April 2017
Irving Feldman
feldman@buffalo.edu
I retired from the SUNY Buffalo English Department in 2004. Have published a dozen or so collections of poems.  Such my addiction to the sport of squash racquets my headstone is to read: "ONE MORE GAME?"  See more of my poems HERE.​

Apocalypse


At the end of Forty-second Street
A broken sun goes down in squalls.
The wind-bewildered twilight
Is blasted on the cracking walls.

The bells begin, against the stone
They butt their swollen volumes of doom,
The auto horns cry out, Atone! --
From their jobs the poor go crowding home.

Ragged glory of the day's
Dying; winter riots on the drum,
Summoning the poor to their patience.
Salvation is a growing numb.

The bells are pounding the last glint.
Where Seventh Avenue makes a cross,
Grazing on the shores of print,
They await the coming of the bus.





You Know What I'm Saying?


"I favor your enterprise," the soup ladle says.
"And I regard you and your project with joy."

At Grand Forks where the road divides twice over,
the wet wooden squeegee handle poking out
of the bucket beside the red gas pump tells you,
"Whichever way—hey, for you they're all okay."

The stunted pine declares from someone's backyard
you happen to be passing, "I don't begrudge you
your good health. In fact, my blessing--you've got it, now."

An ironing board is irrepressible.
"Your success is far from certain, my friend,
and still it's vital to my happiness."

The yellow kernels in the dust, mere chicken feed,
call out, "We salute you, and you can count on us."

We do not live in a world of things
but among benedictions given
and—do you know what I'm saying?—received.
©2016 Irving Feldman
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