Accordion Dreams
Breath smelling of Sen-Sen, sweet—licorice,
weight of a sable, 120-bass Excelsior accordion hanging
about his shoulders, black albatross. He leans to the boy
playing ragged, wheezing D-scales with small, clumsy fingers.
His own, long like unspooled thread, glide over imagined Steinway keys—
Carnegie, Albert Hall. Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
Napoleon Brandy dreams. All his life he dreams.
Shocks of silk and velvet at his wrists, brightly ringed fingers.
A quickness of light. Audiences of other places and times.
Orchestral Hallucination
I sit comfortably in Row E
Seat # 74
as a Punchinello man Seat #73
oozes over
the arm rest
occupying a portion
of my seat
the conductor enters
polite applause audience members eschatalogically cough
orchestra shifts toward
stillness as baton
is raised
with the swift
downward
sweep
of the wand
a coronet screams
frightens the yellow oboe
which turns into a combative saxophone
each does vitriolic battle with the other
as blue violins and violas sigh at the madness of it all
basses with red bows already strung out
complain
but only the harp fathoms
the depth of the musical problem
and says
go pluck yourselves
rattled by all that is happening
the snare drum
shouts at them all enough! enough!
while in the very back row
the french horn makes out with the pink triangle ( not ménage à trois) understand
but lots of french kissing going on
the young flute whistles yowee!
four trombones stick their noses into it
piano thinking itself far too grand for all this
gets keyed up
then a chorus wishing it could be a cappella
sings glaringly
to the conductor who startled
thrusts his baton overhead
brings it sharply to the floor
and the turquoise kettle bass slams the madness
to a caustic
finale!
Rider of Asses
I read but a line from a Rilke poem
(“I want to become like one of those
who through the night go driving
wild horses.”), and I am struck dumb.
St. Paul thrown from an ass, voice
scaled like eyes at the sound of racing
hoofbeats.
I go without sound to the village
of Damascus where I fast and pray
and wonder that words can ever come
again. I move my lips. I run fingers
through the dirt at my feet, shaping syllables
(Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic) but not even the simple
beauty of one Rilke word. I’m a rider of asses
and can’t voice the dazzle of wild horses.
These Arms, These Shoulders
They should be in a cast.
Perhaps they are. Morphine pouring
into this body disturbs everything
I think I know. The only certainty
du jour is that all bodily extensions
are blanched Bryce Canyon stones,
as my mind runs, pressing through
labyrinths of unknowing, finding Milton
here, Rilke there, Dante’s Hell everywhere.
“Could I have some water?”
“We’ll have to raise your head, a 45 degree
angle, at least.
“I’m a runner. Just pass the water to me
as I run by. I’ve done it many times.”
“No. You’ve forgotten where you are. I must
lift your head. I’ll hold the cup. Drink slowly.”
“Never mind. I can’t waste time. I still have
eight miles to go.”
And I run. I’m breathing hard. Beauties of high
desert reds now lash my eyes, and it’s Kierkegaard
I hear speaking of the individual alone before God.
I am alone as I run in my full body cast.
Nausicaa
Nausicaa was his great danger. Poseidon pitched Odysseus over roiling Aegean seas,
but it was Nausicaa who lightly touched his hand when he stepped from the sea’s edge naked,
alone. He would not sleep that night, tossing and turning, as if captive at sea to some goddess’
slender-fingered whimsy.
He lay at night among the Phaecians, eyes wide, thinking of home
and Penelopea. Dreaming (brief moments when eyelids would not defy black night) he’d fondle
the lissome legs of Nausicaa and frolic in his newfound kingdom as if with his wife.
Scaramouche
It looks almost playful:
Punch turns almost quickly about, lands
a wheelhouse right smack in the middle of
Scaramouche’s big nose, for no good reason.
Judy cackles like a startled hen, children squeal
gleefully as Scaramouche yelps his bobbing rag head
off, from deep inside rag-made lungs. It’s all in fun
in this box of a world. He laughs his alleged laugh and calls
the world mad.
But,