Snow Approaching on the Hudson

by August Kleinzahler

  river and sky, seamless, as one—

  watered ink on silk

  then disappear again, crossing back over

  to the other shore, the World of Forms—

  as-if-there-were, as-if-there-were-not

  The buildings on the far shore ghostly

  afloat, cinched by cloud about their waists—

  rendered in the boneless manner

  Cloud need not resemble water

  water need not resemble cloud—

  breath on glass

  The giant HD plasma screen atop Chelsea Piers

  flashing red and green—

  stamped seal in a Sesshu broken ink scroll

  A tug pushes the garbage scow, left to right, toward the sea

  passing in and out of the Void—

  vaporizing gray, temporal to timeless

  Clouds wait, brooding for snow

  and hang heavily over the earth—

  Ch’ien Wei-Yen

  Bustle of traffic in the sky, here, as well, on the shore below

  obliterated—

  empty silk

  The wind invisible

  spume blown horizontal in the ferry’s wake—

  wind atmosphere, river silk

  FATHER

  He handed me his stick,

  the street worker in the hour before dawn,

  the stick with which he picked trash from the gutter

  to put into his bag, the tool by which he earned his way.

  My friend H was much intrigued.

  —Are you going to give it back to him?

  —No, I said, and continued on.

  H caught up behind me, voicing his concern,

  a foreign town, the consequences unforeseeable.

  What, for instance, if he came back after us

  and brought his friends?

  —Thief! he would remonstrate.

  What sort of man would take a humble worker’s stick,

  and force his children to go without?

  We hurried our pace.

  True enough, he did come back after us, and not alone.

  We fled over tar-papered roof decks and parapets,

  down alleys, through private gardens, trampling flower beds,

  dogs barking and H none too pleased,

  gasping for breath, muttering imprecations as we went.

  Soon enough we had shaken our pursuers, and then H too vanished.

  And then, after some wandering, I came upon familiar terrain,

  places I routinely happen upon in the course of these night journeys:

  the circusy corner dive bar, one part Latin Quarter, three parts Brecht;

  a verdant passage winding steeply uphill, not far from the Observatory;

  a perch on the city’s crest, looking south toward the radio tower;

  the lacerating disclosure and acid bath of sexual jealousy …

  I know well the sites and circumstances;

  still, the sequencing and iterations confound me.

  And then, as is nearly always the case, I find myself home,

  home being the old family house, and with no one around.

  I had not phoned to say I would be gone

  and am pained by my own thoughtlessness.

  I know I shall be chastised on account of it

  when Mother and Father do, finally, return,

  which presently they do,

  the car crunching gravel in the driveway.

  But as they walk into the kitchen

  they barely take account of me, so busy are they squabbling:

  nothing serious, mind you, but each anxious to have his say.

  Father, we get along so well these days,

  the two of us very nearly the same age,

  a powerful, more nearly fraternal kind of love between us now

  and you ever so much more sympathetic.

  I keep meaning to ask you

  and always somehow manage to forget: what sort of dreams were you dreaming

  when, as a small child, I climbed weekend mornings into your bed?

  Were they anything like my own, the kind that visit me of late?

  And did you yourself remain a child in them,

  casting foolishly, randomly about as I do, helpless and untethered,

  even as an old man, even toward the end?

  A BAROQUE SCOT’S EXCESS

  Sesquipedalian Thomas, aureate Urquhart,

  Sir Thomas of Cromarty,

  author of THE TRISSOTETRAS:

  OR

  A MOST EXQUISITE TABLE FOR

  RESOLVING ALL MANNER OF TRIANGLES,

  and the most commendable

  LOGOPANDECTEISION

  OR AN INTRODUCTION TO THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE,

  dedicated to Nobody,

  and, not least, his PANTOCHRONACHANON:

  or, A PECULIAR PROMPTUARY OF TIME

  which, with rare exactitude, traces the URQUHART line

  from the Creation of the World and Adam,

  “surnamed the Protoplast” unto 1652:

  these including Esormon, Prince of Achaia (2139 B.C.)

  and Pamprosodos Urquhart, who married Termuth,

  the Pharaoh’s daughter who found Moses among the bulrushes.

  Royalist, bane of the Covenanters, stalwart,

  Christianus Presbyteromstix:

  the “Raid of Turiff,” Inverness, Aberdeen,

  veteran of the battle of Worcester;

  thrice imprisoned in the Tower of London;

  who would perish from laughter

  upon being told of the restoration of the King;

  found him a puddle outside the Cat & Mustard Pot,

  sat

  and waged pitiful tyranny against the phlegm, vibrato, and tears

  that bespoke drink on a heavy heart.

  Chivvied by creditors, pilloried by malison of every kind,

  his noddle much modified by the liquor of grape,

  he gan to unleash his word-hoard

  and visit upon the worst his fullest measure of clapperclaw;

  then, drawing both his oak-handled dirk and sgian dhu

  from his gargantuan purse of Rhetorick,

  fell about them with trope and paramologetick,

  diminishing them tapinotically and by paraphrasis,

  next by means of similie and cromatick,

  followed hard by sulfurous hail of scorn:

  slabberdegullion druggels, freckled bittors, drawlatch hoydons,

  ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, blockish grutnols, doddipol

  joltheads, slutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, noddie-

  peak simpletons, turdy-gut shitten shepherds;

  and still worse, threatening

  to plunge his Roger into their packet-rackets one by one

  until they set off a great pioling in the manner of pelicans.

  And having routed them thus,

  good Sir Thomas shook himself with a meaty hiccup

  straight in the air, up nearly a foot,

  then dropped him smartly on the coccyx.

  —This knight is poorly, Tom said,

  and let go his precious Scot cookies

  near to whole

  like a molten archipelago on rainy cobbles.

  “EAST WIND OVER WEEHAWKEN”

  A quandary, to be sure: kissing,

  tenderly, hungrily atop the bluff on a greensward off Boulevard East,

  right by the steps of the old Grauert Causeway, winding down

  to the waterfront far below, the Hopper painting, two streets south

  on 49th. He must have climbed up all those steps, sketchbook in hand.

  She was luscious, my word, was she ever, dark as a Moor and filled with ardor—

  for me, if you can imagine. Who can say why? We had only just met,

  in the corner of a nearby bar and were almost immediately hard at it.

  Barely a word had passed between us. I suppose these things happen,

  but
not to me or, I daresay, you. The others at the bar were most bemused.

  The problem lay just up the road a few bus stops: a wife and child,

  dinner nearly ready. I loved them dearly and I believe that night was veal,

  shank or saltimbocca, I can no longer recall. And new potatoes.

  I loved my wife. I loved my boy. And they loved me, utterly. What to do?

  Her eyes are lovely, dark and deep. I yearned to be lost in those woods again

  and come upon a sunlit meadow, my head swimming in aromas,

  floral and musk. I know this terrain, too well. If a phantasm, just go. I’m old.

  QUASI AFFLATZI

  White smoke billowed from the chophouse chimney,

  bringing with it the scent of hickory and charred roast.

  It was done, then; and the choice congenial

  to my own, firming, views on secondary school curricula.

  I knew the man, of course, not well, but clearly not a criminal

  or psychopath like any number of others.

  I foresaw many evenings, the two of us,

  seated in a quiet booth, in the selfsame chophouse, opposite

  one another on red banquettes, dark mahogany motif,

  the waitress wearing next to nothing but a shy smile,

  tinsel woven haphazardly through her pale brown pubes.

  —Another double Maker’s for you, Friar Tuck? she would ask.

  —And for you, Chief, another birch beer?

  Which, a fortnight later, is exactly how it played out:

  same booth, same waitress, fresh tinsel …

  —Tino Michelino (né Michele Ambrosiano, Padua, 1944),

  the fuchsia piping and gray ponytail, white and blue yachtsman’s cap.

  The newly chosen Cisalpine Minister of the Public Good seemed touched

  I called him as he was called on the footie field back when.

  (We remain, finally, all of us, who once we were on the footie pitch,

  whether we wield scepter or scythe, and lonely is he who wields the former.)

  —Shoot, says he.

  I’m talking full-on Ascham, says me:

  Archery, Aesop, Cicero, Titus Livius, Melanchthon’s Commonplaces,

  the grooming of leaders through a grounding in classics,

  then add a soupçon of Mulcaster, you know: ‘To daunce comlie: to sing,

  and play of instrumentes cunnyingly.’

  —You kill me, Tuck,

  you do, you really truly do,

  says he.

  AFTER RÉAUMUR

  They are, perforce, panicked by my interventions,

  as well they might be.

  I have studied their formations for quite some time now,

  watched how they gather for assault

  in teeming clumps and chains, broken ovals,

  narrow columns straight as a stick.

  I have observed them as they issue from the bivouacs and earthen galleries

  to lay waste an enemy or replenish their stores.

  It was in Abyssinia

  with their tireless forays and terrible slaughter

  I first took their measure and scrutinized their ways;

  how they pinched or sheared the heads off their victims

  then dragged them back to their underground chambers,

  of which there are thousands,

  to feed their young and hosts of slaves.

  In combat I have observed them extrude the fangs

  of their mandibles, flex their abdomens

  until the cuticle girdling them burst, choking their prey

  in a corrosive, foaming lather;

  or, likewise, from the nozzle

  of their cherished anal vesicle spew

  divers poison filaments—

  endocrine tankers on locust legs;

  or force from its sheath, like a canine’s pizzle,

  the stinger that sits above their gaster,

  convulsing their victim forthwith.

  The dreadful pismire,

  some the size of wolfhounds,

  some no bigger than a grain of sand,

  with spiked carapaces,

  very black, bluish black, red, amber, or chestnut brown,

  who know no day of repose,

  who gather resin from the pine forests

  to strengthen and ornament their terraces,

  only to have these nuggets pilfered by the locals

  and then sold as incense, called Thuringian incense;

  this implacable foe of both dormice and cicadas,

  the latter whose chattering drives them to a frenzy;

  who are suited for nothing apart from war, and perfectly suited;

  ABDUCT PUNCTURE ENSLAVE

  but who will then tenderly stroke the backs of aphids

  to milk from them a single honeydew droplet;

  who will set forth over large distances as solitary scouts

  or in numbers that compare only with those clouds of mayflies

  which congregate certain spring evenings on the banks of our rivers;

  of whom the Indians of Malabar are said to partake,

  having first cooked then seasoned them with pepper;

  who continually exhale a volatile spirit,

  a vile, displeasing musk

  so penetrating and obnoxious it at once provokes sneezing,

  but which is to them as the high aroma of cooked partridge is to us.

  Thus, it was the dogs caught wind of them first,

  here where we’ve set up camp by the estuary;

  and here, from amidst the heavy morning ground fog,

  they first emerged, as if from the very mud below,

  to press their attack

  but in the guise of horses, pack mules, livestock,

  and in greatest numbers having taken on the aspect of human beings,

  soldiers like us, and wrapped in our selfsame uniforms,

  ammunition belts, even our regiment’s insignia,

  antennae folded like carpenter rules under their helmets,

  scalpel-sharp mandibles hidden down the sleeves of their greatcoats.

  The hour of slaughter is at hand, ours or theirs.

  The traps set.

  The trenches of poison, sweetly beckoning,

  irresistible as the song of the Sirens,

  milky with borax, flowing with the oils of clove and peppermint,

  an enchanting quicksand of bifenthrin …

  Press forward my darlings and drink, drink your fill,

  first one and then the whole of them, as they will,

  for this is their nature, their greatest strength and gravest flaw,

  servants of the One Single Mind,

  bearers of the common Mother Scent, estranging them from all others …

  And just as they are drawn to the earliest shoots of an apricot tree

  whose pistils they tear asunder so that they may drink the sap,

  so do these Lacedaemonians now draw close

  and assemble before us, verily a cloud of death

  casting its shadow across our encampment—

  First a thalassic rustling sound, then their suffocating vapor …

  I bring you warm greetings from Field Marshal Zhukov.

  Make ready to boil in our rivers of nectar.

  MEET THE JONESES

  Acetaminophen Jones Rapunzella Jones

  Kohlrabi Jones Volatile Jones

  Cuneiform Jones Chalumeaux Jones

  No-See-Em Jones ’Styrene Jones

  Psilocybin Jones No-Show Jones

  Too Tall Jones Nikitaconazole Jones

  Zanzibar Jones Simplex Jones

  Bösendorfer Jones Razzparilla Jones

  Fizzy Paris Jones Chin-Chiller Jones

  Tegucigalpa Jones Def Jones

  Farfallina Jones Calamitous Jones

  Jugurtha Jones Stegosaurus Jones

  Chimichurri Jones Neutrino Jones

  Malatesta Jones Trismegistus J
ones

  Prestodigitalis Jones Kronik Jones

  Hammurabi Jones Zoophagous Jones

  Muffaletta Jones Scrofulus Jones

  Anaxagoras Jones Supernal Jones

  LAUNDERETTE

  The two loads of washing I had in haste left behind

  were to be found on a shelf at the back of the launderette

  neatly folded into four large grocery bags,

  the more thickly cottoned polo shirts still somewhat damp,

  what I gladly at first took as a random kindness quickly clouded over

  with what can only have been necessity and the terrible inconvenience

  I had brought to bear through my negligence, my persistent awful, awful …

  On an already overburdened and deeply melancholic attendant

  who would not have anticipated for herself this life of chores

  in an over-bright, noisy arena of perfumed foam and the thud of driers,

  small children out of hand, shopping guides and animal waste,

  and on the TV overhead the number one ladies’ morning chat show

  featuring the twin goddesses of our exhausted imagination,

  Kathie Lee and Whoopi, hosting celebrity authors, recovering selfie addicts,

  their frantic quipping reaching a climax just in time for commercial break …

  —Herr Klein-y, might I interject here for a moment?

  I remember now where this was, it was the town famous for its Methodists,

  unhoused lunatics and transsexuals, a halfway decent lunch counter

  around the block and unobstructed ocean views: “God’s Square Mile”

  it read on a large wooden placard as one drove into town.

  —You do get around, don’t you? the doctor said to me (did I sense opprobrium?)

  the right side of his jaw gone missing, shot off in war or a hunting misadventure

  or perhaps eroded by the force of endless chatter and misinformation,

  though it did lend to his countenance an off-center, equine, even rakish look,