Poetry

I meet the dead poet for our rendezvous, as planned.
He looks good, even if dead,
and wants very much to know
how things are going.

I began by describing his memorial service,
Trying to tell him who was there
Though I knew far less than half of them,
To describe the poems that were read,
alhough I didn’t understand any of them,
Except for one of his poems,
Read by the woman who led the labyrinth walk,
The woman with the seven-year-old boy
Permanently attached to her side
The boy I played chess with
While others ate and schmoozed.
I’m not very good at chess.
The boy was worse.
I made sure all games ended in a draw.

The best poem was the poet’s own poem,
Read by the woman from the spiritual center
About a time when the poet and his very Jewish father
Went to the local Catholic Church,
Something shocking all in itself,
To help the priest untangle and string the Christmas lights.
I don’t recall the specifics of the poem
But it was very dead poet-like
And involved allusions to light
And color
And Prometheus,
who stole fire from the gods
and gave it to humanity.
It was a lovely poem.
I even called it brilliant
Which, of course, the poet liked.

Afterwards, we found ourselves sitting at a table
In a Serbian café drinking kava,
Charming the young waitresses,
And drawing the attention of other patrons
Who were amazed that foreigners were among them
And wouldn’t believe the poet when he told them
He was dead
Although they promptly brought him
A tray of peeled garlic cloves
And conveyed numerous facts
About the garlic’s healing properties
And how easy they were to propagate,
Which inspired the dead poet
To put one of the cloves in his pocket
For planting when he got home.

We were next in a hotel lobby
Where a poetess was giving a reading
That was impossible to hear
Over the din of the crowd.
So the poet moved as close to her as he could
While I went off to find a new pen
With which to write the amazing poem
I knew was within me
About my encounter with a dead poet,
who I knew well.

You cannot imagine
How hard it is to find a good pen
With just the right sharpness
To create a good poem
No matter how many stores you visit.

I say flautist
And she says flutist
She says well dressed
And I say nudist
Flautist
Or flutist
Well dressed
Or nudist
She’ll take her clothes off you’ll see

She likes the high notes
And I say play low
She wants more rhythm
And I want more show
High notes
Or low notes
Rhythmic
Or slow
She’ll take her clothes I know

She likes being well draped
And I like her bare
She is socially nervous
And I couldn’t care
Well draped
Or bare skinned
Socially nervous
Or free
She’ll take her clothes off you’ll see

She lives in a small town
Her needs are quite few

She was perfectly happy
Until she met you
Small town
Or needy
Self conscious
Or free
She’ll take her clothes off you’ll see

I say it’s Paris
And she says Pari
She says, it’s no go
And I say we’ll see
Paris or Pari
Le no go
Or oui
She’ll take her clothes off for me

She plays the classics
And then plays the blues
She is red headed
And there go her shoes
Classics
Or blue notes
Red headed
Or gray
She takes her clothes off … hooray.

blood, blood, irrational blood flowing through my gates
down my thighs useless and hysterical.

what shall we do with this blood

are we in control or are the fates?
here, i shall paint your face with my blood,
draw blessed archaic symbols
on the walls of your arms and legs
remind us of the hunt, the sustenance we need.

i call upon you to taste me
as we smooth the way
for your
dna  

to come inside me
when the blood is flowing

and it is safe to welcome these eager explorers,
this advance party of terrestrial observers
who shall all die in their service to the queen.  


yes, i shall conspire with you
to send forth another party of your henchmen

your visionaries
inside the road to the sacred city
I shall welcome them passed these holy gates
to meet my ancestors and my future 

to become the entire history of our species
to merge, to reemerge
potential bearing potential being potential
and for some while,

for the first time in a quarter of a century,

all this blood shall cease.

On a humid, dark, cloudy summer night,
Temperature still in the high seventies,
Streetlights not working,
I step out the door as a huge fluttering bug
Flies smack into my lips.
I do not see it.
I know it is not a moth or mosquito,
More a furry flying beetle of some sort.
And just as I do not see it, I do not hear it.
Rather I feel its flutter and the soft thud
As it crashes straight into the very center of my closed mouth,
Smack in the middle of my pressed lips.
I blow and brush it away quickly,
Feeling its dimensions only slightly.
I respond in surprise and shock,
But without fear or disgust.
I know at once that I have been sweetly touched
Not assaulted or attacked.
And though my rational mind recognizes it as probability expressed,
A happenstance of fate
A random intersection of invertebrate and human,
I am aware instantly of having been kissed by a beautiful stranger,
A princess living in the body of a bug,
The light but explicit tap tap tap of god’s finger
Calling forth my attention.

“Hey you,” the bug commands with her furry kiss,
“Wake up, we’re in this together, man.
Live life fully aware
And appreciative of me,
Fly around in the muggy dark night
Kissing strangers with me,
Let’s be in each other’s company as much as we can bear.”

Later I stand inside the rushing waters
Of a mountain stream
Spray frosting my face
Pulled along by a frightening, exciting, inexorable flow to the sea.
I am the water.
I kiss your lips.

The most unattractive woman I ever made love with –
I know you think that unkind –
had a seizure disorder and took dilantin,
but had a wonderful mind.
Her teeth were rotted,
she was short and quite plump,
had stubbly hairs on her face,
wore glasses, even in bed …
and bloomers.
 
Her hair was a mess,
her knees were knobby,
when she opened her mouth
saliva stuck to her upper and lower palate.

She was an English teacher
in love with poetry,
romanticism,
Bharati Mukherjee
and Alan Ginsburg
 
She even looked like Alan Ginsburg,
laughed like him,
turned in onto herself,
aware of who she was,
and how she appeared,
and the fact that she had you in bed
and was going to enjoy it.
 
She had slept with my best friend Henry,
who I also adored.
She even loved him,
as did I.
He was so handsome
so beat,
and just the right mixture of
longshoreman and literary intellectual.
I was clearly her second choice,
as well it should be.
 
Her mind was brilliant
Her hands were a mess
Her clothes were a mess
She was brutally honest
Lovely in her way
Especially naked.
 
Her courage was more daunting than Henry’s
who is still in hiding,
her thighs softer,
she made nicer noises,
and never belched
or maybe she did.
 
I don’t remember everyone I ever slept with,
but here’s to a beautiful woman I do remember,
her name, in truth, was Linda.

1.
I have earned and care for a small plot of land
A small cottage
A dog
Sometimes a woman
My son.

2.
My daughter has found a good man
She has love, wisdom, and a daughter of her own
If they keep loving one another
They will be lucky
That’s what the owl in my yard says

3.
In the yard are Tibetan prayer flags.
Brought and hung by my sister. 
When the breeze blows in off the bay
The things I’ve wished for come to me
The smell of the salted air
Birds at the bird feeders
A sense I belong
That I do not consume more than my share
Some seaweed, some flax seed
Though I give back so little –
Juice for the hummingbirds
A house for bats
My flesh to feed the worms and earth
in a pauper’s grave
by a sacred lake

4.
When the breeze goes out 
it takes my hopes and wishes with it
they ride over the Tibetan prayer flags
and are made holy
My wish for peace
for relevance
for the happiness and well being of others.
my compassion washes over the banners
carrying words I do not understand

5.
These words reach the bay
where small fishes
are being chased by bigger fishes
chased by men 
in boats with two hundred horse power engines
towed to the beach in three hundred horse power cars
to catch one poor fish
to remind them of the hunt
the cycle
the natural order 
of the big eating the small
forgetting the grace of small nets

6.
And beyond the bay 
Are the wars I finance
Fueled with jealousy, envy, hunger,
The wish for relevance,
An inherent primate consciousness,
And a sense of mission,
A desire to be of use,
to turn oxygen into carbon dioxide
so that plants too may live 
shivering in the majesty 
of immense rolls of summer thunder
stretching out to remind us
of our tasks
and our roots
in the heavens.

© BRTaub – 8/8

She asks
How is it possible
She has loved one hundred men
And at their impaired age
This is the best love making she’s known.
He says it’s an illusion.

She asks 
Can he make her taller
With blue eyes
And unwrinkled skin
And can he really unearth the dead
But what she is really asking
Is that he hold her
And promise to never let go

She says
You are so solid
And means the flesh she draws near
And the man inside the flesh 
With his flaws and foibles
And a willingness to be weak 
Standing in his power and strength.

Then she says his name
Speaks it into the ether
In ways he’s never heard it spoken
Radiating out into the universe
Before she herself goes out
Radiating who knows where
Although before getting far
She taps on the glass
Peering in through the window
And again mouths his name.

©brucetaub – 02/08