I am the author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS, both published by Story Line Press.  A collection of shorter poems, A POVERTY OF WORDS, was just published by Prolific Press (available at Amazon), and I have other poems in print and online journals. I am an adjunct professor of creative writing at George Washington University.  

​Line from Orwell


Forgive me, love, if I recall
the “old regime” and her who was queen of my heart
under it.  She had, at times, a sagacity
like yours, though not as developed.

As once, when we walked in the Rose Garden
rich ladies in the hills
sustain, some distance lower in the hills
above Berkeley.
It was one of the first times
I was aware of happiness
floating immiscibly,
a thin layer, over adult responsibility:
her shit job, mine, no money,
impending hopelessness
defrayed (I didn’t know it yet) by youth,

and how an adult enjoys,
coolly, on a hazy summer day, 
the soft toys
of others: the “Pompano White,” the “Brentwood.”
One level down, a young man
(farther along in his twenties) 
came out from beneath a trellis.  
She noticed him first:
his hair too tight to his skull, the neck too tight,
the clothes grey, each movement studied, robotic,
even the smile a kind of mimicry
as he knelt to smell a rose.
“He’s a very alienated person,” 
M____ said.  “I think he’s dangerous.”
It was fine with me
to climb, somewhat self-consciously, to the street,
walk to the bus stop, return Southside. 
Proles and animals are free.





Arthur


Though he took all the courses and later sat
at the feet of Moholy-Nagy and other
local refugee greats, he never learned
to draw.  Some lithos in New Masses –
a rag hanging from a nail, some blocky
sharecroppers one couldn’t see as moving –
and buttocks or biceps that had to be redone
by the comrade in charge of that mural
defined his early style.  The Army
neglected his talent; he inventoried
parts for three years in Georgia
after turning down a chance to run
errands for a two-star friend of his father’s.

But the stipend continued, and Rachel, whom
he had married when he didn’t go to Spain,
kept up the studio, and parties, which
she wrote him about, and meetings with the Old Man
(which were left undescribed, but assumed).
As she toured the Gary plant or charmed the cronies,
she saw herself checking off the Old Man’s
four items – his ulcer, the enterprising nature
of Arthur’s younger brother, Arthur’s complete lack
of talent (this was an article of faith, not
knowledge), and, occasionally, awkwardly,
the fate of Rachel’s family in Europe –
as Arthur checked off batteries and axles.

They may have thought, in '49 or '50,
about New York, but he had a name in Chicago
and the largest studio in a famous old building –
its central garden like another world,
its wide dim hallways smelling of turps – and then,
of course, there was her miscarriage, as,
earlier, the news of the camps … She aged abruptly;
but Arthur retained his matinee-idol looks
and thought about Abstract Expressionism,
feeling his way painstakingly towards relying 
on impulse, trance, hunch, for none of which, 
unfortunately, had he any flair.
His father died, and Rachel wept at the service.

By the early 50s, he found it.  A palette of greens,
turquoises, greys, sporadic specks 
of orange, and yellow rays.  A sprayer and tape, no 
brushes.  A stylized modern city from 
a distance, below, within, rectangles variously
merging but with always the same effect. 
A six-foot square of canvas looming
over the parquet floor and Turkish rugs,
and always someone sipping at a drink
to mention Feininger or maybe Albers.
(But it wasn’t until the 70s, after
Rachel had died, that Arthur paid
an assistant prof to write a book about him.)

At times, as she cooked and chatted with guests,
he would stare down into the atrium – trying
on winter nights to see past his reflection,
in summer twilights taking in the scents.
It wasn’t affectation: from the salon
you couldn’t see the place where he was standing
unless, like me (I was eight at the time
and there with his friend, my father),
you explored the dustier corners.
In retrospect I recognize that look.
I want to thank them for their kindness –
milk; the two dachshunds; pleasant passing words –
and in some way to rescue him for art.





Hideaway


A stupid or cruel remark
will keep me away for years,
but I always return.
Where else is there to go
when the cheering prettypeople
on television pall
or, carrying a load of books
from the musty library,
abashedly I recall
I have read them all?
Remembered insults blend
with those I tell myself,
and my deep desire for peace
assures me it is peace 
towards which things tend.
Then I walk the old path
above the mudflat towards
the patch of low pine
beyond which things fade,
and am glad to see at its end
the same wind-chafed boards,
the partial, buzzing sign.
All the old gang is there,
forgetfully, idly kind,
and we buy each other beer
and toast the usual words
till, closing the joint, I meet
familiar eyes and hear 
a familiar, sullen murmur:
“Will you never let us go?”
and must say no.





Pamina
            Pamina lebet noch. 
                          The Magic Flute

Cosmology, like other aspects
of culture, seems to be entering
a mannerist phase.
Other universes
forever unreachable (unless
their light slowly rounds
a tight, distant bend
to appear as ours) – yet,
as the impossible crow flies,
only millimeters away …
The idea seems to justify
someone I knew
who sat by a wall,
whispering to it.  One couldn’t tell
if there was hope
for response, or belief
in a presence
behind it, or merely
a place briefly safe
from the vehement dash and élan
of some enemy.

Meanwhile, in a time of 
mergers, failures, increased costs
and the universal triumph
of pop, the few surviving
independent classical
labels have come around to
my taste
for the out-of-the-way, the unfairly
neglected.
So high is the volume, one
feels it will, of itself, create 
a world where things 
go right: where Tiessen
regains popularity and energy
after the Hitlerzeit; where Duparc,
instead of attending mass
for fifty years, manages
to transcribe the angelic theme; where
Rott, after a month
in the asylum, decides
he is not being pursued and poisoned
by the Brahmsians.

And today, up the street, near
the big new houses, on 
those telephone poles 
that perennially bear
sad xeroxed shots
of cats, another 
picture, words other than
“Reward” – Pamina 
has been found!  Pamina, aged 
three, has been returned
to Emily, age six,
who in the photo hugs
the cat tightly to her and
whose face displays 
that emotion one
should never have to, or should always, feel.