Naked Man

for Randy Newman

A naked man sat down at a piano today
A naked man started to play
And did anyone hear, did anyone listen
To what the naked man had to say?

I sat down without my clothes on
I bowed my head and started to pray
I said, Lord if you can hear me, and Lord
If you can see me naked before you today

Oh, what shall I put on what shall I wear?
Will it reveal or cover me standing there?

They say it’s illegal to be naked
A naked man can’t walk in the street
Out of pocket can a coin keep its shine?
Can a shoeless man protect his feet?

And where is a naked man to go
To try on his first suit of clothes
If a hand-me-down dress from a benefactress
Is less of a cover than holes?

Oh, what shall I put on what shall I wear?
Will it reveal or cover me standing there?

Nothing’s more dangerous than a naked man
And nothing’s more helpless too
And if anything’s funnier or more truthful
Than a naked man, I’d like to ask you

Take a look at that man at the piano
Is he hidden or exposed behind the smirk?
Is he brave when he lies or plays the jerk
In tunes for kids or adults full grown?

Oh, what shall I put on what shall I wear?
Will it reveal or cover me standing there?

Cut

What a thrill—
—Sylvia Plath

Oh boy a second’s
slip & instead of bread
a slice-shear off years
of careful tread.

Nonretractable
that switchblade switchback
second repeats &
repeats, oh, you’ve done it right!

Yet back & forth
on the kitchen floor
soaking wad after wad—
judgment poor, flawed god

Master of knives
repeat the sin,
a loop in the brain,
dig in!

See it again & again
through a gauze bulb
blooming pink
with a dangle end

To snip or pinch
but not to touch
as your gut sinks
in lieu of lunch.

No pill
but a redcoat march.
No doctor are you,
to the clinic go.

A shot a suture,
go by the book.
What a relief, hey doc,
wanna hear a joke?

Who’s tall &
svelte as a blade
yet cringes
at the prong of a fork?

Antiseptic boy
bumble bum,
bulbous blue
clown thumb.

The Arms of Man

Strong men, upright and bold
will provide continuums of care
for the likes of a Florida man,
older than his years, past his prime
in a job serving up a blotched face
to noonday eaters.

Hear their spurs and song,
hear the comforting clank
of their silver spurs and the iron
horseshoe’s downward spiral dance
of another law rung up,
plunging the turds out of sight.

Our hero is on his knees
drawing a half circle around the bowl,
morning sparrows playing
at the window, heaving for the world
like tumbling into a ditch, wagon
long off the trail.

Put onto the Broad Boulevard
with all he owns: torn pants
and worn shirt, ball cap soiled,
without a lunch or a bed passing
like a ghost among throngs reveling
in the great Sunshine State.

He goes on down to the bay
where diamonds flash over water
determined to relinquish his only prize
since She is determined to have him,
one act of dignity to dive and meet her
halfway in a final, his own, act.

Prone before action he is flooded in light.
Circled by flashlights attached
to the undeniable vigor of upright men,
he is put in wraparound service cuffs,
assessed as not blotched by drugs
and returned to the arms of man.

Reading in Bed

The man on the park bench reads in his bed:
everything wrinkled, worn, and yellow,
ill-fitting pants lined at the seam with buttons,
once silver, shoe blown out,
cigarette burned to the butt,
the book held not selected,
my angled vision almost aligning
with his, at me and back
to the aged pages bent back, a last glance
perhaps
for that particular incarnation of a text.

I note: reading is a skill
used for many purposes. And how many
has he known? How many
selections have been foreclosed by whatever
brought him with a blown-out shoe to the street—
or shall I decide that someone who can pick
up a book cannot make a bed—
without a line to hang a sheet,
without the means to wash a line?

Down the Banks of the Susquehanna

That day I’ll be in step with what escaped me
—Seamus Heaney, ‘Squarings’

It must be a blessing to believe
that one will one day, if in a moment,
be able to measure and thus erase

The degree of slippage
between knowledge in the offing
and knowledge secured.

I know grace only in forgetting
my sense of self resides in the gap.
Gazing down the garbage-strewn banks

of the Susquehanna I perceive
duplicity in place, and I in my vision,
slip either out, or in.

And Still You Have Not Written the Poem

I have a folder full of unshared Mockingbird Sings posts. I like some of them and have a reason why each one remains in the folder. Some still itch. Others seem redundant. Others feel like they had better be kept private. There is one about the purpose of contemporary poetry. I had thought that, this being National Poetry Month, now might be a good time to share it. But it remains in the folder because, while, for me, I can see no path to or for poetry without deciding in my mind what poetry is for, these aren’t necessarily the kinds of thoughts that need be shared. However, while leafing through my journal today I came across an old entry that might serve as a compromise. It is something I wrote at the age of 25, a time when I was reading a lot of Nietzsche and the books on my table included the confessions both of Rousseau and Augustine, and The 120 Days of Sodom. The entry is in the form of a list of notes and questions that I think still works to stimulate thought. Or at least I hope it will for a reader. So, here it is:

Turandot

1

Aches and cries born in blood
rise with the moon. Shouts
and sobs give way to silent tears.

Liù appears, faithful to a smile.
Calàf knowing and not knowing
her love in the moon’s silence,

Unmoved by death or jeers,
swayed only by his rising blood
though Liù is love strikes the gong.

2

Turandot a reborn Princess Lou-Ling
enacts revenge on presumptive princes
who would conquer in the name of love,

Knowing not knowing in her armour
the trumpets’ blare barely disguise
a hairline crack on a countdown

To the one named Calàf, in love,
one, two, three, striking with wit:
in Hope, through Blood, on Turandot!

3

Can anyone sleep with the name
knocking insistent as a pulse
on however barricaded a door?

Liù’s sacrifice the first battering
and then Calàf’s relinquishment,
Now you know my name!

Eyes open now, only complete
sacrifice can reveal the true name
known at dawn: Turandot is love.

Dante

Jacopo
placed his hand flat on the wall
as a writer
on a ghost-white sheet
places his only pen
to join
energies
from Ravenna outward
through embattled Florence
and down
through the pages and dust
forward and back
in candlelit caves or under
chandeliers or utter
darkness
where brilliant spirits
convene.

Three Walking Riffs for Bukowski

1

I’m walking home from work
and as I approach the lake
I see the woman wrapped
like a pig-in-a-blanket
parked in her chair
and she’s raving screaming
at the whole world
and she probably has good reason
to be angry
but there’s no catharsis
because there’s no one
to take it out on.
Her screams go out
into the empty air.
I’ve been standing all day
and my feet are sore
and I’m not going to skip
the shortcut past the lake
just because a crazy woman
is ranting in a chair.
I head right for her
and now she has a target
she gets louder and angrier
and I tell myself she’s not angry
at me as she thumps her thighs
screaming about walking
and she doesn’t know my feet
are killing me, just
that I’m walking.

2

Say your job is a prison sentence
and you’re serving time
thinking you’re getting duller
and duller but you’re too dim-
witted to know your point’s
already broken.

Say you’re a cup
having sat so long on the shelf
it’s yellow once white.

Say you’re a drawer
full of mechanical watches
each stopped
at a different time.

Say you thought you saw
the worst always happening
now stares back at you
from the workroom mirror.

Say that turtle with fungus
on its back isn’t swimming
with all its might
to devour white bread
thrown from the bridge.

Say this walk is the last
you’ll ever take.

Say every second isn’t
the sweetest.

3

Everything hurts
and if you fall
everything will break
but you haven’t
yet
you’re upright
and ambling
and the sun
is brilliant
after a hard rain
and with your poncho
tucked in your pack
you look ahead
and keep walking.

A Quick Call

Quick
headspace
all together
hate
in the eye
crybaby
sabotage
angry
Babe
quick

Hi Babe quick call head space
virtual all together I am here
inject hijack poison
problems of your own
crybaby girlfriend
look me in the eye
without a shoulder
sabotage
hate
“fuck you”
angry upset
quick

If only I weren’t self-aware if only
but I want my head in a good space
and how is it others can hijack my space
inject their hate and poison my vibe
and I’m sorry Babe you have problems of your own
you don’t need a crybaby girlfriend
who can’t go to work without a shoulder
unlucky yours but it’s only virtual
it’s just a voice and I’m here in this space
it’s real and their hate is real
and I don’t know how to deal

Hi Babe I’m in the breakroom just a quick call
I have to close with Tyler and Wendy tonight
and they both hate my guts and I’m so angry right now.
Tyler’s always trying to sabotage whatever I do
it’s like he doesn’t want me to be seen doing a good job
he hates my very existence and we were all in a meeting
together and Wendy conducted the meeting
and she wouldn’t even look me in the eye
and my head has been in a good space all day
I was listening to music and now I’m so angry
to work all night with people who hate your guts
and I just want to look at them and say, “fuck you”
and I’m so angry and upset right now.