Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.
Even though she sleeps upon your satin.
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined.
Do not stoop to strategies like this.
As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your first commitments tangible again.
You who had the honour of her evening,
And by that honour had your own restored –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Alexandra leaving with her lord.
As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect.
You who were bewildered by a meaning,
whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.
– Hydra, Greece, September 1999
A PUERTO RICAN SONG
‘The Devil’s Broken Heart’
that was the song
and it was the Devil singing it
and whoever heard that song
would never be the same
and in every heart
of those men and women who heard
‘The Devil’s Broken Heart’
the weakness weakened
and the Christ of Love strengthened
and people went to bed that night
holding on to each other
like everything else was death
I listened to it
with Armand and Oscar Dorente
and Kathy Hanking
and a lot of other people
I’ve never seen again
BOOGIE STREET
A sip of wine, a cigarette,
and then it’s time to go
I tidied up the kitchenette.
I tuned the old banjo.
I’m wanted at the traffic-jam.
They’re saving me a seat.
I’m what I am, and what I am,
is back on Boogie Street.
And O my love, I still recall
the pleasures that we knew;
the rivers and the waterfall
wherein I bathed with you.
Bewildered by your beauty there
I’d kneel to dry your feet.
By such instructions you prepare
a man for Boogie Street.
So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
in love we disappear.
Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh
are posted on the door,
there’s no one who has told us yet
what Boogie Street is for.
O Crown of Light, O Darkened One,
I never thought we’d meet.
You kiss my lips, and then it’s done:
I’m back on Boogie Street.
A LIMITED DEGREE
As soon as I understood
(even to a limited degree)
that this is G-d’s world
I began to lose weight
immediately
At this very moment
I am wearing
my hockey uniform
from the Sixth Grade
A LIFE OF ERRANDS
If You Are Lucky
You Will Grow Old
And Live
A Life Of Errands.
You Will Discern
What People Need
And Provide It
Before They Ask.
You Will Drive Your Car
Here And There
Delivering And Fetching
And Neither The Traffic
Nor The Weather
Will Bother You
In The Least.
You Will Whip Down
The 405
To San Diego
To Pick Up An Acorn
For Someone’s Proverb
And So On And So Forth.
In Spite Of The Ache
In Your Heart
About The Girl You
Never Found
And The Fact That
After Years Of
Spiritual Rigour
You Did Not Manage
To Enlighten Yourself
A Certain Cheerfulness
Will Begin To
Arise Out Of Your Crushed
Hopes And Intentions.
How Thirstily
You Embrace Your
Next Commission:
To Sift Through
The Sunglasses
At A Lost And Found
In Las Vegas
Just A Few Hours
Across The Desert.
Your Hair Is White
You Have Breasts
And A Gut
Over Your Belt
You Are No Longer A Boy,
Or Even A Man
But A Sense Of Gratitude
Enlivens Every Move
You Make.
Yes, Sir, These Are The
Very Gold-Rimmed Pair
She Left In The Plastic Tray
Beside The Dollar
Slot Machines.
No, Sir, I Am Not Lying.
WISH ME LUCK
a fresh spiderweb
billowing
like a spinnaker
across the open window
and here he is
the little master
sailing by
on a thread of milk
wish me luck
admiral
I haven’t finished anything
in a long time
MISSION
I’ve worked at my work
I’ve slept at my sleep
I’ve died at my death
And now I can leave
Leave what is needed
And leave what is full
Need in the Spirit
And need in the Hole
Beloved, I’m yours
As I’ve always been
From marrow to pore
From longing to skin
Now that my mission
Has come to its end:
Pray I’m forgiven
The life that I’ve led
The Body I chased
It chased me as well
My longing’s a place
My dying a sail
RELIGIOUS STATUES
After a while
I started playing with dolls
I loved their peaceful expressions
They all had their places
in a corner of Room 315
I would say to myself:
It doesn’t matter
that Leonard can’t breathe
that he is hopelessly involved
in the panic of the situation
I’d light a cigarette
and a stick of Nag Champa
Both would burn too fast
in the draft of the ceiling fan
Then I might say
something like:
Thank You
for the terms of my life
which make it so painlessly clear
that I am powerless
to do anything
and I’d watch CNN
the rest of the night
but now
from a completely different
point of view
one of the dolls
WHAT DID IT
An acquaintance told me
that the great sage
Nisargadatta Maharaj
once offered him a cigarette,
“Thank you, sir, but I don’t smoke.”
“Don’t smoke?” said the master,
“What’s life for?”
This is beginning again
and like the first time
the girl’s name is Claire
and she’s French
But this time
the boy’s name is Jikan
and he’s an old man
It’s not Greece any more
it’s India
the new place for unhappiness
but this time
the boy is not unhappy
with his unhappiness
and Claire also has noticed
that the boy
is sixty-five years old
But what is exactly the same
is the promise, the beauty
and the salvation
of cigarettes
the little Parthenon
of an opened pack of cigarettes
and Mumbai, like the Athens
of forty years ago
is a city to smoke in
Well, that’s enough for now
I will be able to love her
and also love the rest of my life
from my experience with books
I MISS MY MOTHER
I want to bring her to India
And buy her
Gold and jewels
I want to hear her sigh
For the poor in the street
And marvel
At the unforgiving greyness
Of the Arabian Sea
She was right about everything
Including my foolish guitar
And where it got me
She would make sense of
The cotton flags
The sorrows of the port
The arches of the past
She’d pat my little head
And bless my dirty song
THOUSANDS
Out of the thousands
who are known,
or who want to be known
as poets,
maybe one or two
are genuine
and the rest are fakes,
hanging around the sacred precincts
trying to look like the real thing.
Needless to say
I am one of the fakes,
and this is my story.
MY BABY WASN’T THERE
My Baby wasn’t there
When I went to test Her love
But She’ll be there today
I pray to G-d above
I’ll sneak a look or two
And if I see Her melt
I’ll know that it was true
This feeling that I felt
My heart is like a thorn
Hers is like a Tree
My heart is dry and torn
Hers a Canopy
I’ve been up all night
And all I’ve got is this
I know that it’s not right
But nothing really is
She’s there at Her Machine
I’ll tiptoe down the aisle
And if it’s meant to be
She’ll greet me with a Smile
Then I’ll be so happy
I’ll live another day
I’ll thank Her for Her Charity
And then I’ll limp away
DUSKO’S TAVERNA 1967
They are still singing down at Dusko’s,
sitting under the ancient pine tree,
in the deep night of fixed and falling stars.
If you go to your window you can hear them.
It is the end of someone’s wedding,
or perhaps a boy is leaving on a boat in the morning.
There is a place for you at the table,
wine for you, and apples from the mainland,
a space in the songs for your voice.
Throw something on,
and whoever it is you must tell
that you are leaving,
tell them, or take them, but hurry:
they have sent for you –
the call has come –
they will not wait forever.
They are not even waiting now.
UNBECOMING
It’s unbecoming
to find you
in a place of entertainment
trying to forget
the tiny horror
of the last million years
Most of all
I dislike the brave violin
scraping against
the side of the massacre
as if to infer
that the killers are weak
and the victims will win
It complicates the nightmare
with a dream
It turns the nightmare
outside-in
Discard the violin
And put away your courage
Haven’t you noticed
how the thugs
and the blood-drinkers
are drawn to your courage
It is a provocation
in their sight
Give it back to the rocks
to the mud
to that which supports the mud
End this ugly experiment
with the human heart
Please do not tell me again
about the lonely railway station
where we undressed each other
in a hail of apple seeds
And this voice of ignorant
understanding –
experience the deep humiliation
as the tidal silence
refuses to affirm it
Stand there
in the vanity
of your solitude
Summon the short-lived tears
the shallow laughter
the comforts
that obey your suffering
that embrace your defeat
Stand there
goosefleshed and proud
high-breasted one
in the erotic rags
of religion
I sincerely hope
we do not have to meet again
at the next amusement
– 1979
THE OLD AUTOMAT ON 23RD ST.
I wandered into the Automat
Wearing a kind of religious hat
The meatballs were round
And the pancakes were flat
I asked G-d in heaven
To keep it like that
– 1970
TOO OLD
I am too old
to learn the names
of the new killers
This one here
looks tired and attractive
devoted, professorial
He looks a lot like me
when I was teaching
a radical form of Buddhism
to the hopelessly insane
In the name of the old
high magic
he commands
families to be burned alive
and children mutilated
He probably knows
a song or two that I wrote
All of them
all the bloody hand bathers
and the chewers of entrails
and the scalp peelers
they all danced
to the music of the Beatles
they worshipped Bob Dylan
Dear friends
there are very few of us left
silenced
trembling all the time
hidden among the blood –
stunned fanatics
as we witness to each other
the old atrocity
the old obsolete atrocity
that has driven out
the heart’s warm appetite
and humbled evolution
and made a puke of prayer
THE BEACH AT KAMINI
The sailboats
the silver water
the crystals of salt
on her eyelashes
All the world
sudden and shining
&nbs
p; the moment before G-d
turned you inward
DURING THE DAY
I sit here
At the window
Waiting for you
To come jogging past
In your crucifix uniform
You remind me of myself
Perhaps (I wonder aimlessly)
I could comfort you
I love the furrows between your eyes
And the ravages of anxiety
Across your clenched expression
You have the new face
The coming face
The face of no objective experience
And you have chosen the path of muscle
Toward your sorrow
How private you are
In the minds of everyone
I salute you
Brave spirit
Who has swallowed so much
And tasted so little.
LAUGHTER IN THE PANTHEON
I enjoyed the laughter
old poets
as you welcomed me
but I won’t be staying
here for long
You won’t be either
– 1985
DEAR DIARY
You are greater than the Bible
And the Conference of the Birds
And the Upanishads
All put together
You are more severe
Than the Scriptures
And Hammurabi’s Code
More dangerous than Luther’s paper
Nailed to the Cathedral door
You are sweeter
Than the Song of Songs
Mightier by far
Than the Epic of Gilgamesh
And braver
Than the Sagas of Iceland
I bow my head in gratitude
To the ones who give their lives
To keep the secret
The daily secret
Under lock and key
Dear Diary
I mean no disrespect
But you are more sublime
Book of Longing Page 4