Poem One-Remembering
I open my book of memories
turn pages back in time,
rewinding to years of
faces, storms, and change
unsure of what I’m looking
for
yet knowing my hand must
go on turning
grandmother is here, cooking
apron on
smiling, calling me back
to her land of sun,
I see fruit trees, bees,
and gardens grandpa kept quietly.
There’s also the hollowed
out tree
in our London yard hiding
mystery things forever.
Landscapes shift, cities
rise, disperse
London, Paris, San
Francisco, San Salvador come and go!
all my ghosts are here
sitting in a quiet row.
I’ve given them no order
for their different roles,
chanting songs,
But don’t get me wrong
this is no book of regret,
it is simply a map of time
finding its vocabulary of
memory
with ink and paper
made of flesh and tears…
Poem
Two-Familiar Faces
I step unto Market Street
between 2nd and
3rd street,
there, on time, I meet my
ghosts
one of them says,
‘I think Market Street is
the best street
in the world of streets in
the world which I have seen.’
Frank O’Hara New York’s
City Poet
says things like that as he
walks with me in his 1945 Navy blues
hands ready to play a piano
or re-write tragic-comic poems at once,
we throw away metaphors,
eat up roasted adjectives
enjoying Auden cocktails
until Jack Spicer runs by yelling,
‘a poem is a collapse of
the real.’
we try to catch him but he
dives into a bar and disappears!
Market Street becomes a
fair of words
dark rain clouds the song of
memories
O’Hara turns to me and
whispers in meter
‘someday you will meet my
friend Kenneth Koch
in some future day he’ll whisper
to you between a burger and a shake…’
‘What will Kenneth
whisper’ I ask
“Poetry is the mediation
of life”
Frank says laughingly,
putting his hands in his
pockets
humming an opera or
something, skipping in growing blue puddles
I smiled, sad to see him
go, words turning my heart into faith and doubt
each word a kiss
that stings and soothes,
each a divided empire
I cant overwhelm, so I
started whistling and walk towards Spender…
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