Woman of the Ship

Young woman of the ship

Ellis Island American Newborn

I am an American

no one cared,

and they used her sweat to

arm shirts and

leg pants for forty years.

She was happy with her garden

and with the memory of the man

who left her with three kids

speaking only Yiddish

and never fair to the man who took his place.

She died alone

holding her photographs

The only thing I can remember of her

is her telling me not to whistle

 

“It’s impolite.”

 

Canaries

An old man sits

Dry as a moth motionless

except

 

for the small clean fast blinking of

his eyes

Sending Morse code dot dot dot dash dash dot

 

A record plays

it plays bird songs

 

 

Canaries, Lovebirds and Starlings.

 

“Grandpa, why do you have records of birds?”

“To get lonely birds to sing.”

 

Round and round the room

Bird song 33 Rpm’s on an

LP

LP= Long play 32 minutes repeat

Auto-Matic-Ally

 

Birds die while

Records go round and round and round

 

The old man sits motionless

except

for one clean perfect flash of yellow

in the white moth like flutter of his eyes.

The Accordion Salesman

 

A tall thin man in a gray suit comes to my door

with accordion keys for teeth

 

He smells like a salesman

His lapel pin reads, “Milton Mann Accordion Studios.”

 

He pulls out a 120 base Contello Accordion

Silver with red keys

 

Stretching out the bellows

angels fly from between them.

 

His hair is a raging fire of notes

F sharps twirling up in smoke

 

“ Here Kid!” He hands me the Contello.

 

It covers my body like a partial eclipse

I pull out the bellows and squeeze

Notes fly from the reeds like startled birds

 

“You are a natural kid.”

 

We sign on the dotted line

He smiles

Shakes my hand

and walks away carefully as not to

trip over his tail.

 

Orange County

.

.

.

Copia Latin root of Copy abundant (Connotation: Wealth)

Sub [less than] Urban.

My parent choose Plan 3d (3 stands for 3 car garage. D. stands for deluxe floor plan)

Watched it grow. Skeletal pine. Stucco

Paradise of imitation Spain

Los Angeles River Cement Highway of Rain God

I ride my bike to the beach (10 miles)

past Plan 3a’s 2b’s 3c’s My head filled with brochures.

the waves, the flat sea, stretching to Urban Tokyo.

[Abundant], miles and miles of Sidewalk. After thought

of architect, Picture frame, Wide

as a hungry mouth. Surrendered to the Auto-less

We wander miles of sidewalk that connects nowhere

to nowhere. We spend hours in 3 (car garages)

Or 2 and smoke pot.

While our mothers sit on the edge of couches

In sunken living rooms

Smoking cigarette after cigarette.

Church Bells

She stands naked

 

her body in the light that come from the street

quivering

her lips wet with complication

trembling

her legs in the silence

shuddering

 

e y e s closed

 

Through

her heart blue rivers rushing

her heart

is in the shape of a city.

c h u r c h bells ring

 

and every

one she

has ever loved

 

r u s h e s   in

The Theological Studies of Insects

.

.

Winged insects

Seminarians of flight

angelic instructions

Bees studying architecture

Poetry and Rhetoric

while crickets pour over

illuminated books debating

inconsistencies of the Word.

The ants are busy

learning industry and geology

while spiders contemplate spinning

and weaving techniques

their long prayer shawls of silk

dragging across my floor.

the accordionst by Picasso

Sputnik

*

*

*

A man walks out of his apartment and sits on the front door stoop

watching a star move across the sky

traveling East to

West and Sputnik blinks back like a one-eyed man

In Kansas

Silos pace back and forth nervously while a little boy

rides his bicycle over the family bomb shelter

in circles

Old Mayans

looking into the sky

read the old prophecies

Scratching their heads

While Atlas shrugs his shoulders

Swats at a fly

Germany 1939

Adolph smiles and eyes the bratwurst
Benito sitting beside him
drinks the wine.

 

The summer is hot
Benito’s neck sweats

Eva is hanging shirts on a clothesline
hanging Jews on barbed wire

 

The summer has bloody hands

Benito snores
Adolph reads his reports
drinks coffee
signs orders

 

He picks up red ball and throws it to his dog
The German shepherd digs her teeth deep into the ball
as the SS digs gold from the mouths of old Rabbis

 

Benito wakes for a moment
and winds his gold watch
Benito is snoring again

and in Italy all the trains are running on time.