lady in pink cardigan places
A Ziploc bag of cooked rice in each bowl
And bows. I hope the bright smile on their faces
Means monks like eating rice, not hearing the howls

Of Hell evaporating from my cracked
Window, when they show up for their snack.

To which, we add a follow up, a sort of "too much information" Petrarchan annotation...


About those Pan pipes pleading in your ear,
The lady with the rice, pink cardigan,
The monks, the balls, the bowls, Shakesperian
Bric-a-brac, et cetera, it’s clear
The fingers on a flute are what you hear:
The sort of sad solo which any man—
Poet, plumber, even mathematician—
Might play upon himself himself. I fear

The fiery ice is harder to explain
Without the use of telescopes or other—
Instruments—designed to extend our view
Beyond the bathroom—to that deep terrain—
Where light was born from night. Maybe a lover
Versed in astronomy could do it, too...

Part III, The Beginning

I am not entirely certain about this as a beginning, since it seems to conflict with a few assertions I made about Time in Part I. But I will think about it over the weekend and see if I can come up with a solution.

Not right now. I am finished with writing for today. I am tired and cranky and want to go home to bed.


Takaaki, part III


Becoming human takes a bit of time.
Nobody knows exactly how we do it.
We classify the clock as the enzyme
Responsible—the catalyst. Through it
We cease to be that seemingly divine
Lump of life, we call “a baby.” Fine.
We can cope with grown-ups pretty well.
What gives Society headaches from Hell,
However, are the differing results
We get: when lanky Adolf, after school,
Shows up with smoky goggles at the pool—
Gene pool—our stomachs will do somersaults.
"Perhaps he’ll drown," we hope. Hope never helps.
Hitler makes History like Michael Phelps.

It's true, careers of creatures like him are
Olympic in brutality, but short—
From the perspective of a stone, or star.
Were we less human, pain would not distort
Our memories: they would be equal. Stones
And stars. Our graveyards would be free of bones
Also. Unless you count the grains of sand
Twinkling between your toes, when you stand
At Coney Island, watching the Cyclone—
The roller coaster—going up and down,
As salty waves insidiously surround
Your feet, washing it away. It’s gone.
The twinkling. The stars and stones stay here
As monuments. The twinkling disappears.

Thanks.

One thing I am always grateful for is the wisdom of my friends. They see things invisible to me in my writing, holes mostly, places where I need do a little work.

I had a little talk with Bill last night and he raised a few points about my story--places where it was difficult to follow. I thought about these narrative weaknesses and added a couple of stanzas to the poem today, by way of clarification. I would also like to thank John and Paul for their scholarly advice and encouragement on the subject of the Kobayashi Maru which is quickly turning into the presiding conceit of this piece.

There may be a few more stanzas added in the future, but I think the general outlines of this section of the poem are becoming clearer in my imagination. I began composing the opening lines of Part III while I was on the treadmill at Equinox this evening. I had to turn my music (Dropkick Murphys) up very loud to drown the poetry out of my head and concentrate on my quads. Will the Muses ever forgive me?

Anyway, at this late hour, here is my contribution for today. I hope it's okay.

[In case it still isn't, I have included some bonus video, as a footnote,  at the end.]


Takaaki, Part II


Around a core of elevators set
Twelve tall windows in a concrete sheet
As crumbly as the Parthenon; let
Your panorama start in Brooklyn, greet
The Empire State behind a candle (where
I sit swiveling in a leather chair),
While your eye continues traveling
Along gray glass, skyscrapers unraveling,
Until the pointy tip of the Chrysler Buil-
-ding gently lifts Lexington Avenue,
Piercing a silver nitrate mist. Now you
Must have this scintillating picture fill
The space before your eyes: that is New York.
Here, I transfix a carrot with a fork.

“Introibo ad altare,” I will say,
While blowing on my steaming vegetable,
Adding, “Totemo oishikatta ne,”
Hoping that I finally am able
To tell Takaaki I enjoy his curry
Without entangling my tongue in worry.
“It’s okay,” he shrugs, quietly deferring
My compliments—as usual preferring
A tilted head, a seated bow, the leaner
Show of manners honored in Japan,
Which can seem strange to an American
Inclined to linger too much over dinner,
Allowing food to cool and candles run.
Before I’d started, Takaaki was done—

Done, so quickly, like those Japanese
Cartoons I used to watch in Buffalo.
Star Blazers was my favorite one of these.
Five days a week, at 3:30, or so,
On rusty orange carpet I would sit
Watching an Imperial Navy ship,
Resurrected and retooled for space,
Leave planet Earth to save the human race.
At 6:00pm, plate balanced on my knee,
I’d see Toyota windshields being battered
By men from Chevrolet, lives shattered
By something known as, “The Economy.”
One guy would wear this map t-shirt: above
Japan it read, “Two bombs were not enough.”

Now, the two malignant mushrooms which
Sprouted from the belly of that guy
Returned as two shitakes in my dish
Of curried chicken and vegetables. Why
Was that? From a Doraemon candy tin
Takaaki took a cigarette. A thin
Wisp of smoke and hiss rose from his plate,
Typical for your twenty-seventh date.
“What do you want to do,” I inquired,
“Go bowling? I’ll do anything you like:
Get drunk? Get naked?” [Silence.] “Steal a bike?”
“I swam forty laps tonight. I’m wired.”
He exhaled, emitting a little laugh,
“Shall we play Scrabble then and then have bath?”

The carrot on my fork released a drop
Of curry—with a thick and oily splash.
The precise second my utensil stopped
I discerned, across the table, a flash—
Something which I hadn’t seen before—
Metallic—worth investigating?—or
Maybe not: a passenger aircraft
Hovering above New Jersey, as it passed
Behind Takaaki’s silhouette, gliding in
To Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark—
Nothing I need necessarily report.
A zero: no aluminium hiding in
Those pink cotton puffs above his head—
Those thunderclouds. That’s what I should have said.

“Have bath sounds good. But Scrabble, I will pass:
You always win, you creep. You clearly cheat,”
I said, “It’s obvious. You won the last
Nine times. And you’re not going to defeat
Me for time number ten tonight.” I put
My foot down firmly. There. Takaaki’s butt
He then extinguished in the drop of sauce
Which recently had claimed his match. “You lost
Because you play without strategy:
There is no need for me to cheat,” he sighed,
As if I were an insect on his thigh
Too insignificant to crush. “You see,
You always want to find interesting word—
Not the word that wins.” My mouth conferred

A moment with a chunk of chicken dyed
Cadmium by cumin in the curry—
Before I swallowed. “I have always tried
To think of Scrabble with you as purely
Educational. It is my wish
To help you in enlarging your English
Vocabulary. And defeating you—
Too easily—as surely I must do—
Would only be embarrassing. I know
How sensitive to that Nihon-jin are:
Destruction on a Scrabble board would mar
Our beautiful relationship.” “Honto?
It sounds like Maru-chan’s afraid to play.”
“Well, if you want to play with words, okay.”

(Maru-chan, or Little Maru, is
The new diminutive by which I’m known
In Japanese. I really don’t exist
In English anymore—except at home.
Think of Maru as a marine suffix—
A damaged freighter out of Altair Six—
The bane of all Starfleet cadets, but one—
Who counts impossible rescues among
His greatest triumphs. Though Kirk’s victory
Pales before my own: I am the first
To work the Kobayashi into verse—
In a surprising twist of History.
Present me a no-win scenario,
I read the rules. Then change the game. So,

The Kobayashi Maru is a test
Of character. You’re not supposed to win.
It’s chess. There is no ship in distress,
Hull breached, an icy vacuum pouring in;
The ship’s a simulation, and you lose
Whatever course of action you should choose.
The Kobayashi test presumes that death
Is built into our programming—like breath-
Ing—it is part of human DNA.
Live long and prosper? No, cadet: goodbye.
Don’t bother asking for a reason why:
Logic has the final, fatal say.
I wonder if our friend, Spock—over there—
Knows love is logic’s great nightmare?)

Takaaki taps a second cigarette
On Dora-chan’s bountiful blue tin;
I go on eating, watching the sun set
Like some enormous, obvious omen.
A hush descends across the dinner table,
Until a tulip petal that’s incapable
Of hanging on lands on my placemat
With a soft thud. Five minutes pass like that—
So slowly that they feel more like twenty.
I trace circles in my curry sauce
While he establishes just who is boss.
Takaaki asks, “More?” “No, I’ve had plenty,
Thanks.” I roll the tulip petal from
The mat between forefinger and thumb

Contemplatively as Takaaki takes
Dishes to the kitchen. In florescent glass—
Bisected cleanly by the Empire State—
I watch Takaaki work—efficient as
A robot—feeding things to Tupperware
Containers, fridge, and freezer—aware
I should be helping to put things away.
I am lazy—what else can I say?
When I see him stationed at the sink
I swallow the pale dregs of my iced-tea,
Then saunter to the bathroom for a pee,
Leaving the door open while I tink-
Le, asking, “Hey, would you like me to help?
Or do you plan to do it all yourself?”

Before we get to Scrabble we must first
Prepare the space for battle. Clean dishes
Rest in a rack, while bubbles rise and burst
Around Takaaki as he calmly swishes
Cutlery though the hot suds. Each plate
I plan to dry I first inspect. I scrape
A shred of gross organic matter loose
From the light, lilac pattern. I peruse
Both back and front, then add it to the stack
Of china in the cabinet above—
Easing my stiletto in with love.
This underhanded method of attack
Earns my palm a pair of scalding forks
Falling from the sky with deadly force.

“Jesus Christ! What’s got into you?”
I thundered to a non-existent jury,
“You stab me with steel forks out of the blue—
I promise to play Scrabble and—” And fury,
Rage crystallizing in Takaaki’s eye,
“I know when you’re mocking me.” I try
Not to reply—permit my mask to slip—
Given how I’ve destabilized his lip:
It quivers like red jello, in a mold,
Before the gelatin’s had time to set
Sufficiently. Our eyeballs briefly met
While calculating how long we could hold
Some dark profanity from bursting out.
He placed his boiled hands beneath the spout

Allowing a cascade of cold to run,
So his temper had a chance to cool.
These Vulcans have a funny sense of fun.
Letters at sunset. If this is a duel,
Shall I tease my way into his tiles—
Turn phrases on him, tiny lighted dials,
Listening for that peculiar ping
That tells me what’s inside my sonar ring
Is not a whale or school of silver fish
Darting down into the icy depths—
It is his anger, slowly sliding west,
Enveloped in the velvet dark? I wish
He hadn’t tried to lecture me before
About my Scrabble game. I abhor

Violence, like any veteran
Who knows what horrors in his soul may lurk.
But I’m American, and human, and,
Against a submarine, depth-charges work
Well—like words—if you deploy them right.
But using double-meanings in a fight
Is regulated largely by extent
Of your technology. Intelligent
Tacticians will grade every syllable
Carefully, according to its power—
Testing terrors, safely, in the shower,
Walking, waking, working—if capable—
When stepping from their skivvies to make love.
I draw the line at—this is getting rough.

Love’s not a game for gentlemen, like cricket.
It’s more like dominoes with rubble. War
May be our best analogy. I pick it
Because war has no ceiling, now, no floor:
It’s waged like love—no limits. Not the sky,
The stars, the earth, the sea. The tear-filled eye—
So useful in the service of romance—
Is like the language—wine and cheese—of France:
A luxury. Like poetry. Like pity—
Demoted to superfluous emotion
When Eve and Adam lost their second son
To murder. Individuals, each city
Destroyed since Genesis—Troy, Nagasaki—
Goes back to one, Cain-raising kiss. Takaaki

Slowly shut the water off. He dried
His wrinkled fingertips on a fresh towel
With November printed on one side,
A turkey, goose—some kind of brown, cooked fowl—
Emblazoned on the other. He withdrew
Another cigarette. (There were just two,
I noticed, left inside Doraemon.)
I wish I could capture his expression.
I left when he invited me to go—
Which is not to say that I objected:
I understood. In fact, I expected
This. Takaaki let his feelings show.
I added his heart to my victory arch
When he called months later. Back in March.

That was easy.

Dissatisfied with what I had written yesterday, I re-wrote the ending of the terminal (terminal in so many ways) stanza in yesterday's post. All I needed was a little sleep and a little coffee to help clarify what I was thinking. And once I figured out what I was thinking, I was able to compose another stanza this morning (in my head) while printing out some cases from Lexis. I think that today's stanza probably completes the second sequence in "Takaaki."

I will post the complete, revised version of Part II here.


Takaaki, Part II


Around a core of elevators set
Twelve tall windows in a concrete sheet
As crumbly as the Parthenon; let
Your panorama start in Brooklyn, greet
The Empire State behind a candle (where
I sit swiveling in a leather chair),
While your eye continues traveling
Along gray glass, skyscrapers unraveling,
Until the pointy tip of the Chrysler Buil-
-ding gently lifts Lexington Avenue,
Piercing a silver nitrate mist. Now you
Must have this scintillating picture fill
The space before your eyes: that is New York.
Here, I transfix a carrot with a fork.

“Introibo ad altare,” I will say,
While blowing on my steaming vegetable,
Adding, “Totemo oishikatta ne,”
Hoping that I finally am able
To tell Takaaki I enjoy his curry
Without entangling my tongue in worry.
“It’s okay,” he shrugs, quietly deferring
My compliments—as usual preferring
A tilted head, a seated bow, the leaner
Show of manners honored in Japan,
Which can seem strange to an American
Inclined to linger too much over dinner,
Allowing food to cool and candles run.
Before I’d started, Takaaki was done—

Done, just like those strange Japanese
Cartoons I used to watch in Buffalo.
Star Blazers was my favorite one of these.
Five days a week, at 3:30, or so,
On rusty orange carpet I would sit
Watching an Imperial Navy ship,
Resurrected and retooled for space,
Leave planet Earth to save the human race.
At 6:00pm, plate balanced on my knee,
I’d see Toyota windshields being battered
By men from Chevrolet, lives shattered
By something known as, “The Economy.”
One guy would wear this map t-shirt: above
Japan it read, “Two bombs were not enough.”

Now, the two malignant mushrooms which
Sprouted from the belly of that guy
Returned as two shitakes in my dish
Of curried chicken and vegetables. Why
Was that? From a Doraemon candy tin
Takaaki took a cigarette. A thin
Wisp of smoke and hiss rose from his plate,
Typical for your twenty-seventh date.
“What do you want to do,” I inquired,
“Go bowling? I’ll do anything you like:
Get drunk? Get naked?” [Silence.] “Steal a bike?”
“I swam forty laps tonight. I’m wired.”
He exhaled, emitting a little laugh,
“Shall we play Scrabble then and then have bath?”

“Have bath sounds good. But Scrabble, I will pass:
You always win, you creep. You clearly cheat,”
I said, “It’s obvious. You won the last
Nine times. And you’re not going to defeat
Me for time number ten tonight.” I put
My foot down firmly. There. Takaaki’s butt
He extinguished in the drop of sauce
Which recently had claimed his match. “You lost
Because you play without strategy:
There is no need for me to cheat,” he sighed,
As if I were an insect on his thigh
Too insignificant to crush. “You see,
You always want to find interesting word—
Not the word that wins.” My mouth conferred

A moment with a chunk of chicken dyed
Cadmium by cumin in the curry—
Before I swallowed. “I have always tried
To think of Scrabble with you as purely
Educational. It is my wish
To help you in enlarging your English
Vocabulary. And defeating you—
Too easily—as surely I must do—
Would only be embarrassing. I know
How sensitive to that Nihon-jin are:
Destruction on a Scrabble board would mar
Our beautiful relationship.” “Honto?
It sounds like Maru-chan’s afraid to play.”
“Maru-chan will kick your ass today.”

(Maru-chan, or Maru-maru, is
The new diminutive by which I’m known
In Japanese. I really don’t exist
In English anymore—except at home.
‘Maru’ works best as a marine suffix—
A no-win scenario from Altair Six—
The bane of all Starfleet cadets, but one—
Who counts the Kobayashi Maru among
His greatest triumphs. But Kirk’s victory
Pales before my own: I am the first
To work the Kobayashi into verse—
In a surprising twist of History.
The other meaning of ‘maru’ I found
Insulting: ‘maru’ also may mean ‘round.’)

Takaaki taps a second cigarette
On Dora-chan’s bountiful blue tin;
I go on eating, watching the sun set
Like some enormous, obvious omen.
A hush descends across the dinner table,
Until a tulip petal that’s incapable
Of hanging on lands on my placemat
With a soft thud. Five minutes pass like that—
So slowly that they feel more like twenty.
I trace circles in my curry sauce
While he establishes just who is boss.
Takaaki asks, “More?” “No, I’ve had plenty,
Thanks.” I roll the tulip petal from
The mat between forefinger and thumb

Contemplatively as Takaaki takes
Dishes to the kitchen. In florescent glass—
Bisected cleanly by the Empire State—
I watch Takaaki work—efficient as
A robot—feeding things to Tupperware
Containers, fridge, and freezer—aware
I should be helping to put things away.
I am lazy—what else can I say?
When I see him stationed at the sink
I swallow the pale dregs of my iced-tea,
Then saunter to the bathroom for a pee,
Leaving the door open while I tink-
Le, asking, “Hey, would you like me to help?
Or do you plan to do it all yourself?”

Before we get to Scrabble we must first
Prepare the space for battle. Clean dishes
Rest in a rack, while bubbles rise and burst
Around Takaaki as he calmly swishes
Cutlery though the hot suds. Each plate
I plan to dry I first inspect. I scrape
A shred of gross organic matter loose
From the light, lilac pattern. I peruse
Both back and front, then add it to the stack
Of china in the cabinet above—
Easing my stiletto in with love.
This underhanded method of attack
Earns my palm a pair of scalding forks
Falling from the sky with deadly force.

“Jesus Christ! What’s got into you?”
I thundered to a non-existent jury,
“You stab me with steel forks out of the blue—
I promise to play Scrabble and—” And fury,
Rage crystallizing in Takaaki’s eye,
“I know when you’re mocking me.” I try
Not to reply—permit my mask to slip—
Given how I’ve destabilized his lip:
It quivers like red jello, in a mold,
Before the gelatin’s had time to set
Sufficiently. Our eyeballs briefly met
While calculating how long we could hold
Some dark profanity from bursting out.
He placed his boiled hands beneath the spout

Allowing a cascade of cold to run,
So his temper had a chance to cool.
Takaaki has a funny sense of fun.
Letters at sunset. If this is a duel,
Should I tease my way into his tiles—
Turn phrases, like these tiny lighted dials,
Listening for that peculiar ping
That tells me what’s inside my sonar ring
Is not a whale or school of silver fish
Darting down into the icy depths—
It is his anger, slowly sliding west,
Enveloped in the velvet dark? I wish
He hadn’t tried to lecture me before
About my Scrabble game. I abhor

Violence, like any veteran
Who knows what horrors in his soul may lurk.
But I’m American, and human, and,
Against a submarine, depth-charges work
Well—like words—if you deploy them right.
But using double-meanings in a fight
Is regulated largely by extent
Of your technology. Intelligent
Tacticians will grade every syllable
Carefully, according to its power—
Testing terrors, safely, in the shower,
Walking, waking, working—if capable—
When stepping from their skivvies to make love.
I draw the line at—this is getting rough.

Love’s not a game for gentlemen, like cricket.
It’s more like dominoes with rubble. War
May be the best analogy. I pick it
Because war has no ceiling, now, no floor—
Also like love—no limits. Not the sky,
The stars, the earth, the sea. The tear-filled eye—
So useful in the writing of romance—
Is like the language—wine and cheese—of France:
A luxury. Like poetry. Like pity—
Demoted to superfluous emotion
When Eve and Adam lost their second son
To murder. Each individual, each city
Destroyed since Eden—Troy, Nagasaki—
Goes back to one, Cain-raising kiss. Takaaki

Slowly shut the water off. He dried
Pink wrinkled fingertips on a fresh towel
With November printed on one side,
A turkey, goose—some kind of brown, cooked fowl—
Emblazoned on the other. He withdrew
Another cigarette. (There were just two,
I noticed, left inside Doraemon.)
I wish I could capture his expression.
I left when he invited me to go—
Which is not to say that I objected:
I understood. In fact, I expected
This. Takaaki let his feelings show.
I added his heart to my victory arch
When he called months later. Back in March.

Sonnet for today...

Here is today's contribution to Pushkiniana. I hope it adds some lustre to his reputation. It has done nothing for mine.

[I include a few other stanzas as well, for context. Today's is the last.]


“Sweet Jesus! What’s got into you?”
I thunder to a non-existent jury,
“You stab me with steel forks out of the blue—
I promise to play Scrabble and—” And fury,
Rage crystallizing in Takaaki’s eye,
“I know when you’re mocking me.” I try
Not to reply—permit my mask to slip—
Given how I’ve destabilized his lip:
It quivers like red jello, in a mold,
Before the gelatin’s had time to set
Sufficiently. Our eyeballs briefly met
While calculating how long we could hold
Some dark profanity from bursting out.
He placed his boiled hands beneath the spout

Allowing a cascade of cold to run,
So his temper had a chance to cool.
He has a peculiar sense of fun.
Letters at sunset. If this is a duel,
Should I tease my way into his tiles—
Turn phrases, like these tiny lighted dials,
Listening for that peculiar ping
That tells me what’s inside my sonar ring
Is not a whale or school of silver fish
Darting down into the icy depths—
It is his anger, slowly sliding west,
Enveloped in the velvet dark? I wish
He hadn’t tried to lecture me before
About my Scrabble game. I abhor

Violence, like any veteran
Who knows what horrors in his heart may lurk.
But I’m American, and human, and,
Against a submarine, depth-charges work
Well—like words—if you deploy them right.
But using double-meanings in a fight
Is regulated largely by the extent
Of your technology. Intelligent
Tacticians will grade every syllable
Carefully, according to its power—
Testing terrors, safely, in the shower,
Walking, waking, working—if capable—
When stepping from his skivvies to make love.
I draw the line at—this is getting rough.

Love’s not a game for gentlemen, like cricket;
It's more like dominoes with rubble. War
Is our closest analogy. I pick it
Because war has no ceiling, now, no floor—
No boundaries. No limits. Not the sky,
The stars, the earth, the sea. The tear-filled eye—
So useful in the writing of romance—
Is like the language—wine and cheese—of France:
A luxury. Like poetry. Like pity—
Whose demotion to superfluous emotion
Occurred among the corpses of World War I—
Not above New York—not this city—
Synonymous with cruelty—concrete.
With love and war: it's lather, rinse, repeat.

Having lost my way

Earlier this spring, as you recall, I began working on a series of poems called the "Pushkin Project." Composing these pieces consumed most of May, until the 24th of May, specifically, the day my grandmother suddenly died.

A lot has happened since the day of her death. The most important event in my life being my move from Connecticut back to New York City. Not very much has occurred for me, poetically speaking, however, especially where the Pushkin project is concerned. This is starting to change.

The 'Project' now has a title: "Takaaki." I am working on it again. I am going to try to slow down the rate of composition from the painful pace of one sonnet per day to, perhaps, one sonnet every two days. Or three. My main concern this time is quality, having shown myself (like The Ford Motor Company) that I could, if need be, summon quantity, in a pinch.

Here is the entire poem as it now stands. In manuscript, it runs to about 20 pages, allowing 2 stanzas per page. There are still a few things in it I am unsatisfied with; a few things in the future, I expect, will change. I have no idea what. And I am very curious to find out. So, let's get going.

(My goal is to present the entire tale to Takaaki for his birthday this year, on September 25th. It's a surprise, of course, so don't tell him.)


Takaaki

A Romance


Overture


Today, as I was clipping my toenails,
I had a small epiphany. I thought,
Since I have started fabricating tales,
Once I am finished with my toes, I ought
To tell a story totally in verse,
Like Alexander Pushkin. What’s the worst
Thing which could happen to me, if I do?
I waste a month, while trying to pursue
A dream. Not a great sacrifice to make.
But digging deeper, under my big toe,
To get a stubborn piece of sock, I go
Puncturing an artery by mistake:
Administering a pedicure is not
The time to be developing your plot.

Although a gallon of fresh blood will prove
Absolutely vital later on—
Since blood is second only to true love
As an essential element of fiction—
Beyond the story of Philoctetes,
Penned by Pulitzer winner Sophocles,
Western literature is rather weak
When it comes to treating injured feet.
There is Achilles, yes, and Oedipus
Translates from ancient Greek as ‘swollen foot’—
But is my toe the basis for a book,
Except for, maybe, my podiatrist,
Dr. Silverman? It’s tough to say.
The man hates poetry. He says it’s gay.

I mention my podiatrist because—
As you have no doubt noticed here so far—
Underneath the sterile square of gauze
Stuck here to stanch my bleeding toe—there are—
I hesitate to call them ‘flaws’—it lacks
Finesse and strays too far from facts
For me. I’ve altered Pushkin’s sonnet scheme
In ways less fatal than they first might seem:
I add a fifth beat to his four foot line.
Some will regard the act as criminal,
Some revel in the extra syllable
Like puppies playing out in the sunshine.
Pentameter is difficult to ditch
If your first love in life was Shakespeare, which

It was for me. There’s not much I can do.
If Pushkin’s relatives should get wind
Of my two-timing ways, I doubt they’ll sue.
They’ll probably ask an unemployed cousin
To slit my throat when I’m alone in bed.
I guess I could get used to being dead—
As long as you can promise what I wrote
Continues living in your heart, I’ll cope
With fame and martyrdom quite well. But
If anybody offers me some cash
To shut up, I’ll consider it, as
I’m often short. And having your throat cut
By former agents of the KGB
Does sound a wee bit painful, actually.

And I hate pain. So, I propose a truce
Between my critics and their allies in
The Russian mob. I’ll borrow—not abuse—
Some bubbles from the bar—that horizon
Bequeathed to me—to poets everywhere
Who’ve gulped at galaxies we might compare
In liquid brilliance to a sparkling word
Of Alexander Pushkin. (It’s absurd
To carry comparisons much further than
A single word: our metaphors break down
To fizzy giggles—particles of sound
That do not look like galaxies, or stand
For much of anything, beyond noise.
It’s hard to pour the stars into your voice.)



Part I


“Paint me a pair of bold anfractuous rocks
Set somewhere in the Cyclades—a spot
Totally removed from Time. No clocks.”
I’d settle for a day in August, hot
Enough to melt an Erlenmeyer flask;
We could emerge from a cool underpass
To catch a guitar weeping, an old song,
A crowd of children shrieking, a Great Lawn,
Surrounded by people with someplace to be
Hurrying to different destinations.
“Who comes to Central Park on their vacations?”
I would implore the poor, demented bee
Circling a can of garbage going sour.
Surely, God would not begrudge an hour

Of timelessness unto Humanity—
His representatives on Earth. He must
Have made us and forgotten us. Maybe.
How else would you explain the missing bus,
The leaky awning, and the pouring rain,
This longing to be elsewhere? Hence, the plane
Landing on a distant isle in Greece—
Ahead of schedule—the Cyclades—
Bathed in Hellenic blue. And far below—
Almost invisible on the white beach—
There is a tempting red umbrella which
I am convinced belongs to me; although,
It could be a reflection from the ad
For Travelers Insurance, which is bad-

Ly flirting with me from across the street.
A fault in one of its florescent lights—
Flutter. Flicker. Blackout. And repeat:
Ad infinitum. How I hate these nights!
These tiny, tantalizing sights. To
Say I hate New York would not be true.
We have a strange relationship, I’d say,
We need each other, sort of, in the way
A sad, sadistic cop requires a good
(But rather stupid) buddy on the force
To buy Budweisers for him, post-divorce,
And hear how he has wrecked his life. Ours would
Make a fine, redemptive movie script,
Down to the last, cheesy tortilla chip.

For now, a cone of pink chrysanthemums—
To match the dozen frosted donuts I
Picked up from Dunkin’ for dessert—some
Blocks back, before Zeus unzipped the sky—
Will join our little shopping list. “How
Much are these flowers,” I ask the fellow
Sweeping up the petals, thorns and leaves
He has been pruning. “Not the roses—these,”
I point sharply at the mums again.
The chalkboard with the prices on it had
Suffered, like my patience, from the mad
Downpour. Slowly a young Mexican
Lifts five green fingers in front of his face—
His exhausted face. What a place

To hide such beauty. “Yes, I’ll take those, thanks,”
I mutter softly, with embarrassment,
Pulling out a wet ten, with two yanks,
Sending a quarter rolling down the pavement,
To the gutter. Pirouetting on the drain,
It spins to rest, shining in the rain
Atop a flattened cup—a blue pancake—
Supporting crooked letters which I make
Out to read, ‘Happy To Serve You.’
Exactly who is happy to be serving
Whom lies beyond my powers of observing
Because of how the cup is crushed. In lieu
Of other parties with a claim to it,
I give green fingers a five-dollar tip

And go retrieve my quarter from the cup,
Before somebody else does. In this town,
Some moments are too precious to give up.
A lucky coin can turn your life around
Like that: Fortune rota volvitur,
Rolling toward the sewer, your last quarter,
While on “The Wheel of Fortune” someone spins
Above a pyramid of oranges. Who wins?
Who cares? I have my quarter and I’m glad.
The best ten dollars that was ever spent
By any man beneath the Firmament.
Do I exaggerate? Perhaps a tad.
But just a tad. That magic emerald hand
Has turned “The Wheel” into a salsa band

By changing channels. How I love TV!
Just think of all the money that we could
Save on drugs and psychotherapy
If human hearts came with remotes! A mood
Is altered just by tapping on your nose,
And fine-tuned further, peeling off damp clothes,
And fiddling a little with a nipple.
A politician still might come and cripple
Sex, occasionally, and football
Pre-empt a dreary real-life drama
With dancing linebackers, or a bomber
Blowing up an airplane force us all
To interview a few shocked families:
But we could always turn off our TVs—

Like that. Returning richer from the gutter,
I collect my donuts and cut flowers.
It seems the thunderstorm’s begun to stutter—
Which I attribute to my quarter’s powers,
Patting the faint circle on my thigh
Embossed by my good luck. I decide
There is no point in waiting. I am wet.
I can’t get any wetter now. I bet
The guy who drives my bus is named Godot…
Assuming this, and better weather later,
We say goodbye to Jorge’s cramped bodega.
I need to meet Takaaki for a show—
War of the Worlds—at quarter after eight.
Taka-chan will shoot me if I’m late.

Takaaki entered my life as a leopard
Belt being unbuckled at the Y.
Until that Tuesday, we exchanged no word
Apart from the prim, perfunctory, “Hi,”
One naturally nods when in the shower—
Never letting eyes fall any lower
Than chin, if necessary, collarbone,
Carefully leaving ‘well enough’ alone—
Lest a long, luxurious lather blur
That fragile line of bubbles separating
Really clean from curious—creating
Questions about conditioners, and whether
Grapefruit is a proper, manly scent—
Even in a Thought Experiment.

I was hooked by how that feline belt
Crept through the four tight loops above his rear;
It filled me with four-letter words, which spelt,
“Don’t ruin your Moon trip.” Though sincere—
Poetic even—this injunction—it
Does not, I think, seem quite appropriate.
We’re not inside a NASA locker room—
Pristine and clean and white. We’re in a tomb
Below the ground on 47th Street,
Surrounded by abandoned towels so stiff
And stained with History they’ve entered myth.
I sprinkle fungal powder on my feet
Discretely. As my fairy dust descended,
I wondered if his buckle was befriended

By anything besides his fingertips.
I could, of course, conceive of other suitors:
Shaggy carpets, pant hangers with clips
Coated in red rubber, folding doors
With tiny metal doorknobs cast from stainless
Steel. But it was none of my business
Where, after leaving his seductive waist,
His buckle might intend to hang, how chaste
His companions: if they drink, or stink
Of jockstraps, Jockeys, sweaty socks, or hold
Silk stockings with more reverence, or cold
Hands in handcuffs, or dead cats. (I think
What one discovers on a closet hook
Can tell you more than any tell-all book.)

*Zip* that leopard softly disappears
Around the tan line of Takaaki’s hips.
I know a guy who spent a thousand years
On hips, neglecting to Chapstick his lips:
His tongue disintegrated into dust
Before he could express his love. Or lust.
I trust the stupid use he made of Time
Will not be copied in your life. Or mine.
Now with three stanzas written on a waist,
A belt, belt loops, belt buckle, and no ass,
You might suppose your humble Author has
Lost you, Takaaki, and his mind. In case
That’s what you think, permit me now to state,
While you’ve been thinking, we’ve been on a date.


Part II


Around a core of elevators set
Twelve tall windows in a concrete sheet
As crumbly as the Parthenon; let
Your panorama start in Brooklyn, greet
The Empire State behind a candle (where
I sit swiveling in a leather chair),
While your eye continues traveling
Along gray glass, skyscrapers unraveling,
Until the pointy tip of the Chrysler Buil-
-ding gently lifts Lexington Avenue,
Piercing a silver nitrate mist. Now you
Must have this scintillating picture fill
The space before your eyes: that is New York.
Here, I transfix a carrot with a fork.

“Introibo ad altare,” I will say,
While blowing on my steaming vegetable,
Adding, “Totemo oishikatta ne,”
Hoping that I finally am able
To tell Takaaki I enjoy his curry
Without entangling my tongue in worry.
“It’s okay,” he shrugs, quietly deferring
My compliments—as usual preferring
A tilted head, a seated bow, the leaner
Show of manners honored in Japan,
Which can seem strange to an American
Inclined to linger too much over dinner,
Allowing food to cool and candles run.
Before I’d started, Takaaki was done—

Done, just like those little Japanese
Cartoons I used to watch in Buffalo.
Star Blazers was my favorite one of these.
Five days a week, at 3:30, or so,
On rusty orange carpet I would sit
Watching an Imperial Navy ship,
Resurrected and retooled for space,
Leave planet Earth to save the human race.
At 6:00pm, plate balanced on my knee,
I’d see Toyota windshields being battered
By men from Chevrolet, lives shattered
By something known as, “The Economy.”
One guy would wear this map t-shirt: above
Japan it read, “Two bombs were not enough.”

Now, the two malignant mushrooms which
Sprouted from the belly of that guy
Returned as two shitakes in my dish
Of curried chicken and vegetables. Why
Was that? From a Doraemon candy tin
Takaaki took a cigarette. A thin
Wisp of smoke and hiss rose from his plate,
Typical for your twenty-seventh date.
“What do you want to do,” I inquired,
“Go bowling? I’ll do anything you like:
Get drunk? Get naked?” [Silence.] “Steal a bike?”
“I swam forty laps tonight. I’m wired.”
He exhaled, emitting a little laugh,
“Shall we play Scrabble then and then have bath?”

“Have bath sounds good. But Scrabble, I will pass:
You always win, you creep. You clearly cheat,”
I said, “It’s obvious. You won the last
Nine times. And you’re not going to defeat
Me for time number ten tonight.” I put
My foot down firmly. There. Takaaki’s butt
He extinguished in the drop of sauce
Which recently had claimed his match. “You lost
Because you play without strategy:
There is no need for me to cheat,” he sighed,
As if I were an insect on his thigh
Too insignificant to crush. “You see,
You always want to find interesting word—
Not the word that wins.” My mouth conferred

A moment with a chunk of chicken dyed
Cadmium by cumin in the curry—
Before I swallowed. “I have always tried
To think of Scrabble with you as purely
Educational. It is my wish
To help you in enlarging your English
Vocabulary. And defeating you—
Too easily—as surely I must do—
Would only be embarrassing. I know
How sensitive to that Nihon-jin are:
Destruction on a Scrabble board would mar
Our beautiful relationship.” “Honto?
It sounds like Maru-chan’s afraid to play.”
“Maru-chan will kick your ass today.”

(Maru-chan, or Maru-maru, is
The new diminutive by which I’m known
In Japanese. I really don’t exist
In English anymore—except at home.
‘Maru’ works best as a marine suffix—
A no-win scenario from Altair Six—
The bane of all Starfleet cadets, but one—
Who counts the Kobayashi Maru among
His greatest triumphs. But Kirk’s victory
Pales before my own: I am the first
To work the Kobayashi into verse—
In a surprising twist of History.
The other meaning of ‘maru’ I found
Insulting: ‘maru’ also may mean ‘round.’)

Takaaki taps a second cigarette
On Dora-chan’s bountiful blue tin;
I go on eating, watching the sun set
Like some enormous, obvious omen.
A hush descends across the dinner table,
Until a tulip petal that’s incapable
Of hanging on lands on my placemat
With a soft thud. Five minutes pass like that—
So slowly that they feel more like twenty.
I trace foul faces in my curry sauce
While he establishes just who is boss.
Takaaki asks, “More?” “No, I’ve had plenty,
Thanks.” I roll the tulip petal from
The mat between forefinger and thumb

Contemplatively as Takaaki takes
Dishes to the kitchen. In florescent glass—
Bisected cleanly by the Empire State—
I watch Takaaki work—efficient as
A robot—feeding things to Tupperware
Containers, fridge, and freezer—aware
I should be helping to put things away.
I am lazy—what else can I say?
When I see him stationed at the sink
I swallow the pale dregs of my iced-tea,
Then saunter to the bathroom for a pee,
Leaving the door open while I tink-
Le, asking, “Hey, would you like me to help?
Or do you plan to do it all yourself?”

Before we get to Scrabble we must first
Prepare the space for battle. Clean dishes
Rest in a rack, while bubbles rise and burst
Around Takaaki as he calmly swishes
Cutlery though the hot suds. Each plate
I plan to dry I first inspect. I scrape
A shred of brown organic matter loose
From the light, lilac pattern. I peruse
Both back and front, then add it to the stack
Of china in the cabinet above—
Easing my stiletto in with love.
This underhanded method of attack
Earns my palm a pair of scalding forks
Falling from the sky with deadly force.

“Sweet Jesus! What’s got into you?”
I thunder to a non-existent jury,
“You stab me with steel forks out of the blue—
I promise to play Scrabble and—” And fury,
Rage crystallizing in Takaaki’s eye,
“I know when you’re mocking me.” I try
Not to reply—permit my mask to slip—
Given how I’ve destabilized his lip:
It quivers like red jello, in a mold,
Before the gelatin’s had time to set
Sufficiently. Our eyeballs briefly met
While calculating how long we could hold
Some dark profanity from bursting out.
He placed his boiled hands beneath the spout

Allowing the cold water now to run,
So his temper has a chance to cool.
He has a peculiar sense of fun.
Letters at sunset. If this is a duel,
I’ll tease my way into his wooden tiles—
Turn phrases, like these tiny lighted dials,
Listening for that peculiar ping
That tells me what’s inside my sonar ring
Is not a whale or school of silver fish
Darting down into the icy depths—
It is his anger, slowly sliding west,
Enveloped in the velvet dark. I wish
He hadn’t tried to lecture me before
About my Scrabble game. I abhor

Violence, like any veteran
Who knows what horrors in the heart may lurk.
But I’m American, and human, and,
Against a submarine, depth-charges work
Well—like words—if you deploy them right.
But using double-meanings in a fight
Is strictly limited by the extent
Of your vocabulary. The intelligent
Combatant will grade every syllable
Poetically, according to its power—
Testing terrors, safely, in the shower,
Walking, waking, working—if you’re able—
When stepping from his skivvies to make love.
I draw the line at that. Enough’s enough.

Wanted, wanted Dolores Haze...

Who is the juvenile delinquent pictured on the right? I found this mugshot in a box of old photographs disinterred during my recent move from Connecticut to Jackson Heights.

Clearly a tough customer, as you can tell from the bald head, the bully-boy bill and the surgical stitching surrounding the circumference of her neck. It must have been quite a fracas that left her in the hands of the police. It looks as if someone tried to pull her head off--and nearly succeeded. How this act of violence might have affected her judgment, her subsequent views of Art or Life, we can only, with difficulty, speculate.

Still, there is something about that stitching--a homespun, homemade, almost child-like quality--which indicates to one disinterested observer, at least, that perhaps this odd little bird was not entirely a stranger to tenderness--to what, in a more civilized Age, we might have called 'Humanity.'

I understand her whereabouts are presently unknown. Luckily we are not concerned with her existence as a duck, but as a work of Art. I think that perhaps what is most striking about this over-exposed photograph is how debased in our dictionaries--how soiled with use--that word--Humanity--has become.

Dolly
Or, The Twins


The mouth reminds me of a platypus—
A duck—the last of the wild red mallards. Sure,
She might be stuffed like any one of us,
But could you survive a suit of raw velour?

Her origins are wrapped in mystery.
The tag stitched to this stump still reads, “Korea.”
One wonders—North or South? The DMZ?
Dolly does not discuss her past. I fear,

Nothing—noise—not even naphthalene—
Has prevented moths nibbling holes in her back.
(Moths, which I should add, I’ve never seen—
Except as powder, palpable as ash.)

A photo of the two of us exists
Somewhere. I look much smaller. She’s the one
Appearing to examine the goldfish
Swimming around their cool, ceramic sun.

These are the Dog Days

"Under Sirius," by W.H. Auden, is my favorite hot weather poem. I offer it today in honor of the hot weather which has finally arrived in New York.

Having grown up in the arctic suburbs of Buffalo, I welcome the idea of global warming with glee. I pray nightly for palm trees in East Aurora. I long for the day when Caribbean style cabanas (complete with boys) are erected on the shores of Lake on Ontario.

Of course, this will never happen, since anthropogenic global warming, as it is now advertised, is less an established scientific fact than a politically useful tool for keeping ignorance cool. That Man might not have entire dominion over Nature is a revolutionary notion contrary to many scriptures. And nobody needs visions of an impending apocalypse quite like a Medieval ruling class that has run out of ideas for keeping people in line. What could be worse (from their positively priestly point-of-view) than a resurgence of reason forcing us to have another Renaissance? One Leonardo was clearly quite enough.

Personally, I think small variations in solar radiation--the solar magnetic field--affect our environment far more than farting cows or an excess of cars. Walk outside on any sunny day and you can feel on your face the warmth, the enormous power of that bright ball of hydrogen 93,000,000,000 miles away. Stand next to a cow, or Al Gore, or a hippie and what do your senses detect: another kind of gas. One not nearly so pleasant, thin and odorless as hydrogen either.

But then, like Erasmus, my nose is particularly sensitive to emissions of nonsense. I am also an amateur astronomer and biased toward a Heliocentric view of the Heavens. You might also say I am a child of Copernicus, not Ptolemy. In this respect, I am a sun worshiper, a happy renegade, a scientific heretic. And, in my estimation, there is nothing like a little heresy to help your tan along in August. And a little Auden.


Under Sirius
W. H. Auden


Yes, these are the dog days, Fortunatus:
The heather lies limp and dead
On the mountain, the baltering torrent
Shrunk to a soodling thread;
Rusty the spears of the legion, unshaven its captain,
Vacant the scholar’s brain
Under his great hat,
Drug though She may, the Sybil utters
A gush of table-chat.

And you yourself with a head-cold and upset stomach,
Lying in bed till noon,
Your bills unpaid, your much advertised
Epic not yet begun,
Are a sufferer too. All day, you tell us, you wish
Some earthquake would astonish,
Or the wind of the Comforter’s wing
Unlock the prisons and translate
The slipshod gathering.

And last night, you say, you dreamed of that bright blue morning,
The hawthorn hedges in bloom,
When, serene in their ivory vessels,
The three wise Maries come,
Sossing through seamless waters, piloted in
By sea-horse and fluent dolphin:
Ah! how the cannons roar,
How jocular the bells as They
Indulge the peccant shore.

It is natural to hope and pious, of course, to believe
That all in the end shall be well,
But first of all, remember,
So the Sacred Books foretell,
The rotten fruit shall be shaken. Would your hope make sense
If today were that moment of silence,
Before it break and drown,
When the insurrected eagre hangs
Over the sleeping town?

How will you look and what will you do when the basalt
Tombs of the sorcerers shatter
And their guardian megalopods
Come after you pitter-patter?
How will you answer when from their qualming spring
The immortal nymphs fly shrieking,
And out of the open sky
The pantocratic riddle breaks -
‘Who are you and why?’

For when in a carol under the apple-trees
The reborn featly dance,
There will also, Fortunatus,
Be those who refused their chance,
Now pottering shades, querulous beside the salt-pits,
And mawkish in their wits,
To whom these dull dog-days
Between event seemed crowned with olive
And golden with self-praise.

August 11, 2009 Aetat. 40

Readers of this blog will encounter ghoulish, grinning gaps: gaps in writing, gaps in knowledge, gaps in artistry, gaps in grammer [sic], gaps in Time. At wheniwasoneandtwenty.blogspot.com, the care and well-being--dare I say enjoyment?--of the Reader remains our top priority today just as it has been since Day 1 [A.U.C.]. Despite the gaps.


The trouble is, I get distracted. I wander off into ravines. Into reveries. Sometimes I secretly go fishing for ideas in calm, cool underground lagoons. I will roll up my khakis, dip my feet in the crystalline water, wiggling my toes, listening to the low hiss of my Coleman lantern. This is what I do for inspiriation, not for fish. For fish, I go to the Grand Central Market, where they have discount salmon on Wednesday. Yea, though the brain of a poet is a convoluted place, we are not all madmen. Or admen. By and large, I think, we are simply sadmen, obsessed with arranging ripples.

You know, he says, surveying his icy, air-conditioned cavern, Plato was wrong about the shadows cast upon cave walls: the luminous ideas behind the shadows we see are not idealized forms, but simply stand-ins for other things, bright things Plato had trouble defining in proper, philosophical Greek. Fortunately, we are working in English and we enjoy a much larger, more scientific vocabulary than Plato. We call these glowy things: torches. Candles. Lanterns. Flashlights. Halogen lamps. Photon emitters. Stars. In a fit of poetic whimsy, we might label them Makers of Light. We distinguish these sources of light from words because words belong to a different class of objects. Words are ripples of thought written in the air. And one does not lightly assume responsiblity for the air--for an entire language--especially one as universally susceptible to misunderstanding as plain English. So, let me be pefectly clear here, unlike a politician.

If I were writing in Mandarin, say, no one would care what I said, outside of China, and perhaps a few concerned college professors. And even then, if anyone did notice me, or one of my poems, or blogposts, my slip-ups, elisions, or allusions, you would probably never hear about it. Our journalists certainly wouldn't report it. Most were educated in the arts of ignorance and deception by those same concerned college professors I noted above. I would simply be whisked away silently, at midnight, like one of those poor people from Falun Gong, thinkers of unsanctioned thoughts. I would wind up in some Hell of a State Hospital having my liver rudely extracted by a bureaucrat for the benefit of some dipsomaniacal lighting designer shopping for organs on eBay in Cologne.

But everybody cares about what you say in English these days, so one must be extra careful not to hurt anybody's feelings. I know of people who have built impressive careers on nothing more than feelings, mouthing carefully constructed--largely meaningless, but infinitely malleable--phrases. And nothing else. Thus, the Obama phenomenon.

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar.

Perhaps this is why I have been quietly re-reading James Boswell's book The Life of Johnson. Samuel Johnson was a subversive in the truest sense: a man of reason, an Englishman, not a politician. He was most famous as a lexicographer, but he was also a poet of great skill. He defined the limits of words in both careers. He even tinkered a bit in philosophy. He famously kicked a stone to refute the idea that everything in the universe is merely a mental construction:

"After we came out of the church, we [Johnson and Boswell] stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it -- "I refute it thus.""

Dr. Johnson defended his definitions. He was a scholar. He was also pompous, yes, as many scholars are. He was untidy, certainly. And besides his aggressive intelligence, he also had a corpulent wife who was twice his age. The widow of a mercer. And he loved her very deeply. In his defense, I think this must count for something.

One of his best friends was a shady versificator named Savage. Together the young Dr. Johnson & Mr. Savage would wander the backstreets of London. I suppose, if London had cool caves instead of cathouses to investigate, they might have visited a few of those, too. Just to see if the fish were jumping. And how high. Sort of like I do on some summer nights...

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Johnson's Life.

"In estimating the progress of his mind during these two years, as well as in future periods of his life, we must not regard his own hasty confession of idleness; for we see, when he explains himself, that he was acquiring various stores; and, indeed he himself concluded the account, with saying, "I would not have you think I was doing nothing then." He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; but it may be doubted, whether such a mind as his was not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of literature, than if it had been confined to any single spot. The analogy between body and mind is very general, and the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are cooped up. May there not be the same difference between men who read as their taste prompts, and men who are confined in cells and colleges to stated tasks?"

Dust

Moving is a bit like bombing an archeological site. You never quite know what will be tossed up into the air by the explosion or where it will land. This is why I always try to wear a tin hat when I am packing--to protect myself from the stones and bones and falling potsherds.

The following relic is a recently disinterred sonnet I wrote several years ago. I am not sure it really requires very much explanation. I transcribe it here today mainly because I have a friend who also works with birds...


Dusting


I still could live without the pewter owls,
Glass swans, or creepy cardinals in wax;
Although my crayons loved the orioles
Made in Occupied Japan. Our knick-knacks

Also included bottles. These troubled me.
They filtered light like prisms, but had no use
I could see. Corked, and clearly empty,
They never held Chanel or real chartreuse.

All they held was housework Saturday--
Dust--and lots of drama: ripping sheets
And underwear, like onion-skins, gray
T-shirts flecked with motor oil, or grease.

All of this rage spilled from one pillowcase,
With a worn complexion, like my mother's face.