A Chapter of Verses

by Richard George

mythic songs and play.

  We turned our hands to summer’s work.

  Powdered dung-dust sucked the juice

  from our throats, discouraging remarks

  and idle chatter. Despite the sun

  I felt chills in the stifling shed.

  something stirred that slept in the dark

  rooms of my mind. It seemed that stone

  hunched my shoulders and bowed my head.

  I quarreled with my heaviness,

  blamed it on eating improper food,

  blinding myself to my unease.

  The Carousel

  The palomino swan-coach pair

  and bay horse and black horse all are still.

  They stand with the appaloosa mare,

  nostrils flared and hooves held high,

  poised on the silent carousel.

  The sallow people walking by

  darken the mirrors with their despair.

  They hunch their shoulders against the snow.

  They have no magic of the eye

  to see the horses waiting there

  to ride the golden poles. When they go,

  we see the mirrors shimmering,

  the horses prancing, eyes aglow,

  and, beckoning, the golden ring.

  The Quiet Carousel

  The carousel is still. The gilt

  has peeled from its poles in curling strips

  and lies on the deck. The mirrors melt

  debris to fantasies. A sad

  slow wind rattles the empty cups;

  they sound like horses on parade.

  I half-convince myself I hear

  the wheeze of a distant calliope

  and see clowns caper in the road.

  Small flakes of snow fall through the tears

  in the carousel’s canvas top. I see

  no clowns, I hear no song but wind

  drumming the canvas mournfully

  and rolling the cups along the ground.

  The Coyote

  Last night it snowed. Tonight it drifts.

  The coyote calls from the eastern hills.

  He’d have me raise my cry with his

  to grieve the moon’s uncaring ways.

  I hear the despair in his howling

  that the moon has done him wrong.

  I will not go to howl with him.

  I will not go where God has spilled

  his star shaker across the sky.

  What care I for the fickle moon,

  that I should freeze in the winter wind?

  Let old coyote howl for himself.

  I’ve faithless loves of my own to accuse,

  and in my house I have fire and light.

  The Dowager

  Orange-and-black-winged, two butterflies

  sip at the purple chives. The cat

  folds her tail and poses wise

  and solemn, a gray-furred dowager

  aloof from frivolous moths at their meat.

  You stroke her chin. She starts to purr

  and stretch, forgetful of her dignity.

  The dowager is still a kitten,

  for all her venerable years.

  I look, and in your eyes I see,

  though you wrinkle, your youth will sweeten

  your sour age. Your sight may fade,

  your hearing go, your memory weaken,

  but you’ll still want to watch the parade.

  The Frogs

  The frogs are croaking in the yard.

  Their throats are hoarse. They’ve sung for hours.

  “Ninety-nine droplets of dew on the lawn,”

  they sing, “ninety-nine droplets of dew.

  Take one sip, then wipe your lip,

  ninety-eight droplets of dew on the lawn...”

  they must be drunk, or stoned on grass.

  If they kept a rhythm, I’d sleep,

  perhaps to dream of railway journeys,

  but each must croak to his own drum,

  and sing his own off-key notes.

  Some claim their chorus marks their turf,

  others say they sing for mates.

  I’m wakeful, plotting frogicide.

  The Presence

  You sense a presence in this place.

  I feel a chill, dead, mass of air.

  You think it’s a ghost, one of your race

  still uneasy in its rest.

  Your talk prickles my neckline hair.

  Moonset is orange in the west;

  some angry cloud has tinted the white.

  My unease grows as you draw close.

  I put my fingers on your wrist

  and wish the day would rush the night.

  I measure the stutter of your pulse.

  You take my hand and say, “Let’s run!

  I do not like whatever it is.”

  We run and hills swallow the moon.

  The River

  I watched the sun waltz on the river

  thinking of you and why you went.

  The ripples ran like melted silver.

  I bowed my head to make a wish.

  The river flowed westward, intent

  on the sea. The sun painted a flush

  on the waters as they ran.

  I turned homeward to the rooms

  where your feet left prints I washed

  away in anger. You are not in

  their emptiness, and I must come

  to terms with places empty of you.

  How strange: the river flows the same

  while I stumble on a road that’s new.

  Waiting For Unicorns

  One night when lilacs bloomed in the yard

  I slipped from bed and opened the window.

  The cold breeze chilled my cheeks and nose.

  The moon tarnished the yard with silver.

  The stars had chewed a thousand moth holes

  in the night’s threadbare opera cape.

  Beside me, the clock climbed hand over hand

  from nine to midnight. My books had promised

  unicorns would come to graze

  on lilacs blooming in May moonlight.

  The clock hands slid from midnight to five.

  My heart and body were ice by dawn.

  I saw no unicorns. At noon

  I cut the lilacs to fill a vase.

  When We Began to Love

  When we began to love each other

  I thought we’d love till death came round.

  New lovers don’t see troubles gather,

  immersed in two becoming one,

  convinced they’ll be forever one mind,

  one will, one soul, under the sun.

  Romance breeds a cataract

  that blinds the heart to common sense.

  Yet love survives the setting moon

  to thrive in the day. I’d resurrect

  the giddy ecstasy of romance

  with you, but you’ve found someone else

  who fires your soul with a single glance

  and mates his heartbeat with your pulse.

  White Water

  White water wears at iron-stained stone,

  then tumbles and quiets in brown pools.

  The paintbrush catches the morning sun

  and distills for dawn its purple and red.

  Sun-dribbled gold touches the rills

  that swell the creek from the mother lode

  of glacier ice. Daisies dress

  a hill in lavender shawls. We stop

  and kiss with our eyes. You shake your head

  to stop my kissing with lips. We pass

  a small cascade, the others in step

  behind us. “Look for columbine,”

  you say, “under the aspen,” and drop

  a wink to me for promise sign.

  Wise Old Women

  Old women were wise when I was a boy.

  They crafted childhoods from cookies and stories.

  They knew the secrets of making ja
ms

  and building peace from compromises.

  They knew where small boys went to play,

  and when a silence threatened mischief.

  They brought forth cakes from cranky ovens

  and started fires with kindling and coal.

  They chased my monsters out of my closet

  and swept the ogres from under my bed.

  The world was a decent and orderly place.

  One by one the wise old women

  laid down their baking pans and died.

  The world wobbles in a warped orbit.

  Berry Picking

  A sparrow chattered overhead

  while we picked the boysenberries.

  Our hands were sticky with the juice,

  our fingers too dirty for licking clean.

  The cat stalked the moths cavorting

  above the vines. We complained

  about the heat, but kept picking.

  Grandma promised pie for dessert.

  A thunderstorm rode down the canyon

  throwing lightning and hailstones at us.

  The cat and sparrow fled to the porch.

  We dropped our pails and ran for the house.

  The berries scattered over the lawn.

  We had no dessert that night.

  Childhood Rules

  The old ones gave me childhood rules

  that still compel my obedience:

  “Brine draws the bitter from cucumbers.”

  “Don’t sit in drafts if your feet are wet.”

  “Vinegar seasons beans and spinach.”

  “Salt tomatoes, sugar cherries.”

  “Hot cookies burn the tongue and fingers.”

  “Do your chores before you play.”

  “Children should sleep when chickens do.”

  “Scorch the flour for pot roast gravy.”

  “Wash your ears and elbows twice.”

  “Tiptoe when a cake is baking.”

  “Wash both the front and back of the plate.”

  “When you sleep in strange beds, wear pajamas.”

  Adapted from Anacreon # 47

  I am old, but I drink more

  than young men can, and when I dance

  I take the center of the floor,

  using my jeroboam for crutch

  since my cane’s too short to serve.

  If anybody wants a fight,

  bring him over; I’ll whip him, sure.

  Barkeep, bring me bourbon and seven,

  not too heavy on the seven.

  Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)

  Snow crushed the roof on Lizzie’s hut.

  The thrifty council refused to disturb the ruin.

  They carved her dates on a broken roof tile.

  Why dig the woman up just to bury her?

  For My Ex

  (Horace, Carmina IV, xiii “Audivere, Lyce, di mea vota, di...”)

  I lit candles, pranced

  widdershins around them,

  chanting harsh syllables

  awkward as Klingon curses.

  It worked, my dear. You’ve aged.

  You paint and powder, paste

  a too-bright smile on your face.

  Only the blind are fooled.

  Your flesh has shriveled or sagged.

  Your hair, what’s left of it,

  clings feebly to your scalp.

  Look in your mirror; your treason

  is carved in your wrinkled cheeks.

  The powers that be are just,

  if bought with prayers enough.

  Love Weariness

  (Horace, Carmina IV, i “Intermissa, Venus, diu...”)

  Love gods in every pantheon,

  have done! Spare me further amours!

  I’m not the man I used to be

  when Lou’s love ruled me. Have done, I plead!

  I’m crowding sixty. Bother the young.

  They’ve the constitution for love,

  the will to waltz all night with lust,

  the strength to woo and win and lose.

  I’m beyond both men and women.

  Leave me to my television and crackers.

  But why, when Matt Damon visits Oprah,

  does my breath come faster, imagining

  I watch from poolside as he plunges,

  a golden arrow, into blue water?

  Midsummer’s Night

  (Horace, Carmina III, xxviii, “Festo quid potius die...”)

  Midsummer’s Night, my friend.

  I’ve stashed a Sonoma Merlot

  in the cellar for tonight.

  Fetch it, amigo.

  The afternoon’s wound down.

  Dusk unwinds it shadows.

  I’ll get some ice and a bucket

  to cool the wine.

  While it chills we’ll sing

  songs for the holiday.

  I’ll do songs of the sea.

  You warble laments.

  We’ll end with a duet for lovers,

  uncork the wine and drink

  a toast to fermented grapes

  and drowning sorrows.

  Adapted from Anacreon # 51

  Just because you’re young,

  blooming with youth and grace,

  don’t run from my gray hair.

  Florists arrange bouquets

  with lilies beside the roses.

  My Escape

  (Horace, Carmina I, v “Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa...”)

  What graceful half-god embraces you,

  crushing you on heaps of roses?

  Have you caught him with artless curls?

  He’ll come to tears over you.

  He’ll dive into your eyes’ black seas

  to drown where others have. Too bad

  your eyes are deeper than your soul.

  I was luckier. I got away.

  Shipwrecked Romans come safe to shore

  offered plaques and their sea-soaked tunics

  to thank the ocean. I scrawled my thanks

  on a bathhouse wall and left my jeans

  in a puddle in a shower stall.

  For a Soldier Who Died on Camera

  (Catullus, Carmina LXV, “etsi me adsiduo defectam cura dolore...”)

  Brother, my verse calls me to work.

  I am too dull with regret to midwife

  verses for the Muses. The foreign earth

  lies heavy on you by that strange river.

  I’ll never meet you, now, to spend

  an hour or two in some tavern to hear

  your story of your war. Out of regret,

  unknown brother, I write for you

  this paraphrase of Catullus to tell you

  I held you in my mind beyond

  the electron flicker of your dying.

  Adapted from Anacreon # 53

  Gray hair rings my head.

  When I see young men dancing,

  I am young again

  and waltz as well as any.

  Bring me scotch, no ice,

  to stupefy my heart.

  I’m old, about to die,

  but I’ve got reels to dance

  and polkas to step before

  I let you bury me!

  Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)

  Prion, a sailor of Greece,

  outran the storms of the sea

  to shelter in a windless harbor.

  Pirates caught him there,

  took his ship and cargo,

  recruited his crew, and killed him.

  Tithonos

  Greek tales tell how Dawn once took

  a lover, the young stud Tithonos.

  She granted him an endless life,

  but forgot to include eternal youth.

  He withered as the years piled up.

  Dawn ran off with an ageless god.

  Fate made Tithonos a locust

  doomed to hop the prairies forever.

  Tales claim he still wanders with the bugs.

&nbs
p; If Dawn remembers her lover at all,

  I suppose she remembers him young.

  Who knows what Tithonos remembers?

  If fate was kind his brain has withered,

  and he only remembers the wind in the grass.

  The Visitation

  It was after church

  and after noon,

  and the sun lay on the town

  like eternal damnation’s despair.

  Miranda sat on the veranda

  holding her panda

  while Amanda fanned her

  with a palm frond.

  Behind the oleanders,

  her brother Alexander

  and her cousin Leander

  fondled each other.

  Sister Lorna lounged on a lawn chair

  languid as the lilies

  sleeping on the pond

  in the languorous afternoon.

  Her beloved Papá, the Commander,

  snored in his wicker rocker.

  The cicadas in the yews

  harmonized on their kazoos

  and the mockingbirds slept,

  too weary to mimic their buzz.

  Flies circled the lemonade,

  dipping and sipping

  from pitcher and tumblers

  sticky with sugar

  retreating ice cubes left.

  Silk rustled in the stillness.

  Miranda thought of dry grasses

  rubbing helplessly in a moaning wind.

  The cicadas went silent.

  The Commander woke.

  Alexander left off fondling Leander.

  Amanda laid aside her palm frond.

  The lilies slept on the quiet pond.

  Lorna lifted her head, her limp locks

  slipping over her shoulders.

  The flies, flush with lemonade,

  settled on the rim of the pitcher

  and waited with motionless wings.

  A fungus-pale face emerged,

  like a Polaroid developing,

  above the yew shaded walk.

  Under the face the darker shadows

  formed into a gown

  five generations out of fashion.

  A fierce old woman stood

  in mourning silk and laces

  just on the edge of the sun

  like a raven with ill tidings.

  Miranda on the verandah

  shivered and squeezed her panda.

  Amanda turned and hurried into the house

  crossing her bosom in panic.

  Leander and Alexander peeped

  through the branching oleander.

  Languorous Lorna leapt from her lawn chair.

  The Commander rose from his wicker rocker,

  to peer at the figure on the walk.

  “Great Aunt Cassandra’s Ghost!”

  he exclaimed and fell back in the rocker.

  It creaked under his weight.

  The apparition laughed.

  The screech was nerve-destroying,

  like a death cry of dolphins.

  “Not sober, Nephew Evander?

  Too much rum in the lemonade?”

  The ghostly whisper

  rattled like dry sticks.

  The Commander forbore to answer.

  Miranda’s Mamá,

  Amanda behind her,

  drifted onto the verandah

  dressed in blue linen

  pale as water

  under a winter sky.

  “Great Aunt Cassandra,

  what a lovely surprise!”

  Her voice was a flute song,

  liquid melody in the languid heat.

  “Do come perch on the porch.

  We’ve lemonade, already made.”

  “Great Aunt Cassandra

  died a hundred years ago, Mamá.”

  Lorna’s voice was harsh and sour.

  “I don’t think we’ve lemonade

  enough to wet her bones.”

  Mamá Letitia’s fluting voice

  rose to a gargling shriek

  as she slumped to the porch.

  She lay there like water

  spilled in a puddle

  waiting for the sun

  to suck it up.

  Miranda held her panda

  in front of her to defend her.

  “By the holy jacaranda,

  sacred to the best of families,”

  she demanded of the apparition,

  “what brings you here,

  Great Aunt Cassandra’s Ghost?”

  The menacing whisper was clear

  though it did not stir the heat-heavy air.

  “The Yankees are coming!

  They’ve burned Atlanta!

  The Yankees are coming!

  They’re marching on Savannah!

  Beware! Beware! Beware!”

  With a loud ululation

  the apparition evaporated.

  In the silence that followed,

  the cicadas began to croon

  in the summer afternoon.

  The thirsty flies

  dived into the lemonade.

  Amanda lifted Mamá Letitia

  from the verandah

  to carry her into the gloom

  that huddled in the house.

  Leander caressed Alexander.

  Alexander giggled among the oleanders.

  Sister Lorna reclined on the lawn chair,

  her fingers twisting her limp locks.

  Commander Sanders snored again,

  a gentle sound, like muffled tubas

  keeping the beat for a distant band.

  Miranda hugged her panda

  and prayed on the verandah

  for the repose of ancestral souls.

  Homeward Bound

  Winter moon, watch over me.

  Shadows stalk the feeble streetlights.

  The whispering wind has snow on its breath.

  Long hours in smoky bars behind me,

  waiting for Mr. Right to show.

  I’m going home alone, again.

  Watch me, waning winter moon,

  between the bar and my empty room.

  Hospital

  Every evening they come to me,

  the woman I wed and the man I loved.

  They gather with lesser ghosts at twilight,

  fearful I’ll forget I knew them.

  They swing from the tube that enters my arm.

  They dance on the scope that watches my heart.

  When the lamps divide the glare from shadow,

  they skulk in the dark corners and scowl.

  They wait for my evening medication.

  They want to chatter in my dreams.

  If this room had television,

  I’d turn it on before the twilight

  and drown my ghosts in seas of drivel,

  so I could sleep the night undisturbed.

  Hyperbole

  “If the moon were a medal,

  I’d take it from Heaven

  to hang round your neck.

  I’d take Orion’s stars

  to make the chain

  and a cunning clasp.”

  He smiled as I spoke.

  “But the owls will not take

  their delirious wings

  from the moon’s wan face

  and Orion is hunting

  the negligent bear

  through the galaxies.

  I faint when I climb,

  and a loon is wailing

  I’ll die if I try

  to snatch the moon

  from the firmament.”

  When I said this to him,

  he replied with a shrug,

  and got up and left me.

  “No poetry of soul,”

  I