Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Sack of Rome















Deep sienna pillars

marbled, mottled, polished smooth

uphold a vault of translucent green jade

Aisles dappled with green gold,

vault so high the moon glides between the eaves

on his way to morning


But,

like so many temples,

built on the blackened foundations

of a shrine more ancient still

Idols of the old religion ground down,

mortar and pestle,

and mixed into the glaze of a newly-fired pot


Here and there,

in places,

the architect declined

to clear away the detritus of iconoclasm—

mismatched cornices of ancient colonnades

incorporated into the overall edifice


The bases don’t quite fit,

Running mortar applied much too liberally,

setting in tendrils trailing

to the floor


But seeming haphazardness

belies a blueprint more meticulous.


August 2010

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

A Planxty














Above the shifting tendrils of white noise

that fill the valley like wisps of mist

that linger of an autumn morning,

there is a place

where terraces of granite and of concrete run back

in jumbled, geometric patterns

into the wooded defile


There, where the stone steps become

lost amongst the trees,

set apart from his compatriots

a stone stands newly-fashioned,

emblazoned with the interwoven insignia

of the people from across the sea,

my own people


And below, two names.

His breathes still, open-ended

like a poem unfinished

Hers does not, book closed by a

hyphen between two dates


Two chocolate Labradors pelt,

pell-mell,

through the gaps between the trees in a forest of firs

The first passes through without remark

and streaks forward,

tongue wagging,

tail wagging too

A moment elapses

before the first dog recognizes his companion

has not followed

He turns and gazes into the foliage

in the sad-eyed confusion

of which only a dog is capable


The look in those liquid brown eyes

is the sound his heart makes

knowing that his hand must conjoin those two dates

because hers cannot.


August 2010

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Laundry Line



















Once there was on old woman who lived in a little village in the mountains. She was not wealthy, but neither was she entirely destitute. Her most cherished possession was the wedding tunic of her husband, who had passed away some years previously. He had come originally from Lebanon,and his wedding tunic was an inheritance from his grandfather. It was of the finest green silk that had found its way to Lebanon along the Silk Road, embroidered in gold thread and red rubies that flashed in the sun. Amongst her humble possessions, it was easily the most valuable, and certainly the one she treasured most of all.

Now, her husband being dead, the old woman had little enough reason to bring the tunic out, except sometimes to look at it and think back to younger, and in many ways happier, days. But it just so happened that her youngest son had recently taken a bride, and she had insisted that he wear his father's wedding garment for the ceremony. This he did, and after the wedding he returned it to his mother, who had tears in her eyes - for her son was the very image ofhis father.

When she returned to her village, straightaway the old woman went out into her garden to clean the garment in the old wooden washtub that sat in the shade beside her cottage. She washed it with the utmost care, and when she had finished, hung it out to dry on the line she had strung between her gutter and the sycamore that grew facing the lane that passed by. Then she went inside to take her afternoon nap.

Traffic in the lane was never congested, and this afternoon only three people passed by the old woman's house. The first,a young man with dark hair, saw the green silk flashing like the leaves of the sycamore as he passed by, and he felt a sudden desire to have that lovely tunic for himself. Scanning the lane, he saw that no one was about – the old woman was sleeping, and the street was deserted. If he wanted, all he had to do was lean over the garden wall, and there would be no witnesses...

All of a sudden he caught himself."No," he said to himself, "that would be wicked of me. I don't know who lives here, but if it were me, I certainly wouldn't want anybody to steal from me. I should only do to others as I would have them do tome, as the Bible says." And he went on her way, smiling that he had overcome temptation.

Next came another young man, this one with fair hair. He saw the gold embroidery, shining like so many gold coins,and felt a sudden desire to have that lovely tunic for himself. Scanning the lane, he saw that no one was about – the old woman was still asleep, and the dark-haired young man had already turned out of the street. If he wanted, all he had to do was lean over the garden wall, and there would be no witnesses...

All of a sudden he caught himself. "No," he said to himself, "nobody would leave such a valuable object hanging there unattended. There must be some sort of trick; the owner is probably watching from the windows, to call the police the minute I take it off the line." And he went on his way, wiping his brow that he had escaped from the trap.

Finally there came a young woman carrying her own laundry. She saw the red gems, flashing like fire in the sun, but she felt no desire to have the tunic for herself, it being a man's garment. She scanned the lane and saw that no one was about – the old woman was still asleep, and the light-haired young man had already turned out of the street. Then she put her hands on her hips in indignant surprise.

"Doesn't the owner of this tunic know that just anyone could come along and steal it?" she said to herself. "This is a wicked world, full of wicked people. One shouldn't be so careless! Whoever's tunic this is, I think I'll teach him a lesson in caution..."And with that she leaned over the garden wall, removed the tunic from the line, and wrapped it surreptitiously in her own laundry. "I will return it in a few days, after the owner has had time to reflect on his foolishness." and went on her way.

The young woman had no sooner returned to her own cottage and set her washing down on the table that than she heard a knock on the door. Answering it, she found herself face-to-face with the old woman.

"Can I help you, grandmother?" the young woman asked.

"I believe you have taken something that belongs to me," her elderly counterpart said. Her voice was firm, but not angry.

Caught in the act, the young woman replied in a level voice, "I don't know what you could be talking about, grandmother." But she threw a nervous glance toward the pile of clothes on the table. Following her gaze, the old woman (who was not, of course, actually the girl's grandmother, but who she called that on account of respect for her age) did not wait for another word, but strode into the cottage and retrieved her husband's tunic from its hiding place.

"That belongs to you?" the girl asked in surprise, for it was after all a man's garment.

"It belonged to my husband," the widow answered matter-of-factly. "And you stole it from me."

The youth blushed at her neighbor's use of the past tense "belonged". "Alright, maybe I did," she said defensively, "but it was only to teach you a lesson! I was going to return it in a couple of days. You shouldn't leave valuable things like that sitting out where just anybody could up and walk away with them! This is a wicked world, full of wicked people – you, of all people, should know that by now!"

The old woman did not answer immediately, but fixed the girl with a penetrating glance. When she spoke, her voice was once again forceful, but without anger. "Perhaps," she said coolly, "if people were less concerned about teaching other people lessons and more concerned with doing the right thing, there would be less wickedness in the world." And with that she took her husband's tunic and exited the cottage without another word, leaving the young woman standing puzzled and ashamed in her wake.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

The Chinese Model

In a recent speech to Young Americans for Freedom, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich asked rhetorically, "Do you want to create jobs as rapidly as China? The Chinese pay zero capital gains tax. If we had zero capital gains tax in the United States, we'd be building factories, founding companies, creating jobs, we'd be dramatically better off."

I believe we should emulate the Chinese model more extensively: let's have millions of Americans work in sweatshop conditions, pay them wages far below the poverty line, refuse to allow them to unionize, pack them into dormitories that make the Projects look like the Upper East Side, and cause anybody who objects, quietly to "disappear." After all, when you're earning 30 cents an hour, you won't have many capital gains to report anyway, so you might as well get rid of the tax.

There are two kinds of music: good music and bad music. And then there's Death Cab for Cutie...

Good art, it is said, elicits a powerful response from the observer. However, the converse need not necessarily be true: that something which elicits a powerful response qualifies as good art. After all, my response to rap music is quite powerful - powerfully negative. I can tolerate it in small doses, but tolerate is all the ground I'm willing to cede on the subject; I would never call it "good art". I'm not one of those who holds that rap isn't art at all - it is, in its way. I don't like it, but I am forced to admit that, at the most basic level, it is as valid as is the music to which I listen. I'm sure a hip-hop aficionado would find the Divine Comedy (to name a band of which I am especially fond at the moment) as objectionable as I find rap.


But at least I can pinpoint, with a tolerable degree of accuracy, what it is I don’t like about rap. And I can guess, again with a tolerable degree of accuracy, what fans find so attractive about it. I don’t agree, but at least I get it. And I get why they don't like the music I like.


What really irritates me is boring music. Watching them perform on a rerun of the Daily Show this evening, the example that leaps to mind is the Arcade Fire. Here is a band that is not in any particular way obnoxious. On the hand, they're not in any particular way memorable either. I wouldn't necessarily object to listening to THE SUBURBS; but at the other end of that hour, it makes no impression. I come out feeling, well, nothing really. It doesn't move me at all, even in the negative sense of having provided the necessary contrast to the music I enjoy. I can't find anything to actively dislike, but I cannot fathom why anybody would love this band. And then friends talk about the Arcade Fire as if they were the greatest thing to happen to rock music since the Beatles, and my only response is, "Huh?"


Another example is Death Cab for Cutie. I'll Follow You into the Dark excepted, I cannot call to mind a single Death Cab song, despite multiple listens. I want to get it, I really do. And after having given the band numerous chances to impress me, to figure out what people like about them so much, it all - just - sounds - the same! To hear my friends rave about a band and to fail completely to hear the attraction is, in its way, far more frustrating than to hear the attraction and to reject it. As Warren Zevon once put it, "I'd rather feel bad than not feel anything at all."

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Rackham Limbs



















When in Egypt new mountains rose above the sands of Memphis,

You lifted your head above the playa

At Abu Simbel god-men sat in silence,

Hands on knees like the Lushan Buddha

You crouched here, bent against the onslaught

Of a mountain thunderstorm


Did you learn the trick from Katschei,

To gain the world and lose your soul?

Is your heart locked in a babushka doll somewhere?

Or do Rackham limbs conceal still

The pulse of life?


August 2010

Western Polyptych

I. Weeping wall

Tearstain on a western hillside,

the carbonized imprint

of a Jurassic willow.



II. Outside Salt Lake City

Riddled with holes,

some towering red Swiss cheese

with little patches of scrubby mold here and there

Give me a knife to scrape the sky

and I’ll carve you off a slice.



III. Distant lakes

Rorschach lakes crawl

across stone sky-fields

like shadows on the surface of the moon.



IV. Lichen at High Altitude

Undifferentiated grey mass resolves itself

into rectangles, rhomboids,

a hundred million polygonal forms

all hard-edged and grainy-faced

Green patch in a sea of slate,

oasis opening onto infinity,

waving semaphore arms

Is there anybody out there?



V. The world is quiet here

The world is quiet here

Clouds so close you can snatch

handfuls of candy floss

and devour them greedily,

a famished Ming soldier on the Long Wall

The world is quiet here,

save the buzzing of a persistent fly

What brings him to this place?—

errands from worlds below

or an accidental updraft,

vaulted into the dome of heaven.



VI. Heathaze

A black river with green banks

bisects a sea of white salt

Heathaze holds up the promise of sanctuary,

vanishes like a dream half-remembered

and then forgotten

in the space between sleeping and waking.



VII. Iris

Blue pupil amidst a green iris

Granitic carunculae

A million points of light coalesce into

one twinkle in your eye,

shining at the prospect of a bath

or something less savory.



VIII. Condemned (Sutter Buttes)

Subterranean wrecking ball

razes to the foundations

Icelandic turf house in the blazing heat

The mind can fill in the missing lines,

bay windows and high gables

Now just two bony jaws,

open just wide enough

to swallow the sun.



August 2010

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Buzzard's Roost























Castellated cliff-face,
limestone battlement
The rocks climb up to the ramparts,
piling on top of one another
as if to dare the next in line:
Jump! Jump!
Then finally they plunge away,
five hundred feet at a leap

From here everything
falls away in green gulches
and pine-tree precipices
and spires of stone
I wave to the nearest tower,
greetings to the eagle! He keeps watch there
His amber eye misses nothing—
quintessential watchman,
suited by nature to his sentinel-station

Smoke tendrils like lazy grey ribbons
from the lodge in the valley below
At this height the vapors dissipate,
cartwheeling on a thousand zephyrs
Zeus and Aeolus
keep company in this place

Where two kingdoms meet
I look down from the top of the world,
Or what seems like it at least—
for I can see in the distance
heights even higher than these.

August 2010

Elegy for Mr. Adams



















North woods obelisk,

red weather-scars weeping blood

The name has washed away from your pedestal—

Julius? Frank? The characters aren’t clear,

half-discernable forms of laurel-leaves

etchings in stone

meant to last forever


Were you a man of distinction,

a personality to be put on by a high-school drama student

for the historical society’s Christmas play?

Or did you find your way to Potter’s Field

or even far Peking?


Did your children come this way

and lay roses on your grave?

The woods will honor you

bachelor’s buttons and cinquefoils

amidst the colonnades


August 2010

White Rocks

















Three teeth in a grandmother’s mouth

yawning skywards


First molar, flat-topped,

amalgamated fillings—

a patina of pine-needles,

stained here and there with traces

of manganese oxide


Second bicuspid, massy, white,

undercut, the work

of a giant’s tablespoon

Scrawny firs cling tenaciously in the fissures,

root-arms wrapped tight

like a sea-snail adheres to the coast

when a diver comes questing

for its iridescent shell


Lateral incisor,

jagged to crack the sky

a natural turret

And here, smeared

orange with lichen,

foundations of a tower from long ago


August 2010