A Wistful Villanelle

A Wistful Villanelle

I don’t remember what it was that wish
Standing below the stairs at Grand Central
Still I can see that star like yesterday

The sky is green in Grand Central Station
Green as the green room where life awaited
I don’t remember what it was that wish

Home from college on vacation that week
Come in to NYC to see a show
Still I can see that star like yesterday

Going to stand in line at the TKTS booth
Imagined it was I upon that stage
I don’t remember what it was that wish

Standing below the stairs at Grand Central
My eyes rose selecting that one star light
Still I can see that star like yesterday

I laid a young man’s wish upon that star
I have to think I doubt that it came true
I don’t remember what it was that wish
Still I can see that star like yesterday

The Poem about a Chair

The Poem about a Chair


Walking home from the thrift shop
I balanced a chair on my head
With one arm, holding, like an African woman

Walking by the the school playground
A young girl yelled out;
“Hey, you look like an idiot!”

Walking in when I got home I
Put the chair on the floor and sat down

Now who’s an idiot ?!

Thirteen Days

Thirteen Days

We will wait,
Until - she no longer mentions when arising in the morning
  “Oh, I was going to ask you where he is…”
Until - I can go down to the basement or out the kitchen door without thinking
  “Oh, check the door, or he might get out or come down,”
Until - I can lay on the floor before the Tv, my right hand not anticipating
  A warm presence, and the soft fur of a tummy to scratch,
Until - I can walk past the grocery store petfood isle without thinking
  “Which brand did he eat, or not eat, last week?” passing by…
Until - it is no longer odd not to feel a cold space beside my feet under covers,
  Were no one warm to fills the center lower half of our bed,
Until - I no longer need to clean our Roomba of its daily bushel of cat fur,
  Collected on its once a morning pounce about the living room carpet,
Until - I stop pausing to switch on a light and look before I walk down the hall to the
  bathroom, ‘cause there’s nothing like cold poops in barefeet first thing getting up,
Until - I walk by the creamer and half and half,
  Without thinking of calling the latter ‘our cat’s milk,’
Until - I stop pondering why ancient Egytians shaved their eyebrows
  When the family cat died, and its plausible relation to fleas,
Until - , at least,
  Say thirteen days? or
Until - , … sigh, nevermind,
  Let’s go adopt a cat!   

Toys at Ease

Toys at Ease

Aligned at the edge of our coffee table
Called to muster to make way for my vacuuming
The soft toys stand at attention
          You see

To clean the carpet isn’t my attempt
Too exterpate him from our house, our lives,
Or to wake the sadness of his lost ninth life
          No, please

The cat toys stand alert for a new command
Stuffed with cotton, batting, herbs of scented nip,
Eyes of glass unable to shed with the tears
          We release

Knowing soon they’ll parade with a new needy cat, who
Need not take scent of our former Tom in fear,
Around the corner, in the carpet, or a drawer,
           Toys; at ease

Ladybird

Ladybird

Two o’clock a Robin is scolding,
Ten o’clock another chatters in defense,
Like a bomber pilot I mark
  The scattershot birds by their hours,
Reference points level on the dial

Keeping the watch, standing the guard,
Making the work of marauders too hard,
They are the sentries, the males, as behind each one
  Quiet as the breeze is still
Sits a hen, low in her thatched-mud cup

As does she, our Ladybird, in the arborvitae,
Black pool eyes all sides of day,
Eastertide come gone away,
  As you roost your treasures cerulean blue,
May I tell you what we will do?

We’ll remain still, dear Ladybird,
It’s just the snaking wind you heard

The Mow Be Gone

The Mow Be Gone

Upon the lawn of Robin Hood green
Appear the dusky Mow-Be-Gone,

They whose planting by unknown hands
Is rarely contemplated, if even conceived

The push mower runs loud on the ears
Its blade unsharpened many years

As each swath of the mowers path
Scythes as cruelly as the last

Claiming the mauve-gay Mow-Be-Gone,
 ‘til none remain save in this song

Narcissus with Wings

Narcissus with Wings

When you meet a swan
  There are always two,
One upon the water, formal,
  The other below, reflected as normal,
Both with their wings arched high, or below,
  Each as Heaven or Neptune’s feather clouds,
Each bird thinking themselves the more noble,
  Dismissive at the sight of their double

These two, though together,
  Disregard each other,
Dipping through the waterline neck to neck,
  Seem to swallow the other’s head
Deep down into their crop,
  There to waive at us while diving
Both tails, up and down,
  One big bird of two head-butts

Conjoined about the plimsoll
  They swim with unseen feet,
Proclaim themselves the masters over geese
  And process as the most adamant of crumb thieves,
Appointing themselves both cheater, referee, and warden,
  Yet to whom we toady bread tossers fear to harden,
For, while unsound (they never speak),
  No mute swan met was ever meek