Still Life with Issa at the Gates
How about
We go
To a place
Where no one waits
Instead?
Call it Heaven, but
No smoke, bird song,
Paper falling
Ash-like, heavy
With rain, names,
Hands, sun, eyes
As strong as smoke
And bird song,
Lemon rind and holocaust.
No no no.
No.
Nothing tragic, mysterious,
Cryptic.
No sand nor snow nor seems.
Just is, and is
Was once, I’ve heard,
Just enough. Christ,
Story has it,
Died, once, too,
And prayed enough
Ahead of time.
Not like that.
Like Issa:
And yet…
And yet…
Still Life with Lenny Bruce in Jail
All laughter is involuntary.—L. B.
How rich you are, man.
It’s what you want,
what you can’t stop
Singing:
Up in Spanish Harlem there’s a rose
That’s so sweet
it grows
up through the concrete.
I see roots as thin as veins,
rosey veins
Blood brown reaching toward a Venus
That very well, in the palm of your hand,
might be there.
And you don’t care,
so I won’t too,
As the cop down the hall watches
me watch
You shoot up.
Jesus and Moses,
anything you wanna bring
down…
I’ll bring
a lawyer…I don’t know
what I did…
I must’ve been bad…they throw words at you…
Now dig what I added to the thing….
If I could reach you
from my cell, I’d roll
up your sleeve
And wrap the rubber band
tourniquetly.
I’d slide the needle toward the slowest of motions—
Habit and prayer.
Do it.
This whole generation’s strung out.
We can’t do it
all on our own.
My period’s a semi-colon now,
the days get longer and longer.
Shhh.
You’re elliptical, safe, clear.
You should see
what your smile looks like
from here.
Prayer #34
We may say he or she
Took his or her
Life, and we will
Have to live with that.
But where? Where
Do we think
They’ve taken it?
May it never occur
To us to take it
Anywhere else
Than toward
This fleeting here and now
Where what we share and have
Reaches like sunlight,
Like a patient hand.
It may someday
Occur to us
To reach back
Toward our suicides
Half-smiling, half-asleep,
So we can bring
Them back.
We may regret it, finally,
But I’m telling you: reach,
Then place your lives
On their heads,
Like ashes or sunlight,
Like little hands.
Our suicides
Will answer this prayer
Only after you swear
You’ve seen them.
You will.
Why else reach toward them?
You will. You will
Miss them entirely,
You’ll look like
You’re waving,
And you will be
Embarrassed,
As if your best friend
Has ignored you.
You’ll stand there
On the platform,
As the trains go
Their separate ways.
You’ll busy yourself,
Pretending to fix
Your scarf
And gloves. It’ll be
Cold, and the sky
A golden room.
I’ll see you.
I’ve been there.
You’ll fix your hair
And search for a smoke
And wait for the next train
You’ve willingly missed
Because you knew—
You did—it was him,
Her. Right there.
You swore it.
You were wrong,
Or you weren’t.
So, wait.
You have to
Get home.
No choice.
The prayer?
May you never
Have to bother
With any of this.