gently
hourglass
segue to spring
my mother’s irises are blooming
sympathy for the man in the white van
These clothes are cold weather
dear and warm me
Nevermind that last letter
I found the cat at the foot of my cot
Did you lose your manners
with your mittens
I did
Pancake is a word I like to say
so say it
Can it be avoided
green blade
that snowflake headed for you
Wind will not aid you, no
but the sun may melt
his lips on the way down
These are natural causes
as I am all day and you are
not night so why
do I let the white cat bite
my left hand
It was then that the sun
Admitted a prescript
Grimace upon the sand.
The sand sung a ditty
Soon to be swallowed by
A giddy wind, waxing
Deciduous. The wind
Knew nothing of the sun.
Nor the sun of the wind.
The sand made sure of that.
The sea sighed long white hats.
Little mouths going oh
Build castles anyway.
Little hands to hurry
Summer to an old man.
Umbrellas frog the beach.
A piper sweeps footprints.
Each suffers his status.
The sun to hassle sand,
The sand to worry wind
And none not unwary
Of the dark blue figure,
Unmoved unlike water,
Neither here unless there.
We were always caught in some fracas. Hope,
a jig we bopped well into morning. The day asked for soldiers. Owning
none or few, we leapt around the apartment, longtailed, in rooms full
of rocking chairs. Of course, we had tried to avoid the squabble, but
there we were, smackdab in the middle, forced to scuff stupidly at our
shoes.
Night was a puddle of stars by which to see ourselves clearly. Each wick
mocked and mimicked every whim so that no sooner had the heater caught
its breath, it blew
a few quick questions
later swept neatly under hats so vast, it seemed magic they’d ever been asked anywhere else. For example, when I walk outside, does the door eat me?Outside, under a sky of sodden cotton balls, snowfall is forgiving a bandit’s trespass. A man sticks out his tepid-colored tongue, squirms as if heaven has a taste, motions for me to try. Look you’ve only to cover your ears, your eyes, like this—
unaware of his hands, the cuffs, the glib car already at the corner.
my mother’s irises
are blooming
People are raining from the sky.
A gull pets the air with its wings.
How many quarters did it take to build
the United States of America?
The people share a single eyeball. They pass it
back and forth between them like a sun.
They look out their windows and wonder
what death is. A white van screeches by.
Somewhere clouds are hailing hearses down
but not here. Here someone is counting
the clinks a water pipe makes before it bursts.
People love other people
and do not know how to behave.
This morning I gave a man a quarter.
I could have given him a dollar but didn’t.
The dog opened its mouth like a black flower.
Everyday it must be taken for a walk.
The children must be taken to school in car seats.
People have children or don’t.
Joshua Beckman is not a terrorist
though his poems have been translated into Arabic
and have appeared in Arabic newspapers.
He will ride the ferry alone.
People will build temples out of the thin air
they dream they breathe.
If the sun wakes them, they will be angry.
It is early and understandable.
The cock is yet to crow.
The people grow long white hairs on their ears
and eat refined sugar. The sun is hiding behind a sheet
of clouds, as if it were cold—lovely green lawns.
Lovely rows of houses with people asleep inside them.
The king has made plentiful.
The day has bestowed. Riches
commensurate with sorrow.
sympathy for the man in the white van
o
to be
the brother
of sleep
woe
to shut
so many
eyelids