Mum
has
worked
hard
all
the
day
say
thank
you

A beer can, phone book, a grapefruit
and an Advent wreath
with four candles
in its nest of greens
Two weeks
Two lit
Third one's the Pink
a life three quarters spent?

Next weekend
Saturday-- The Sabbath
falls in Hanukkah

“Blessed art thou, Lord our God
King of the universe
who dost create lights of fire...”

I'll light that third-- the pink one
like a barbarian wise woman
who traveled too far along life's way
to find a Jewish baby, wrapped in rags

...or, was it the old guy that night
lying in the street
outside a New England bar

“Oh Christ! Ya gotta be kidding me!”

Nope, He was there alright

Wallowing in the freezing slush
amid his helpless drunken cries
No cell phones then
Scrapped my pizza plans

On foot alone
waving in frustration  
in the passing headlights
a turquoise, wind-crazed scarecrow
_

“Someone's gotta stop?
Someone has to help us, don't they?”
_

Now there are two beer cans
a grapefruit, and a phone book
beside the advent wreath

Third candle lit and leaning out
for hope along the way

i.

The sisters are, like their brethren everywhere,
An amalgamation of gentle touch
And soothing words delivered in sepia tones
(Comrade, you will be up
And out of here before you know it)
In such a manner as to convince you
That they believe it to be true as well,
But I have made something of a living
In the interpretation of the unsaid,
And what I have seen in a certain knitting of their eyebrows,
An occasional tightness around the throat,
The set of the jaw as the doctor studies my chart,
And I suspect that this may be
The final station on my excursion,
The last listing on the timetable;
Indeed, as I click off the inventory of my own person
(The fever, the unsightly and damning rash)
I have come to the conclusion
That I may find the denouement of this particular tale
To be highly unsatisfactory reading.

ii.

I am at considerable leisure to think, reminisce,
And even, though wholly without purpose, to dream.  
On more than one occasion
I have drifted back to a certain train ride
(I was headed to the Congress of the Peoples of the East,
Not without some trepidation, I might add)
Traversing almost all of Mother Russia, from Murmansk to Baku.  
Oh, there was any number of wonders
To be viewed through the windows:
The broad, seemingly endless steppes,
The grandeur of the Urals and Caucasus
The wide, sluggish Irtysh,
But there were other sights,
Unsettling, almost portentous views as well:
Villages, burnt and abandoned,
Cows and horses so thin
Their hides appeared almost threadbare,
Peasants of all ages whose eyes gave evidence
Of seeing such pain, hunger and death
That it was a wonder they could still stand upright,
Or, indeed, have the desire to do so.  
We, conversely, rode, if not in the lap of luxury,
Comfortably indeed—no shortage of coffee and *****,
Even caviar on a more or less daily basis.
Finally, no longer able to contain discontented thoughts
(I knew my outburst would be reported back to the Comintern)
I said to the Red Army captain sharing my compartment
That it seemed incongruous, if not counter-revolutionary,
To be overfed when the backbone of the proletariat
Was starving and dying before our eyes,
That, surely, there was something we could do.  
As he walked from his seat  toward the window,
He smiled and said as he pulled them downward
Sometimes, the best thing we can do is to pull the shades.


iii.


Again, having a certain gift of observation
Proves to be a mixed blessing:
There are certain signs (the adjacent beds
Being placed a touch farther away,
A certain distance, physical and otherwise
By the doctors and nurses)
And it is clear to me that my remaining sunrises and sunsets
May be counted on fingers and toes,
And my musings have turned to my placement
After I am discharged from further ministrations,
And I find it somewhat amusing if not entirely suitable
That the epitaph upon my tombstone
(If I am afforded such a luxury;
It is far from certain that the pig-eyed Zinoviev
May not just have me thrown into some dungheap,
There to sate the desperate hunger of the cur and the swine)
Will be likely written in Cyrillic,
An idiom I found wholly perplexing and inscrutable.

Blake has written it all and written it
in perfect clarity and beauty
and Baudelaire topped it
with decadence and forbidden pleasures
and  Kerouac took it on the road
and gave it a beat
and Bukowski redefined and simplified
and told all its ugly truths
and got it drunk on beer and women

yet still we sit here poor men and women
and boys and girls
scratching away in our journals
and typing at our refurbished vintage typewriters
and cheap plastic keyboards
attached to overpriced laptops
made of fruit and ego

trying to add to the vast pile of treasure
left behind by Coleridge and Thoreau and Whitman
and Mother Maya Angelou
trying to write ourselves in and out
of the corners of solitude and madness
following in the echos of Plath and Dickinson and Poe

we pickpocket dead myths
and dig up their bones
and dance in the fields of their deaths
and claim their prayers as our own
and play the part of god
as we invent new ways to sin
and feel shame for walking naked
in our own bodies
and daring to enjoy lust
and desire and love

it’s all worthless garbage
and it’s all priceless time well spent
shouting into the void of our meaningless existence
and all the vast emptiness of space takes no notice
no matter who loudly we bash our pans
and pound our fists
and ******* our overinflated sense of self worth

we are helplessly alone
stuffed in overcrowded tin containers
packed tightly in our human misery
willing to sleep with one another
but afraid to look each other in the eye
and see who it really is
we’re sharing our beds with
because we would rather
just imagine it really is love
and not find out if its the truth of love
we’re trying to define
within the fragility of our hearts

we wait till our beds are empty
and our hands are cold
and then we pick up our pens
and strike our keyboards
and lay down lies over the truth
we are afraid to uncover
and we treat it poorly
by doing this again and again

yet it defies us still with its volume and weight
and no matter how many times
are how many ways
we re-write the same poem
over and over and over
the heart stays the same
no matter what color we paint it
red or black or bruised sky blue
what tear lost in the ocean
or ocean trapped in a tear
it remains within the grasp
of the same endless heart beat
coming from the same eternal heart

no matter how many times
a new giant or new lord or new king
or new queen or fool are crowned
and wether they type streams of garbage
or write on leafs inlaid with gold
we will always be connected
by the necessity
of the painful beauty of poetry

Misty words billow in the cold
Pluming from their mouths
Quiet swearing and first *** coughing
They walk close to hedgerows
Kicking the dew from the grass
As birds squabble over breakfast
And mushrooms are still socialising
They whistle the dogs to heel
All panting and wagging tails
Stirring the dawn damp air
For happy is the early dog
In these sumptuous fields

Now the business of dawn begins
Low sharp commands are uttered
Bringing the younger bounding learners
To a proper sense of purpose
And that high-toned cross breed
The sleek and swift lurcher
Is eternally proud and primed
This long-sprint racer
Takes inevitable chase
Without sentiment or concious cruelty
An ancient craft is practised here
With the dogs at dawn

                                By Phil Roberts

We have the full complement of the requisite barriers:
Barbed wire, barren landscape, unpleasant canines,
Stark metallic towers with vaguely menacing turrets and gunsights
(Though they are remote, poorly lighted,
Perched high enough that I suspect they may be occupied
By mannequins or scarecrows),
And what cannot be attained physically
Is augmented by other means,
Breakfasts at mid-day, bits of bread in the blackest part of night,
Light as dark, dark as light.
We tell our company this and that of the news of the world:
Half–and-quarter-truths, innuendos of some plausibility,
Outright truths as well, but told with the most outrageous leers,
Put forth in a tone which suggest that such things could never be,
(I have come to appreciate Pilate’s question,
For truth is a singular thing,
Valid within the limits of one’s mind,
No more than a lower-case notion
When butting up against those of others),
And I tell myself that this is all something that needs to be done,
That perhaps there is no greater good
Than a certain regularity,a certain order of things,
But I am unsettled by the memory of an episode
Some three days past, where one of this assemblage
(I suspect the person in question was female,
But we keep our band well-shorn, and they are costumed
In rather shapeless and gray tunics
Which, given the lapse of time
And the long intervals between our own re-supply,
Look suspiciously like our own garments)
Look in my direction with what fervor she could muster,
All but barking You! You will be forgiven none of this!
And I was left perplexed by her admonition,
Which, as I began to readying myself for dinner
(Scrubbing my neck, my face, my hands,
Trying to rid myself of the damnable dust
Which is omnipresent, unavoidable, beyond eradication)
Lingered, as I could not for the life of me
Comprehend the calculus which would mark me,
A relative speck, a cog, a mere functionary,
As the one to be singled out.