Another Week of Poems

Every Thought Is A Prayer

Week 6: Roman Sans Clef

No more than a short-month twelfth of my poems are hopelessly romantic, but this is the month to share them, and this week, without a key, reflects the beginning of the journey.

02/05: North Side Story
02/06: Paris & Valentino
02/07: They, Bearing Roses
02/08: Love, Revisited
02/09: Carpodacus
02/10: Warming Up
02/11: Moleskin 1.6: That Prayer Continues...

02/05:

North Side Story

Compare: the rich fools and the poor losers,
happiness and misery, as if the surface was their story
through and through, as if the smiles upon their faces
ran as deep as the scowl on yours.

And more: you dream big dreams constructed of envy,
green as grass, born in shadows,
from which the mansions in your mind stretch higher,
around which the bitter grass grows greener.
 
Despair: it is not fair, the way they never finished high
school, how they cheated everyone to get ahead, leaving you
looking through fences, cursing the gods of sides,
of giving and taking.

But what for? Your misery wins you nothing,
your curses even less, the vacuous disapproval
of your neighbors shaking their heads, tut-tutting
and casting down their eyes on your poverty.

(2001)


02/06:

Paris & Valentino

I’ll never trade you in for Paris, Baby
And you will never have the man
Who makes his million Euros
At a Metro sandwich stand
With a fifth grade education,
But I yam what I yam
And you will always be
     the one for me.

We once walked along the river;
I still hold on to the dream
Of lovers on a starry night
Before the stars became
So complicated.  Anyway,
I yam what I yam, etc….

Stand me next to Valentino, Baby,
I will never have the tan
Or the money or the fame
But I’ll keep doing what I can
To make you happy….

(2001)


02/07:

They, Bearing Roses

Rose: the loveless petals always fall
away like pages of a good book cheaply bound:
no matter how great the story,
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but the bud—
no matter what the story has to say
the crumbling glue of time ever puts the good book down
one spent page after another, until
nothing remains but a pile of petals
and the memory of a story.  But one day
we will know the plot of each good book by heart.

(1990)


02/08:

Love, Revisited

In the beginning they (happy lovers) decided they (in love) would never fight.  Even romance knows the tinge of reality, though, and soon they (beautiful partnership) revised their love-based rule: they (the perfective pair) would still not allow fighting, but they (in each other’s arms) would be permitted to disagree —in prim fashion, of course: it was decided they (beyond the puppy stages) would be mature about their —dreams —differences and would discuss things rationally, always moving eagerly toward the beautiful ends of kissing, caressing, making up and making it better than before.

They were in love.  And they (a serious couple) eventually decided to be married.  The date was set for seven months in advance.

And they (reality-based) continued to disagree, here and there, but there was always a make-up, and they (pioneers of their own realm) continued to climb.  The way grew steeper, though: “here and there” became “here, here and here and there and there.”  They (trying their hardest) decided to re-revise the rules.

“We’re fighting,” he said.

“Yes, we are, aren’t we?” she agreed.

“But it doesn’t mean we’re in trouble, does it?”

“No,” she said, “but we’d better be careful.”

And they (a team) devised a clever set of brand new rules —of which they (man and woman, woman and man) would each try to claim exclusive credit —nevertheless, the rules seemed to be practicable and rational; they (the affianced pair) agreed that this would be a great foundation for their marriage.

The rules were as such: Whenever one or the other of them would disagree about something, they (together) would go into the kitchen; they (she and he) would clear the kitchen table and sit down facing each other with the table —across its shortest dimension —between them.  They (the two sides) would keep all four hands on the table where they (the hands) could be seen by all four eyes.  This table would be bare, except for one initial addition, the centerpiece of their list of rules, and a literal centerpiece, too: an arrangement of roses, over which they (the one-to-one) would have to carry out all their marital discussions and disagreements and fights.  The table was of a size that neither party was far from the other and both of their faces were practically forced to endure the flowers’ scents.

“We will not change this rule,” she exclaimed.

“No, we must not,” he agreed, and together they (the happy lovers) smiled.

And eventually they (living dreamers) were married.  The honeymoon came and went, and they (steadfast partners) remained in love.  Over the years dimensions were revised and definitions changed, but basically they (adherers to a promise) stuck surprisingly close to their rules of the kitchen table.  And long after the honeymoon, they (the desperate diplomats) were buying each other roses two or three times every week.

He sometimes thought that he couldn’t stand the smell any longer, and she sometimes wondered if it made any sense to pay good money for something that died after a few days, but the roses were continually replenished, and they (the hopeless lovers) remained in love.  (1990)


02/09:

Carpodacus

The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter —and the Bird is on the Wing.
  — Omar Khayyam, tr. Edward Fitzgerald

Sometimes when winds of winter seem to linger
And providence forgets to fill the feeder
I feel the fundamental pangs of hunger
Making me curse the backyard life we lead here.
Our everyday to day existence hinges
On seeds and crumbs that others think to leave us;
I’m tired of living life out on the fringes
And waiting for the seasons to relieve us.
Yet daily I am saved from being bitter
By rays of sunshine breaking through the dinge:
I hear the sweetest music in your twitter
And see the rosy beauty of your tinge.
With you beside me, winter doesn’t matter
And I don't need the fates to make me fatter.

(2005)


02/10:

Warming Up

I don’t know when our world began
to melt away
                     but suddenly
we’re closer to each other than

we’ve ever been before.

                                      I see
each day a little
                         differently,
a little clearer
                      knowing that

I’m here with you;
                             I want to see
tomorrow even more.
                                  It matters
to me now.  It matters that

you’re here with me,
                                 that we can feel
the fire of the same sun setting

on a distant shore,
                             that we’ll

have this,
               as days turn into years,
to share,
             as distance disappears.

(2009)


02/11:

Moleskin 1.6: The Prayer Continues...

That prayer continues, seeking courage and wisdom, but these too I'll save for the later chapters: perhaps I'll be bolder and smarter with experience and age, somewhere down the river a ways, past 50, 60, 70...  for now, though, it is enough to accept the things I cannot change, to let my fears be taken by the quiet current ---to simply be! Existing, persisting, maintaining, remaining: keeping my place in time, or the space, in any case, that I've been given for the moment. Here I stand. And if, for the moment, I let intellect distract me, to exist somewhere between Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, surely I would falter; likewise, if I let my blood boil within me, like a fanatic or a patriot, I might lose my place, this moment in which I find myself. It is not too deep to pray this prayer though, a singular pray in need of being prayed: Grant me, God, serenity.  (2015)