by JackRiddler » Sun May 26, 2013 8:37 pm
Remember, Professor, You Were Drunk When You Told Me To Go There.
What was this talk of poets, open mikes, Cavafy and the wine? I came armed
With a folder. Professor, where did you lead me? Did I get the day wrong?
I saw a gathering of the Limnos tribe, a hundred islanders on folding chairs
Waiting for tiropites and barbeque, everyone over fifty, and not a one I knew.
John Cats for Mayor on the wall, women in their so-many jewels, modestly worn,
All the men somehow inherit the sea-cragged faces of their fathers, mulling,
Though half of them have made their lives working indoors, here, for family,
Good people, hard-working people, feeling that time will always be this,
A time of relatives, and for greetings they speak still of the Jesus, Arisen
Who returned from death three weeks ago, knowing inside that they will not:
We are Greeks and thus Greeks are. They need not seek another meaning;
They seek, they do not seek. They seek. They do not seek. They seek.
Here now, the old man shall still them with his guitar.
*
The Neolea (The Youth). At Avenue, on Thirtieth Avenue. Astoria.
Yes, they are still Neolea, still in kaffeneia, still with sculpted hair.
They watch Olimpiakos, Bonnaventura,
They clutch sunglasses and cigarette packs.
They make tight-outfit Peacock displays.
They squeal! and speak of Real Estate;
And they hunger, silently, for Plateia Eleftheria, Korridalos, 1997, the Greek bubble, taxis,
Still the old airports, Astoria to Mikrolimano. Peristeri beckons, past the doormen
Another night seeking. Like all nights, the someones, they seek; they do not seek; they seek.
Until they blink, at "the dawn's rosy fingers" amid the concrete blocks.
Most days they work. Then, now. They go to Yoga. It's all good.
I'm great, thank you.
*
(revision)
Where can I slay 108 suitors to win your hand?
Aye, though I lack the goddess's commitment to intervene for me with spears
And though no gentle bard shall sing of it so all should judge heroic what I've done,
And thus none may live against such odds, and I neither, and no glory shall accrue,
Still I must ask -
My Penelope, Desdemona, my Emma and my Rosa, my Lilith and Salome,
My unknowable one, my more than a ghost but far less than a wife:
Where can I slay 108 suitors to win your hand? How many must they be,
Before you say enough, sated, and cry me into your bed?
What species of cat must I slaughter and fashion into coat,
And how many must they be? What incomes shall I sweat to earn?
What treasures must I steal, What premiums charge, What rents collect
What light refract in symmetry through a rock cut for your love, and yours alone,
What flowers throw in literal showers, a ton of them from a leafblower?
What will it take? What poem would suffice, what theorem must I prove?
What bridge should I build, what moon discover, what dragon ride?
Which of my ears would you prefer as a gift?
To stir in your mind an idea of a man you cannot help but with undying pleasure mate?
What man must I be? Why am I not he?
No, no, no! It cannot be impossible, and yet even be it so,
I cannot ask it otherwise, long as the feeling carries and tosses
And makes me live, and hurt, where I was so unobjectionably dead.
*
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.
To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.
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