18
NO ONE IS LEFT TO BLAME

Nowhere to run
tomorrow, darker than
the night before,
how can a soul find comfort?
No one is left to blame.
A glass ring.
Images beyond suspicion.
What you wished
to bring about,
the opening of many doors,
comes into question.
Throwing caution
to the winds
the little band
is playing
bright cacophonies.
The sound the trumpet makes
rattles the tables.
Men & women stumble
on the way to church,
deflecting sleep,
interpreting the past
as though alive.
The reckless
reveries of priests
have little worth.
They beckon
& the screaming
father falls,
his mouth
extruding birds
that shatter windows
in the worlds
below.

19
THE MYSTERY OF EVIL
        for Oda Makoto

The mystery of evil
rests in God,
no less in terror.
Fathers who shun the world
cry scandal
where they spawn,
eyes dark as dungeons,
a wool beard
on every face.
Men grow transparent
in their rages,
oblivious the more
they claw with
longing
at each other's flesh.
The mystery of terror
rests in God,
no less in evil.
Poems are written
to the dead,
the ones
who do not speak nor share
a common language.
In the air of caves
a figure like a god
lies broken.
His glasses tumble to the ground.
His breath smells sweet to everybody.
Fools find places
where they track the stalkers,
legs that cross a line,
a line that dwindles to a point,
a point that shatters.
Stars collide.
The words of poems
go up in smoke.
Mothers brandish babes
like weapons.
There is no
boundary dividing
life from art.

20
A TOWN WITHOUT A NAME
        for Michael Palmer

A town without a name
is still a town.
The men who ply their wares
head out one morning,
never to turn back.
The child who sleeps above us,
tongue gone numb,
gathers his coat around him
& debarks.
A gang of thieves finds refuge.
Banners flying,
marchers brave the storm.
With table set
chairs empty
the dead who suffer hunger
search for meat
in sabbath splendor.
Gardens blossom where a hand
digs deep     the rows
of laborers,
small men forgotten
like the names of towns,
bend with the wind.
Bright words like bella
grace their dreams,
their days degraded by
inane lavoro.
Theirs are forbidden thoughts.
A miracle from heaven,
long awaited,
does not come to them,
though peace
once sought,
is nearly there.
To make his point
the gangster
puts a gun against
the father's ear,
then pulls away,
stunned by the silence
that the act provokes.

from A BOOK OF NARRATIVES



jerome
rothenberg