But took a while to undertake
My full transparency
Ages since I went to look
Or she would think to hide
Torn the cover torn the book
The stories all untied
But someone made of thread and mist
Attends her every grace
Sees more beauty than I did
When I was in his place
THE GOAL
I can’t leave my house
or answer the phone.
I’m going down again
but I’m not alone.
Settling at last
accounts of the soul:
this for the trash,
that paid in full.
As for the fall, it
began long ago:
Can’t stop the rain,
Can’t stop the snow.
I sit in my chair.
I look at the street.
The neighbour returns
my smile of defeat.
I move with the leaves.
I shine with the chrome.
I’m almost alive.
I’m almost at home.
No one to follow
and nothing to teach,
except that the goal
falls short of the reach.
WORK IN PROGRESS
he’s going to get sick
and die alone
he is the main character
in my little story called
The House of Prayer
OPENED MY EYES
G-d opened my eyes this morning
loosened the bands of sleep
let me see
the waitress’s tiny earrings
and the merest foothills
of her small breasts
multiplied her front and back
in the double mirrors
of the restaurant
granted to me speed
and the penetration of layers
and turned me like a spindle
so I could gather in
and make my own
every single version of her beauty
Thank You Ruler of the World
Thank You for calling me Honey
THE CORRECT ATTITUDE
Except for a couple of hours
in the morning
which I passed in the company
of a sage
I stayed in bed
without food
only a few mouthfuls of water
“You are a fine-looking old man”
I said to myself in the mirror
“And what is more
you have the correct attitude
You don’t care if it ends
or if it goes on
And as for the women
and the music
there will be plenty of that
in Paradise”
Then I went to the Mosque
of Memory
to express my gratitude
NOT A JEW
Anyone who says
I’m not a Jew
is not a Jew
I’m very sorry
but this decision
is final
TITLES
I had the title Poet
and maybe I was one
for a while
Also the title Singer
was kindly accorded me
even though
I could barely carry a tune
For many years
I was known as a Monk
I shaved my head and wore robes
and got up very early
I hated everyone
but I acted generously
and no one found me out
My reputation
as a Ladies’ Man was a joke
It caused me to laugh bitterly
through the ten thousand nights
I spent alone
From a third-storey window
above the Parc du Portugal
I’ve watched the snow
come down all day
As usual
there’s no one here
There never is
Mercifully
the inner conversation
is cancelled
by the white noise of winter
“I am neither the mind,
The intellect,
nor the silent voice within…”
is also cancelled
and now Gentle Reader
in what name
in whose name
do you come
to idle with me
in these luxurious
and dwindling realms
of Aimless Privacy?
PUPPETS
German puppets
burnt the Jews
Jewish puppets
did not choose
Puppet vultures
eat the dead
Puppet corpses
they are fed
Puppet winds and
puppet waves
Puppet sailors
in their graves
Puppet flower
Puppet stem
Puppet Time
dismantles them
Puppet me and
puppet you
Puppet German
Puppet Jew
Puppet presidents
command
puppet troops to
burn the land
Puppet fire
puppet flames
feed on all the
puppet names
Puppet lovers
in their bliss
turn away from
all of this
Puppet reader
shakes his head
takes his puppet
wife to bed
Puppet night
comes down to say
the epilogue to
puppet day
NEVER ONCE
India is filled
with many
exceptionally beautiful women
who don’t desire me
I verify this
every single day
as I walk around
the city of Bombay
I look into face after face
and never once
have I been wrong
WHO DO YOU REALLY REMEMBER
My father died when I was nine;
my mother when I was forty-six.
In between, my dog and several friends.
Recently, more friends,
real friends,
uncles and aunts,
many acquaintances.
And then there’s Sheila.
She said, Don’t be a jerk, Len.
Take your desire seriously.
She died not long after
we were fifteen.
LOOKING AWAY
you would look at me
and it never occurred to me
that you might be choosing
the man of your life
you would look at me
over the bottles and the corpses
and I thought
you must be playing with me
you must think I’m crazy enough
to step behind your eyes
into the open elevator shaft
so I looked away
and I waited
until you became a palm tree
or a crow
or the vast grey ocean of wind
or the vast grey ocean of mind
now look at me
married to everyone but you
EVEN SOME OF MY OWN
This is the end of it all
There won’t be much more
Maybe a cry or two
From the peanut gallery
Where I have made
My last stand
In the meantime
Operate on the heart
With proven songs
Such as Ave Marie
And Kol Nidre
Even some of my own
And execute
The recommended procedures
Such as kneeling down
Beside the appalling heap
Of days and nights
And patting the newest seconds
On to it
As if it were
A child’s sandcastle
Facing the tide
Under a full moon etc.
In other words
Encouraging
In the old penitent
A borderless perspective
YOUR HEART
I told the truth
and look where it got me
I should have written about
the secret rivers
under Toronto
and the trials
of the Faculty Club
but no
I pulled the heart
out of a breast
and showed to everyone
the names of G-d
engraved upon it
I’m sorry it was
your heart
and not mine
I had no heart worth the reading
but I had the knife
and the temple
O my love
don’t you know that we have been killed
and that we died together
WHAT BAFFLED ME
I took pills for my memory
but I could not stop it
from erasing
I had a family once
They could walk on water
There was a one-way chain
that held me to a woman’s body
She didn’t know she jerked me
every-which-way
But who was she
and who were they?
In the midst of
someone’s explanation
I forget
what baffled me
THE WIND MOVES
The wind moves
the palm trees
and the fringes
of the beach umbrellas
The children go down
the waterslide
The grey Arabian Sea
slaps its soiled lace underwear
on the dirty flats
The wind moves everything
and then stops
but my pen
keeps on writing
by itself
Dear Roshi
I am dead now
I died before you
just as you predicted
in the early 70s
SORROWS OF THE ELDERLY
The old are kind.
The young are hot.
Love may be blind.
Desire is not.
ALONE AT LAST
How bitter were
the Prozac pills
of the last
few hundred mornings
ANYTHING WHICH REFERS
Anything which refers to the matter, even obliquely, is far from the mark. An incapacity for relevance is to be
