there I was
looking out the window
across the courtyard
at a woman at the window
where I lived in her gaze in her
faces and in a tiny space
like dust settling on a table


****


a giant work
a monument
to all the junk
piled on the earth
and one

 

The Untitled

rocks and I
are found often
in unexpected places
a shoulder of a road
a shelf in a book case
we don't get along with others
we don't expect much
we aren't courageous
rocks and I
are often referred to
as things like
he is hard to get to know
or it has no name
he is common
it has no shape
you've heard of
rocks come from mountains
you can find them at their bases
I come from the sun
I came here once
and refused to return



 Spotting Robert Creeley on Allen Street

I find it hard
to imagine him
in a grandstand
sitting with everyone
looking down
squinting to see
that agon explicitly 
his mind is on
other things
certainly the grass
the mound count in
but circumspectly 
he knows love
and speaks of it
not as fans do uncomfortably 
he brings to it scrutiny
in every word gives it
due and you rackingly 
feel as alone as
you are meant to

The Frogs

A Fable

            Beside a rivulet running along the woods just beyond the border of a suburban home, an assembly of frogs had gathered. You couldn’t mistake the croaking however far from the site you stood. It was urgent.

            “I’ve had enough” one of the more remonstrative males said. “I’ve just laid my second batch of tadpoles. It’s humiliating. Everyone is making fun of me.”

            Others joined in. They all knew they were the laughingstock of the species and the laughingstock of humans, too.

            “Soon we’ll be wearing dresses and putting on lipstick. It’s disgusting.”

            “Here here” came the general agreement echoed in the woods as more and more frogs came to join the assembled.

            “They want their little manicured lawns and sculpted hedges and they won’t tolerate wildflowers and any living thing they call a weed. And God forbid any insects should invade their little gardens. So they spray their lawns with pesticides that get into our water and we end up mutants- male frogs that get pregnant and give birth.”

            “What’s to be done” one of the more thoughtful croaked.

            “Let’s go to their Village Square in vast numbers and demonstrate” said a huge female sitting in the mud. “Perhaps, we can stage a die-in. That would generate some interest in our cause.”

“Hear hear” came a great croaking from the woods and by the rivulet and along the banks of the nearby river that ran along the town.

            “Break up into cells and report to the central committee we will establish today “said a small male frog. “We need to prepare and organize and have everyone attend. Thousands of frogs pretending to be dead in the center of their Village Square will wake them up to our existence.”

            So that day the Union of Concerned Frogs was born in the suburbs in the town of Bayville.  They quickly spread word to all frogs that lived in the neighboring townships so as to increase their numbers at the die-in.

            By the end of the night, the frogs in all the adjoining townships had organized and begun hopping under cover of night towards Bayville. There were easily tens of thousands as historians would later relate.

            As light broke on the highway, thousands of frogs could be seen moving along the edge of the road by drivers on their way to work. Some of the people were amused, some were panic stricken. There was no accounting for such an event.  It was unparalleled.

            Close to the opening of businesses, the Village Square was filled with frogs. They lay prostrate on the ground looking as if they were dead.

            As workers arrived, they were alarmed. They discussed the problem among themselves. Some suggested calling the Volunteer Fire Department. Some suggested they contact the Bayville Animal Control Center. Some of the elders who were just entering the local diner thought of the Plague on Egypt. The appearance of so many dead frogs sprawled about had a Biblical appearance to it. Children were ushered away by their parents.

            Pretty soon the fire engine of the Fire Department appeared on the scene. The hose was connected and a powerful jet of water was directed at the frogs. It lifted some of them off the ground, but when the Firefighters saw the frogs begin to stir to life, hop away and swim away, they realized there had been something else going on than at first sight appeared. Plus there were so many frogs that the hose was not going to be enough to wash them out of the Square.

            The Sanitation Department came in with the men using the great stiff brooms to sweep away the frogs. Well with thousands of frogs assembled, it was nearly impossible to make much headway in the task.

            Finally, the Animal Control Center was called in to assist. With all the Village services combined, they managed to sweep most of the frogs into huge plastic containers to be moved to the woods outside of the Village.

            Of course, the frogs were the subject of all the conversations held that day. The daily news station covered the removal effort. The story even reached some of the larger metropolitan news outlets.

            In the end, though the frogs had garnered the much needed attention they desired, no one, not one person connected their appearance to the pesticides that were genetically transforming the male frogs into egg bearing females.

            A schoolgirl, having seen the frogs that day, began to read about them. She came upon an article in a science journal that explained how humans were destroying habitats by dumping hazardous chemicals into the environment.  This schoolgirl might turn out to be the one the frogs were looking for.

A Cheap Trick

A cheap trick is something like this:

when I lived with my brother and our parents
sometimes I took a shoe or sneaker
and balanced it between the door and its frame
so there was an open gap to the vestibule.
(You can only do this occasionally. If you do it 
too often it simply won't do.)
I then called out to my father to hurry and come quick
he had to see this; and when we saw him at the open space
we held our breath and he never even looked in he just pushed the door and the shoe dropped on his head.
My brother always was in stitches after this
and my father well
he was bitter but didn't speak of it.
Just so you don't think I'm a creep or something
I want you to know that my father was very serious:
he never once, not ever, told either of us a joke.

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The Right Stuff Redux

we were in the court
on the uncut grass
playing ball 
we saw contrails above the roofs 
we heard a boom
someone said the aircraft
broke the sound barrier
we were impressed
we all said "wow"
and then resumed the game
and threw the ball home

when the lights went out
I was holding her thumb
it was a masquerade party
and she was dressed as a clown
her hand was a rubber glove
and the thumb was gigantic 
I pressed to feel her dainty thumb beneath it
and wondered if it was warm 
in answer she put her pointer finger in my mouth
and moved it about like a hunter
then there were two and they grabbed
my tongue you know between them
she pulled and she went up and down with them
when she got three in I thought this might be wrong
I was a good boy and believed in God and this
seemed a commandment breaker though I couldn't
think of which chapter and verse
anyway she went for four and thrust
her hand in my mouth in and out and in and
I was moved and she was also
I heard her panting
she was a gymnast and jumped on the horse
and pulled me up with her and there
in the dark she was on all fours like a mare
in a corral in the sunset waiting for a steed
she thrust her dripping hand without the glove
down my pants and squished me like I was a mouse
and smeared my head until I was an acceptably big 
and she pulled down her pants and it was dark
and I couldn't see so she guided me in
and I rode her on the horse like a gymnast 
and she said I had to meet her mother
she'd arrange it her father had died years gone by
when the elevator he rode snapped its cable
and he tumbled down and his heart gave out
before he landed but she said her mother 
had to approve of me if we were to go together
and marry and have babies
and she would she was Jewish and I was, too,
so I had that much going 
bring a babka cake and sweet wine
you'll make an impression
which I did and never regretted it

The Portrait Gallery

by Jack Galmitz

*

I stumbled in

to the afterhours club

and there stood Herman

*

In his locker

Joe had a pinup

of Marilyn Chambers

*

Jerome met Betty

on the rollercoaster

she was retching

*

Mr. Smith was bald

his students thought

he was always

*

Mr. Levine

had a dog

then he died

*

Dunlop knew it

he told it to Humphries

now he’s dead

These poems are conceptual although they read quite straightforwardly. My idea was to show those who were writing poetry that decimated grammar, syntax, and meaning that poetic language was no different than ordinary language and that aporia or uncertainty of meaning could be achieved in the most plainspoken English. The lack of finality of meaning simply accompanied language as a matter of course. The poems, I find, are a bit funny and hopefully are read that way.

I think the dead are singing

or so I gather from their mouths.
I do not like the boat I'm in-
it has no oars
and the big black water has no fish
or prawns so am I wrong?
 
The dead look like angels painted
touching and leaning and grouped
toward some understood truth
that Anonymous knew.
I don't like the car I'm in
it has no horn and the brakes don't work
so what's the use of youth?
 
The dead move like curtains
lifted by the wind. The windows are opened
and let the sun and the snow right in.
The dead seem to have no feet no need
for shoes they drift.
I shuffle along in my orthopedic shoes
poor circulation forcing me to lean on polls
in the street. I think I will join them soon
they are so neat.
 
 
-
 

Shining is asleep now

under the snow
and the plow in the barn
cuts the wind in two.
The tractor is graced
with a glaze of ice
and doesn't move
from its prominent place.
 
The sun is minted.
It does its work
in the subterranean hollows
of the hardened ground deftly.
Stirring deep is summoned growth
an off camera sex scene.
 
And underground in the nether hole
It’s pooling. She's moistening below.
It's a joy to know that out of sight
she's blooming like a nubile girl
bound to be seduced by a vital force
and show her charms
in sons and daughters of light and warmth.
 
It can’t happen soon enough.