The Hanged Man
Strange suited playing cards
Scattered across the land
Jack of stars
Queen of stones
Ace of scythes
Someone is searching
For the rest of the deck
So the game can resume again
No one remembers the rules
The card you’re holding has been
Passed on for generations
Hold it up to the light
To read your fate.
You’ll never know
When it should be played
Editing
I’m a character in someone else’s dream
Who wakes up before finding out what happens.
I’m the icing on the unbaked cake
Of somebody’s forgotten birthday.
A candle, at a romantic dinner, where
Only one person shows up.
I’m ice skates collecting dust in the garage
Waiting for the pond to freeze in August.
Bandages stashed in the first aid kit
For a wound that healed on its own.
Am I being clear or are these just words
Of a language that hasn’t been invented?
Are you the translator of the old scroll
Someone found buried with an ancient civilization
Modeled after the town I grew up in?
I say it shouldn’t have been written.
You say bollocks!. Go fuck yourself!
You’ve just been too afraid to listen!
I’m afraid I’m the show you’ve already watched
When there’s nothing else to do.
The prayer you've been saving
For when it's too late to be forgiven.
I’m the lines you had to edit out
To make it your best poem.
In the Hospital
In the hospital of the city
Where I’d never lived I sat
Next to a patient I’ve
Never operated on and looked out
A shuttered window at the
Car I didn't own parked in a vast
Meadow of asphalt that wasn’t there.
The patient was trying to speak to me
In a language that sounded like heavy
Machinery in need of an oil change
You don’t get it, I tried to say, in an overly loud voice
Like an arrogant American speaking to foreigners
Trying their best to help me
When I woke up, all the lawyers were there
Shuffling papers and checking their watches.
They looked at me like I was a character
On a TV screen who had wandered onto the set
And forgot he didn’t have any lines.
It was impossible to change the channel
Even though I wanted them to.
So I sat for a while and watched the news
While my old patient fitfully snoozed
Hours after the difficult operation
I had assured him would make him feel better
But surely had not.
Once I was certain I wasn’t being watched
I felt for a pulse that had long since stopped
And counted the number of skipped breaths.
When he suddenly opened his eyes and spoke
Very clearly of children and wives
Using names that sounded
Extracted from a science fiction novel.
When his family arrived they called for the nurse
Who arrived momentarily.
They were righteously aghast—
How long has he been like this?
Why does he speak to a ghost?
Calvary Cemetery
There’s a cemetery on the way to the Midtown tunnel
From LaGuardia that caught my eye
So I looked it up when I got home
And I think it’s called Calvary Cemetery.
According to Wikipedia it has the largest number
Of internments (nice way to say corpses)
Of any burial grounds in the country.
It’s just enormous. 365 acres.
A lot of the headstones were sort of thin
And tall and tilting, mimicking in miniature the skyscrapers
Jutting from the island behind them.
I can’t remember if this is metonymy or synecdoche
I'll have to resort to analogy or smile:
Envisioning an old photo in black and white—
A child playing with toy soldiers on the front porch
While daddy embraces his beautiful wife before he marches off to war.
Only here, the cityscape is a make believe
Game passed on from generation to generation
While the toys are the real thing
Sent across the river to an exile far away
Meant to remind the boys
Of the blessing it is to play
Airport
In the airport lounge
I’m the one having the deepest,
Most profound thoughts,
Little kernels of poetry
Imbibing hidden moistures,
Swelling and bursting open.
I’m not scrolling the apps
Or editing photos on my phone
I’m not checking scores on the sports
Ticker or reading trashy romance novels
I’m reading modern poetry
With an eye on larceny
Looking for one line,
A snippet of a clause
To swipe and steer
In a much better direction.
By the time I get there
No one will remember
Where I started
Even in this one.
When the gate agent calls
For the first group to board
I get in line even though it’s not my turn
I’m supposed to be in group nine.
