The eulogies resound in stentorian tones for the great,
those of prominence, those who have ascended to the pinnacle,
those who have known power, and who have changed worlds,
whose names fall from the lips of every man, who are offered
unencumbered embrace, a deferential half pace backward.
But what of the good man, without position, sans societal perch,
whose wealth is paltry, accomplishment meager,
yet whose effort is no less herculean, no less courageous,
whose heart is no less pure, the good man doomed to failure
through paucity of talent, or missed opportunity,
or plain bad fortune, yet who resolves to continue, plod foot after foot to anonymous end, and whose name will not be voiced in so much as a whisper for all eternity.

The long dormant heart need
burst, explode, dance in the fire,
decry the years.
Dare laugh at the black angel,
howl with glee, a jacquerie of one,
for you are a presence, alive.
Astonish, before it is too late,
for the lambent eve wanes.

in the park, the homeless stamp their feet in the cold

as the snow drifts down through the city

onto leafless trees, painting winter branches

white and still and voiceless

She sat down at the table across from him. She straightened her shoulders and spoke in a clear voice. “What are you reading?”

Startled, he looked up at her. He hesitated, then slowly closed the book, exposing the cover.

Her head down, she said nothing, only fiddled with a pen lying on the table, spinning it slowly.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She raised her gaze to meet his. She smiled. “I’m here to change your life.”

We waited in our tiny den, my mother and me, waiting for my father, the salesman, to come home after the week’s traveling.

We hurried to the window as the headlights flashed across the glass,
excited for the weekend to begin.

He smiled as he entered, quietly looking forward to Monday morning.

Hair grown white

brushed straight away

Gnarled spine

Shoulders unsquared

Padded stool

Red leather tome

Pencil scars

Yellowed borders

Crooked finger

Brittle leaves

Blurred mass

Rimless descent

Old friend

Immersion

Comfort alights

I just want to say, right from the start, that I loved her.

Not in the neon bright light, two a.m. sparkling pavement, uptown New York City way. No, much more in the ice-cold Dos Equis’ beading in the summer dusk sunlight way, and in the way the sound they made when slid to us across scarred wooden bars.

Or maybe in the way she laughed when her fingers became tangled when she held a pool cue, and the way she didn’t care when she missed the ball completely – and then laughed some more.

But mostly in the way when faced with the poet’s choice of cowardice or courage, how she scratched furiously along the page, her thoughts spilling shamelessly across the white until she rested and read the words she had written, and when she knew she was no closer to immortality, the way she reached for another page.

In that way.

Boardwalk beach goers
Strolled in ball caps
And in wide-brimmed hats
And in flip flops
And in cover-ups casually tied over low-slung bikinis
Lining the railing of the weathered pier
Eyes half closed, hands folded, heads atilt
Shoulders squared to a fading sun
A familiar form among the silhouettes
Twenty years hence
A cascade of raven hair
A billowing summer dress
My single breath
Then across rutted planks
To finally slake the thirst for another and
Be free of the malfeased heart
The lilt of perfume
Light, breathless, familiar
Transported back through time
To burn white hot again
Only to blanch at the precipice
Before the gray water
Silent

Though I tremble now, and my eyes glass,
And my words wander as they
Search for a final sense of this world,
Dare look beyond, for I remain
Young with joy and foolishness,
And I am stout of heart and limb within,
My passion undiminished, my love unshaken, if unspoken.
And when I am finally gone,
Immerse in the warm breeze between the leaves,
Smile at the robins chirp,
Be mesmerized by children,
For I will be there,
Incorporeal, ubiquitous,
To envelop you as I have in life and will always,
Without limit.

I’ll never be happy he told her.
She said it wasn’t true,
that he was young,
that he didn’t know any better,
that things will change someday.
And when they met many years later,
when they were silver-haired and slower afoot,
she said she was sorry,
that she was the one who didn’t understand,
and that he was right all along.
And hearing that, he turned slowly and walked away.

Amsterdam Avenue, Sunday morning
Stubs of moisture collect across the panes
Then rivulets, thin as capillaries
She lounges on the sofa
And edges her bare feet between cushions
She is wrapped in a thick towel
Bare to mid-thigh
Hair ebon and slick
Pale face aglow
Her freckled shoulders glisten
And she smiles

some say she was born with a broken heart,
unmendable by word or deed, and now armed
with a quiver full of witticisms and deft vertical
palm, friends, lovers, the world, all held at bay,
lest they discover her sorrow

A crowded café, bustling, boisterous, filled with jocular
talk and the ardent gossip of young men and women,
a salesman’s smarmy sincerity, and the deft, placid
intonations of desire over two cappuccinos with skim milk,

and she is there, in the corner, against the brick wall, sipping
unadorned Earl Grey, and then a zoom focus, her presence
enhanced, the room falls away, and the chatter quiets into a
cushioning white noise, background to the film he has constructed,

and with the leads filled, the location set, the supporting cast in place,
now, the script.

thoughts of tinsel and garland and stolen kisses under
mistletoe, of snow-covered walks, the prismed flakes
gathered garishly to glisten under the evening lamplight

of friends and family bearing cakes and drinks,
of hearty hugs and Santa hats, and toothy grins and silly
smiles of neighbors happily in their cups

the many pages since fallen from the calendar,
all shadows now, etched in their loveliest,
flawless in mind’s eye

the battle rages,

terror, death, grief,

the witness immobile, inconsolable

until the bearers of courage and kindness,

their selfless acts the true thieves of breath,

become the grantors of tears,

of sorrow, of joy,

of humanity

In a stairwell, steps below the sidewalk, he huddled over a small flame that licked from a coffee can. He positioned himself to block the light to the street, and every so often he held a hand above the flame and quickly opened and closed his fingers. He stamped his feet in the snow, each time sending out a muffled whoosh when a shoe hit powder. He wiggled his fingers over the heat, and his mittens crackled when brought too close to the fire.
    
Across the street, a limestone building, a hotel, small, elegant, rose several stories high. Inside, on the ground floor, behind the belted velvet drapes, a cocktail lounge gleamed. A glistening mahogany bar ran the length of the room where guests disappeared into overstuffed chairs that were neatly placed in pairs and set against the arched, crystalline windows.

Inside the coolly lighted room, he watched a young woman with silky hair and sleepy eyes as she ran a finger around the rim of her drink. The woman glanced once at the silent snow falling in the dark. In the stairwell, he listened to the whisper of the fire and the beat of ice crystals as they fell against the steps.

I dig into the glass jar and withdraw my hand
I fling my arm and follow the seeds
As they scatter on the crusted snow like pepper specks
Skittering, helpless to stop
I wait for the sparrows and the starlings and the hawkish blue jays
The bright red cardinals all stuffed whole and round
Under a winter coat
Early morning is best
Not garish, like noontime
My steps are high in the deep powder
To the narrow stone posted on end
The earthen mound having sunk since that warm day in May
And I strike the ice and brush the crystals and
His name appears down its length
Black, hand-painted letters
I speak to him, my companion of fourteen years, in an easy tone
There is furious pecking beneath the sunrise
Company of a sort, bribed for the moment
And neither of us is alone

The soft blow of the trumpet or
the strum of guitar strings cajole the uninterested
to see the hand-lettered sign,
the cigar box, the jam jar
as the loyal dog curls in the doorway.
The deaf, the blind, the besotted, the luckless,
all night thieves of blankets,
sellers of wilted roses on a double white line.
Ghosts on street corners who sidle through the rain
in search of some, in search of any
until a last breath among the silhouettes
of the night fires that lick at the black winter sky.

old man I see you
blue suit and bow tie
and hat placed neatly aside
cradling your coffee
an absentminded gaze
through the tall windows
and beyond
to the young passersby
in a hurry
as you once were
busily home to love
to soothe the withering day
love that you once had
but has passed
old man I see you
your eyes a fluid blue
still
wistful
locked in memory
bittersweet
vivid
that plays before you
to touch
taste
breathe
a pas de deux of passion
eclipsed by time
old man I see you
and you are not alone

Two eased from the sedan.
A blanket, a brimming wicker basket.
A pond filled with geese, the birds claiming the embankment.
Water’s edge, he spun the blanket outward and
The geese scattered, and the cloth descended in an almost perfect square.
The valley’s familiar diversions, the white steeple a mile away,
Copses scattered acres apart, poked above the low brush.
Elbows propped in the afternoon heat  
Listening to the rustlings in the bramble
Until the valley’s natural rhythms brought him sleep.
Awakened to the rustling of paper,
He watched her scatter bread crumbs,
Circling the water with goslings in tow as they
Nuzzled at the bits of dough, an odd parade
Until a goose made chase, and the dithered fowl
Marched her brood away
And the woman laughed an undignified laugh in delight.
Alone, glasses descended from his furrowed brow,
An envelope withdrawn,
Elegant script, long luxurious parchment perused and then
Extended to her on her return.
Her lined face turned away, skyward,
The glorious heat warming, much preferred
Above the chilling words.
Together, they sat until the day had cooled
And she wrapped herself in a thick sweater and
Their shadows distorted as they relinquished the day,
He guiding her in the gloaming before the beams of light
Bounced unpredictably in the irregular road.

And on their happiest days,

they smiled with a broken heart

A car pulls up along the shoreside and a man in a suit and tie slides out to find the sand.

The beach has quieted.

A few surfers paddle hurriedly out to sea for a last run in the twilight.

An older couple stands by the water’s edge.

Wisps of the woman’s gray hair flutters above her, caught in the ocean breeze.

The lifeguard station sits quiet, the small, whitewashed house perched on reed-like stilts shuttered for the night, though the sand is still warm from the afternoon sun.

The man rolls up his pant legs and removes his socks and shoes and places them beside him.

He shields his eyes from the splintered sun’s rays as he scans the water clear to the thick black line of the horizon.

A young woman, flaxen-haired, a surfboard cupped effortlessly at her side, the bridge of her nose tinctured white, emerges from the waves.

Wet-suited, bare-footed, head tilted skyward, she hikes along the sand, her day’s work done.

As her shadow lengthens over him, the specter causes him to glance downward.

A few grains of sand have clung to the tips of his polished shoes.

He decides to leave them.

A glimpse, as
morning creaks awake,
and one hundred blackbirds
feast along the cleared patch of land
where seeds, cupped and flung open-handed,
are strewn across the white and white and white
until, sated for the moment,
the fowls erupt in a calamitous flurry,
blackening the dawn,
succumbing to the urge to move on.

so exciting, so fascinating, so
wholly fulfilling, so viscerally
gratifying to

think, to think deeply, to ponder
the delicate prism of our reality
and its' infinite possibilities

that one is left

giddy

Immobile
Chin tucked
Against the winter cold
I stand as ever
Common as the wind ridge
On the snowfield  
It is late
Evening is near
And my breath shallows
Oh, to be subsumed by the warmth
If only once
To spin dizzily and happily ‘round
In the bright circle
So that I may
At last
Exhale.

high above the river, from the edge of the cliff, one can
see the rafters in their inflated crafts, in the blue and
red and yellow ovals, bright and iridescent and suspended
atop the furious strip of gray as they wend below, lifting,

twisting, careening as their vessels sprout sodden arms that
grip scarred paddles, paddles that swing quick and deep  
into the foam only to then be held still and wide to the water,
a thousand rudders to navigate the rocks and avoid the

hard realities that rise in the shallows and are revealed  
without warning, some only to scream haplessly like
funhouse monsters, while the others lie dangerously quiet,  
unseen under the surface, until at river's tail the rafters

lift their oars in triumph amid the mirror-like calm, life’s
vagaries conquered for the moment

We walked among
Manet and Degas
and Delacroix
Ran Gucci and Hermes
through our fingers
Rode bicycles
On the Champs Elysees
And wore berets  
At rest beneath the Tower
And in a cafe at twilight
We drank too much wine
And we laughed
In the pink glow
Of the city
Until it was dark
And later
Along the Seine
Drops of lamplight
shone on the water
And she spoke of how
Paris was like love
Living only for the night
Its beauty
Vanishing by morning
To return only when day
Again falls into darkness  
To caress only others.

outside, amid the rubble, stands a mound two
soldiers high, made of bricks and mortar, and

cement and steel twisted up with everyday life,
where tables and chairs and beds and blankets

tumble carelessly, askew in the hot sun that beats
ceaselessly against a refrigerator toppled on its’ head,

and upon on a sewing machine halted mid-stitch,
the needle poised above the hem of a flowered dress

Intimate tables. White linen coverings. The room, a checkerboard against the mahogany floor. Cozy nooks for two sit poised for the evening crowd, set against the wainscoting of one wall, a length of crystalline windows above.

A place setting removed, she sits alone, the amber light of her wine an imposter for the last shards of daylight that poke from behind a ridge.

She swirls her wine clockwise. Something to do with progress, he said. Or she read that somewhere. She can't remember which.

She finishes and turns the stem of her glass slowly hoping to leave an impression in the cloth, when a voice says, "May I join you?"

A glance,
A smile,
A hint of attar.
A word.
A touch.
My heart thumps.
A sidereal excursion
And I cannot wait until tomorrow.

Cast off the carapace,
Reject the shadows,
The years of silence.
Bellow,
Boast,
Soar.
Stalk with Orion,
Lie bewitched by Cassiopeia,
And love,
Immerse in romance,
Avail oneself of kindness,
Stoop low for the hungry child,
Caress the brows of the better angels
Before time’s cruel erosion
Renders the faint-hearted famished,
Shackled to the plow
When the final growl,
The tocsin before dusk’s silence,
Rattles for a life not lived.

he found the bench where they always sat,
the one near the pond’s edge where the ducks

would swim close to shore, swim almost near
enough for one to reach out a hand to feel the

soft down, the way she always tried to do, and
when the weather turned gray and the skies

opened wide she would laugh and lick the rain
and say this is duck weather and we’re not going

anywhere either, and now that she is gone, and
he stretches a long bony arm across the top of

the bench to embrace an empty space, he hopes
for dark clouds so that he can tilt his head and

feel the drops upon his lips and
open wide for a mouthful of rain

I knew when your hand brushed my collar,

removing a thread,

and removing all doubt

lantern raised
she yields not
to the untamed hand,
the empty heart,
the preening, the predatory,
that find the pure,
the passionate,
and the tempest that swirls about them,
to mark and groom,
their trust wrought for a singular end,
prevarications
to render truth writhing upon the
calumnies of acolytes,
the hardscrabble earth
where the courage and decency
of the many break and recede  
until wretchedly,
shamelessly,
forsaken

I spoke to an old man on a dewy summer morning
We sat on a park bench under a spreading oak tree and he
Spoke of the space beneath his desk where he waited for the flash
And when Oswald grimaced in pain and
The joy of sniffing freshly printed mimeographs
And the shame of My Lai
How he helped his father pack his things when left as a boy  
And when he wept at his dog’s last three breaths
He recalled the kindest person he’d ever met
And that he once had had faith
He said he remembered everything
And then he moved on.

Her speech is soft,
And she withdraws without offending.
A need for privacy, a gated soul.
Watchful, assessing all that one does,
yet not judgmental.
The tenuous connection of the wary,
careful with other humans.
But her compassion enormous,
reserved for the most unfortunate, who
through wretched happenstance  
are unable to make their own way.
The sick, the feeble, the troubled,
the emotionally destitute,
somehow find their way to her door,
the unknowable gift by which the needy
intuitively understand human kindness.
A rare generosity,
an uncompromised sense of right and wrong.
A shunned autistic boy befriended,
rescued four-legged friends,
clothing gathered for the poor.
A homeless teen brought to tears by the purchase of a prom dress.
No great wealth, no abundance of resources
waiting to be dispatched at the touch of a screen.
Only a wherewithal borne of an impassioned need to help,
to speak out, maybe to erupt in angry persuasion
to sate an abiding sense that one must do what one can.

I still search for you,
or someone like you.
I am sad we no longer speak,
to love and talk the way we used to,
our thoughts unprotected,
like animals in the rain.

Do not be saddened by our sullied and blackened shores.
Do not forsake your dream, for the tocsin will always ring
for those unmindful of origin,
who bear convenient constructs, writhen mores,
all weighed by the dunnage of fear.
Or worse.
Strive, persist, and wait and wait and wait
until voices rise and the pendulum descends.
For the lady still shines, clear-eyed and steadfast.
She still wants you, still needs you.
Your soul, your yearning heart.

Five-thirty p.m., 1985,
A crowded bus.
The passengers generate heat as
The men stand round-shouldered
Reading newspapers, and we all
Sway to the rhythm of the city traffic.
I scan the rows for an empty seat and
I angle past the others, ignoring all
Except for one.
He stoops under a worn gray hat,
An overcoat overwhelms his slight body
And his dark eyes glance from row to row
With urgency as the bus halts.
A seat opens and the little man
Moves toward the vacancy.
I am closer, and I will have it before him.
The man grips the overhead bar for balance.
He is short and his coat sleeve slides
To his elbow and faded blue numbers
Appear on his forearm.
They are clear enough.
I stand motionless as he slides by me.
There is room for him to pass, but
He steps sideways.
He does not look up.
He says nothing.

The form is lithe, familiar,
A silhouette in bold relief
Emerged from the morning crowd,
Muting the surrounding multitudes
Who pass in waves each morning,
Their grey eyes, their grey coats
Moving, like me, in a depressed muddle,
Granted no relief,
Until today, now years hence,
The umbrellas part under the pall of fog
For a brief reveal, a respite from pain,
Momentarily freed from the unknowing,
Granted peace that she is alright,
Beautiful, serene, assured,
Belonging to no one but herself.

warm May morning

early cool breeze  

pock-marked bleachers

men loping lazily across

a verdant carpet  as

bright-white baseballs are

snared under ice-blue skies

and as three-year-old eyes

dart unfailingly, and

sneakers kick up and down

mid-air while tiny fingers

grip the metal chair in

full anticipation

I fall into the dreams I craft.
Unshackled from the present,
I heal my aggrieved heart.
I ponder, fiddle with the past,
Shape time, trifle with fortune,
Fashion what could have been
And remain comforted until
I can no longer remain, for
There are others.    
Others who will not know
The bone-tingling joy of first love
Who will never see a sparrow hop
Branch to branch in the dead of winter,
Who face attenuated life without despair,
Who dare not dream for fear of want.
And yet they do dream,
Dreams infinitely more modest
And infinitely more powerful
Than my own constructs,
And I awake, silent.

I have nightmares, Lisa said. All sorts of nightmares.
    
They stopped walking. Lisa looked at him deeply.

Can you fall asleep, Ben? Or do you think? Do you just hate and hate to think like me, like I hate to think? Sometimes I just hate and hate to think. So, then I want to sleep. But I can’t sleep. But sleep is good because I don’t think then. But the dreams, the nightmares. I have nightmares. So, I hate to sleep.

What kind of nightmares?

The worst. Aren’t all nightmares the worst?

 He pulled her closer.

We climbed over the East River
and the iron web encased the roadway
and I pressed against the window
as the granite squares of the bridge sped by
only to stop along an embankment before
tumbling down to the cobblestone walkway,
running past stone tables with old men
hovering over soapstone knights and
to the promenade, to the railing,
stunned by the grand sweep of it
from the squat cut-stone icon
to the glass spires huddled on the far shore
elbowing for prominence
to the sunset reach of New York Harbor
stretching southward
far beyond the fingertip of Manhattan
past the tugboats that
scurried in the channel
along Governor’s Island
and on past the Liberty Torch
and out to sea.

I buff the rear view mirror with my coat sleeve
Crowded steps
Groomsmen
Shivering bridesmaids
A blur of white lace disappears inside
I slide along the back row
Old, familiar, burnished slick
She passes
Me to the aisle
Crisp scent of White Linen
The ***** quiets
I arch and crane
A glimpse
A profile wedged in memory
Then, a kiss to another
Collar up
I sidle away

Sirens fill the empty canyons, heralds of a deadly spring,
while the images repeat and repeat and repeat across the screen.
Masked faces telling desperate stories of flooded hallways
and gasping hours, of fear, exhaustion, and despair,
of knocks on nursing home windows, of face-time deaths,
and worse, the prospect of triage roulette.

But outside, many fall silently, alone, as they lived,
remembered only by a neighbor’s tardy knock,
or atop the sidewalk grate, as they lived, and have now passed,
quietly, still forgotten, untallied in the daily count, to fill the trenches
of potter’s field that beckon the unclaimed, to be bagged and sheathed
and to soldier in neat rows, uncounted once last time.

They had been together from dusk. He had taken her through their old haunts and old friends, and others, familiar faces with broad smiles and without names, had greeted them everywhere. And now, on her doorstep in the early morning hours, she slid her hand behind his head and held it still as she enveloped him.

When she tilted away, her eyes were closed. Her lips lingered over his, an infinitesimal separation. The night air was cool. She eased away and turned up her collar. She opened her eyes to the blue-black sky and let her gaze search from star to star. Without a word, she was inside, alone, her hands behind her, her back flush against the door knowing full well that was the last time.

like the scent of crisp linens

from morning's first conscious breath,

she is life awakened