Dug For Victory: Poems from RIP-TV Read online

36

  Anneliese Marie Frank

  B. 6.12.29 Frankfurt / D. 3.45 Bergen-Belsen

  Typhus

  Dear Earth

  What will they say of me?

  “Her last word was Whom.”

  My fussiness. My whiskers.

  Mid-day.

  My hurry. My rented porcelain.

  All at once I’m back in the ladies room of long-ago Filene’s

  back amid the panty musks and methane plashes

  safe, scentless girl almost afraid to emerge from my stall:

  What poisoned ogres would be rouging at the sinks?

  Remembering me smelly

  remembering me jiggly, spotted, chapped, damp, frizzy

  dear Earth be kind.

  My beautiful eyes mine augen

  beautiful. On the train

  old men tell me.

  2003-09-22

  37

  Luke Howard

  B. 11.28.1772 London / D. 3.1864 London

  Old Age

  Now

  Clouds

  Now

  varieties of late afternoon blue and bird

  To be present is an effort

  seagulls, swans, and cormorants

  one young seagull trails a withered leg

  to emerge from underneath the weight

  over Sheepshead Bay

  whose walking bridge is fringed with fishermen

  all pointing out to sea

  of losses, things undone, efforts gone astray

  Now

  clouds birds bridge bay

  Now

  like fall, the violet

  outside the enshrouding shelter of my sacred yurt

  hovers, banks, descends.

  2003-10-19

  38

  Billy Preston (b. William Everett Preston)

  B. 9.9.1946 Houston / D. 6.6.2006 Scottsdale, Arizona

  Pericarditis/Repiratory Failure

  When the joy goes out of being a Beatle

  in the Beatles, one of four

  you're standing on a windy roof in winter.

  The presence of the same three glum brunettes

  is swelling in your craw.

  Their slurrings, their dilations

  their exhausted mirror-trick gods:

  you cannot utter; while

  as dragons hoarded treasure in the hollows of their coils

  a rumor-fattened crowd

  encircles you, the rooftop, building, road:

  its faceless scales puff cigarettes

  waves of ancient faith rise with its shudders.

  Your hair is leaving scratches on your eyes.

  You're standing on a hollow summit in a rising pool of dread.

  Joy expires by slow electrocution

  as another vapid outcome readies, sets.

  When suddenly, in tight formation down the ridge of an electric keyboard

  Mercy! Saved the Day!

  the squadron that your better angels summoned swoops

  the treble executing pirouettes

  bassline firing. You and your lonely

  little well

  you and your brothers.

  2006-06-20

  39

  Harry Houdini (b. Erich Weisz)

  B. 3.24.1874 Budapest / D. 10.31.1926 Detroit

  Peritonitis / Mysterious Causes

  I hesitate to make love to your astral body

  as if that would be more wrong than to go on thinking:

  which it is, much wronger, in the scales of sinning

  that waver in the corners of my memories of your dancing eyes;

  as if it were a step too natural or un-

  between my thoughts and my your astral body’s taking

  here, on the futon, so that me at bay I’m keeping;

  as if it were a thing too drastic to be done:

  the making of love, slowly, with your astral body

  on a hot night while the cable television’s beaming

  lesbian, lesbian love into the lockdowns of collective dreaming;

  as if it were off-limits to do more than theorize.

  2007-07-09

  40

  Nelson Riddle

  B. 6.1.1921 Oradell, New Jersey / D. 10.6.1985 Los Angeles

  Liver Ailments

  Are we still dating?

  I wish I knew, but since we’re not communicating

  day to day

  I don’t. It’s queer.

  Are we still dating?

  If not I can’t imagine why you’re hesitating:

  “Go away.”

  I hear you say it when you don’t appear.

  You do not call.

  You do not write.

  I am alone

  another night.

  I wish I knew

  a better cure for blue

  than you.

  Are you still internally debating?

  I’d hate to interrupt in case it’s my side advocating

  for its say

  before the judge and jury of its peer.

  What are you incubating?

  Something scarier than silence, I’m anticipating

  we shall see

  if ever you’re no longer neither there nor here.

  You do not call.

  You do not write.

  I am alone

  another night.

  Another night.

  Oh woe is me

  a tragedy:

  Too free.

  Are we still dating?

  I must confess, if it were up to me we would be copulating

  in “our” way

  but it is not—this much is clear.

  Does it need stating?

  I’m very sorry that I made us lose our PG13 rating:

  two can play

  but I forgot that only one should steer.

  You do not call.

  You do not write.

  I liked you so

  you really might.

  “For you I pine

  and balsam too.”

  It’s true.

  Are we still dating?

  This afternoon I thought of emigrating.

  I thought you hated waiting—

  or maybe that was only me projected onto you—I’m hating

  your delay

  in any case—oh, not hate but fear.

  I find this enervating.

  My face feels full of little after-happy smiles deflating;

  with a sigh

  each smile subsides and waits to be a tear.

  You do not call.

  You do not write.

  I liked you so

  you really might.

  A word or two

  would really do:

  As in

  “Adieu.”

  2008-08-13

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