Sonnet: The Sense of an Ending

 

 

In Faerie Tales  if the ant king says to kill your horse

Then you better do it especially if you want the girl and the gold

And all the coupons.  Standing by the waterfall you think

That everything has changed and you are not sure why

 

And then the Czar comes riding along and next thing you know

You are at the ball with your ratskin gloves and your sneer

And the chance to die defeating Napoleon and a sleigh

Will whiz you away that night and you dance—

the moon, the Neva then—

 

The great train to Moscow. And then who should leap

Beneath the train?  Anna! Anna!  And you say something in French

And the train moves on as do the stars whirling

So that—at the end—you end up in Paris

 

And, on the boulevard you walk you walk

And, one night, pass the young Baudelaire. Tip your hat.

You are dying, dying.

In 1953

 

In 1953

I was in our living room

Reading the comics.

“Dondi,” I think.

And the headline in the part of the paper I

Put aside said:

 

“STALIN DEAD!”

 

And my father came home from work

And took off his hat

And I asked him

“Who was Stalin, Dad?”

And he said

 

“He was a bad man, son.”

And reached in his pocket

And flipped me a silver dollar!

 

Now let’s all watch

As that silver dollar

 

falls.

 

Bell Book and Candle

I always liked Kim Novak
In “Bell Book and Candle”
Curled up on that couch
Which you would describe as
Immensely red but you are wrong
For the colors that show best by candlelight
Are (she tells you) white, carnation and
And a kind of sea water green
And Pyewacket that lucky cat
Curled up next to you green eyes
And a sardonic glance
And you reach for the silver cigarette lighter
Man, you are as shaky as Jimmy Stewart
And it is Christmas! Christmas!
And you know she is a witch and
You want to ask her
Why she well… has a tree…Let the room
Abound in light especially
Colored and varied
Or something like that.  Witch?  Christmas?
And she gets up and is on
Tiptoes placing the ornament just so
(“oes and spangs as they are of no great cost”)
On the tree and she knows what you are
Looking at. She knows.

Christmas?  But if you ask she’ll say
Something like “The best art is general”
Which, really, you haven’t heard before
And she turns and the doors to the balcony
Open and snow swirls you out and you
Are both on the balcony.   Manhattan!
And you know that Gene Kelly is
There somewhere feeling just a bit blue
But will anyway dance his way into
Someone’s heart tonight and snow is
Steepling on the Chrysler Building and
There is giant impossible yellow moon
And she is there and you

Know this poem ain’t going to end the way
You want it to.

 A Lone Ranger Christmas

My personal space is being renovated
And Christmas is coming.
That beige suede couch had to go
And it will be a week before
Miss Alexa Hampton Papageorgiou
Stepdaughter to Count Mario Loreta Frusci di Bertinoro
(that horrible man) and Nathalie Farman-Farma
Will along with other
Young Friends to Save Venice
Arrive with my 18th Century Venetian
Toiletry case so how will everything be
Ready for the Mr. Jimmie Stewarts who
Every Christmas bringing along Mr. Danny Kaye
Who is a bore but is after all
Mr. Danny Kaye? They expect tea and my conversation
(I never mention “It’s A Wonderful Life”)
On Christmas Eve and how will I then
In all good conscience the Mr. Jimmie Stewarts
And Mr. Danny Kaye being as it were homeless
On the eve of the birth of the Christ Child
Proceed as is my wont to Harlem
Where a bevy of  jazz combos
Of the good old sort play
Alluringly shining in the candlelit mirrors
As I sip brandy and recover

All lostnessesess.

There is a certain slant of snow
I can see from my analyst’s office
That promises that someone very like
Theda Bara will soon come into my life.

But stepping as it were BACK into
Cinderella’s coach, past midnight and
5 o'clock in the afternoon
in Coatesville I find fuck it
I am as it were (I wish) back in Coatesville.
Flush then out into the PA slush a man
In uniform with a job to do leaving merrily
The St. Regis a very nice hotel bar of “The Shining”
Sort and at least I ain’t at the Bongo yet
Like my friend John sitting there all his
One dollar bills on the bar showing he has
A right to stay.  No, I ain’t doing so well
But at least I have a job and going down 2nd Ave.
Past the coal yard Christ does any other town
Still have a coal yard past the Polack kids
Sitting on their Flexible Flyers smoking Pall Malls
Past Giancola’s Barbers where for thirty years
He has had up a 1963 calendar showing a kid
Getting run over by someone very like
Hugh Beaumont who is horrified that his 59
Buick hit this kid and he is drunk  Don’t
Drive Drunk past Trionfetti’s bar same neon Martini
Glass winking green in the window. I’ll bet my
Grandmother wished she were still alive so
She could walk by me wishing she could just
Walk on by me never looking at me at all
Her loser Grandson so I stop in Trionfetti’s
For a little drink.  41 and back in town.
I’ll be late for work. This must be the
Very last JC Penneys and here I am my
Man Just give me the motherfucking bell.

 

The Loneliest Ranger