sostenuto Amelita Galli-Curci & Rosa Ponselle

Wind up Victrola Yiddish Monologues

          Cohen On The Telephone,

                    The Wind the Wind,

“Last night da vind, da vind blew down da shutters.”

               “No I didn’t say shuddup!”

The fugitive words of a Scots contralto

          woman’s chant “McCushla,

     McCushla my dark eyed McCushla”

Ask Aunt Honey age 83, ask Stepmother Edith just 90,

          they’ll know—

               they’ll remember

     “The March of the Wooden Soldiers,” tin drums

          & pipes of Babes in Toyland

“Comin’ thru the rye” new generations of

          folksing kids never remember sung

     when they play Guitar on Union Square’s

               L train subway platform—

or “Auchichornya, auchimolinka, rasdrivyminya,

          molijeninka,” with Mandolins or Balalaikas

and “Tis the last rose of Summer” by Thomas Moore—

     echoing thru Time’s skull as my beard’s

          turned white, sugar high in my blood

               coughing weeks on end fall to winter,

          Chronic bronchitis the rest of my days?

& “Down will come baby cradle and all”

          as 1930’s all fell down with

          mournful Peat Bog Soldiers’

               “Lied des Concentrationslagers”

February 9, 1996

Five A.M.

Élan that lifts me above the clouds

into pure space, timeless, yea eternal

Breath transmitted into words

                    Transmuted back to breath

          in one hundred two hundred years

nearly Immortal, Sappho’s 26 centuries

of cadenced breathing—beyond time, clocks, empires, bodies, cars,

chariots, rocket ships skyscrapers, Nation empires

brass walls, polished marble, Inca Artwork

of the mind—but where’s it come from?

Inspiration? The muses drawing breath for you? God?

Nah, don’t believe it, you’ll get entangled in Heaven or Hell—

Guilt power, that makes the heart beat wake all night

flooding mind with space, echoing thru future cities, Megalopolis or

Cretan village, Zeus’ birth cave Lassithi Plains—Otsego County

          farmhouse, Kansas front porch?

Buddha’s a help, promises ordinary mind no nirvana—

coffee, alcohol, cocaine, mushrooms, marijuana, laughing gas?

Nope, too heavy for this lightness lifts the brain into blue sky

at May dawn when birds start singing on East 12th street—

Where does it come from, where does it go forever?

May 1996

Power

The N Power, the feminine power

          the woman power the

          flower power, the power of Marigolds

          & roses, Sequoia power,

          Nature’s power

wont blossom in this lifetime

          or the next, this Yuga’s finished,

          seeds shot, entered the earth

          gestating with alligators & waterworms

          in swamps where planes crash,

Next lifetimes after, watch roses turn

          red, Marigolds yellow, little

          sequoias begin to climb the sky

Millions of African kids’ll grow up

          amid green bushes & radiant

                    camelopards again—

Down 12th Street corner Avenue A midnight police

          lean against Bodega shutters looking for

          last week’s swarthy crack pushers

May 15, 1996, 11 A.M.

Anger

How’d I get angry? Analytic approach:

M’I still angry with Carolyn? forty three years ago

          kicked me out of bed with

               naked Neal their house San Jose—

Disadvantaged hating Podhoretz

               for put-down of Beat writers

                         queers nineteen fifty eight

               later defense of death-squad drug-dealer

                    Generals in El Salvador

                         & op-ed B2 Bombers

Angrily sat an hour adamant

          Thangka-thief meth-head Gaiton’s apt.

               E. Houston Street nineteen sixty three

                    never got my Dancing Skeletons back—

Never forgave late Alan Marlowe nineteen seventy five

               stole back my $100 loan gift

               to Jyoti Datta Calcutta four years earlier

Lost my telephone temper with critic Walter

               Goodman

          insulting Gunther Grass’ visit to poor South Bronx

     International PEN Congress nineteen eighty five

               & my own handmade Nicaraguan

                    Contra-War peace petition mocked