gesticulate ghosts
my poems
haunt the unconscious world
of virtual space
blood-moths
fling heart beats
against the screen
gesticulate ghosts
my poems
haunt the unconscious world
of virtual space
blood-moths
fling heart beats
against the screen
time brings to March
the earliest harbingers of April thaw
and ripening between the lives of streets
thru the tracery of leaves
glimpses of royal purple
sylvan shuffle of centuries
rain on the doorstep
girl with umbrella
and the chance to regret
all I never began
to regret
by speaking to her
supplicant to his song's
prismatic streamer
in her gray-scale world
where even sardonic Death
amused,
granted his boon.
Following, following
fated to die again
knowing that on the very
brink of light
he will look back.
new snow will cover up the old
whose heartbreak has at last gone cold
bury the latest blight, the one
whose heartbreak's only just begun
and, so, a final rendezvous
white cloth, soft lamps, table for two
we quietly agree while eating
it is, in this life, our last meeting
and there is talk of things that matter
mingled with the usual chatter
you're for a new life in the West
I to my old world's empty nest
as false dawn with its snowy birds
pales, I recall your final words
"If you should die, will someone write
and tell me?"
"Sure,
I died last night."
the condo acquired a classic purity
museum light
cold and precise
the love that was absorbed
by her skin
raced outward to the world
and was reflected back
now I intuit the rain's mood
my sunset is the painting of a flame
an easy chair and heavy volumes name
the galleries of my life
my solitude
I press my head into your rose sweater
the softness beneath the knit wool.
In your clothes, your shoes
the surrounding air, room, world,
you are presence without pretense
motion without flourish.
Seen on a suburban bus
or in the aisle of a supermarket
ever eluding one who searches beaches and wide thoroughfares
wanting what he can never have
or having, always discards
who searches still, seeing you
"as in a dream where everything happens...
somewhere just beyond the view of the sleeping eye". *
* Philip Whalen
at the quiet hour of night
at neap tide
the sea eddies listlessly
against the rocks
a pale glow
drowses on the waters
night birds shake
fiery showers
from wings
of dawn
insects and feathers
petals and twigs
straws in the stream
leaves in the flow
clouds of bubbles
grasses and stems
rushed by an eddy
spun in a pool
frozen in glass
sliding over a rock
directed, deflected
to archives of day
some scattered about
on the summery strand
some buried below
in the pebbles and sand
some lifted in air
with the foam and the spray
How you would rail and thunder
at the frauds, fascists
hypocrites and crooks;
but in a quiet bed
in Maimonides
all that energy and rage
ebbed away.
In the cancer ward
you said:
"I feel like a clapped out prostitute,"
and pulled the blankets up
over your head
like a layer of dirt.
Your small ghost
haunts the lower East Side,
floating through book stores and coffee shops
stopping to photograph graffiti on a wall
or lovers in the park.
You will be remembered in Cozumel
and Isla de Mujeres
by sailors and fishermen
with affectionate laughter:
"Ah, Simón, that crazy gringo,
how he loved his cerveza."
writing thru paper into world
out of the dark of mind
into light
but whence comes that brightness
if not from you?
the ardor of our island lovemaking
late night visits to your bedroom
in Port Jeff
love at relativistic speed
etherealized in a dissonance of superstrings
sum-over histories
multiversed into sand
into silicon
nothing having changed
no hint of acrimony
saying good-bye
1.
Let us edge the green sorrow of the fir
with shimmering tinsel
with silver spheres
forgive the deaths we have endured
fill the cut crystal!
There's Stan across the table
in Teresa's Polish restaurant
behind a three-year pane of ice
uncles, aunts
grandparents
and cousin Melvin who tried
to cheat me out of my inheritance.
2.
I trudge through city snow
to the merriment of puppets
in Macy's window
skirr on Wollman's rink
in glittering Central Park.
Joy to the snow globe
where four seasons
push the worn turnstiles
of incessant birth.
And we impending ghosts
share with our children
the love that turns to stone
but trembles in a certain light.
after the medieval sculptor
carved the royal hunt
into the halves of a walnut
after the Swiss watchmaker
wove fishnets for time
from wheels and springs
comes the silicon sandman
moving molecules, wireless
writing with photons
etherealization of world
by wizards in cool cubicles
living on pizzas and coke
the girl I wasn't allowed to name Marina
works on tall ships plunging
through crested waves:
strong hands for the halyard
strong shoulders for the storm raked wheel
restless, moody ashore
joyful on high seas
fearless of sister Sirens
or mother Circe
while I, Poseidon
would bless her voyages
send her calm winds
but wish I had insisted on that name
a sun shaft
pierces
moving mazes
of foliage
spearing the eye
wind shuffles and deals
leaves
light and dark
furious whispers
of trembling fronds
rebuke the skirt-lifting
thigh-caressing
boldness
of the breeze
This laughing
and kissing
spring-cleans
my head
and speeds the arteries
like subways at rush hour.
(O therapy!)
(O therapist!)
This poor old heart
is beating a bongo
and dancing the samba
across Central Park.
he survives
eating the apple of arrogance
since nothing inspires hope
he builds the stubble of the wind
into a Windsor of the mind
he walks in smug humility
fixed on his secret wealth
as a miser's cellar of gold
as a people
slaughtered and expelled
from every land
who must be
if anything
chosen
flying across landscapes
in creamy Celica
gathering green petals
scarlet hunting cap
shades steady eyes
reading the road
her riding-breeches
curved to bucket seat
her sweet ass sporting
my right hand's
imprimatur
at the same high angle
whereof I took her
early this morning
© Copyright 2-2-97 Martin A. Abramson. All rights reserved.