MORNING - Kean Universityracaffre/poetry/POETRY/Ordinary Time.doc · Web viewPink Floyd's Wall filled the hall, too loud--"We don't need no . . ." The washing machine clanged; the

MORNING

"Introibo ad Altare Dei . . ." Father Wily would say, too fast, all too early in the day for me to call upmy memorized Latin. "Ad Deum quilaetificat juventutem meam,"I would answer, nervous, not quite awakeso early in the morning before school.

Not much of a crowd those dark March mornings. The church was cold and every sound echoed:a stifled sneeze; a late comer tiptoedup the aisle; a cough. Someone turned a thin,stiff missal's page, trying to keep pacewith Father Wily's quick, breathless Latin.

I smothered a yawn and my eyes wateredwhile I sat through the Epistle: Saint Paulcomplained about rough seas, ship wreck. Dawn's firstglowing light colored the stained glass windows:Saint John, in dark blue, emerged with a book;Mary, in blue and white, stood on a gold lined cloud and rose toward the sky; a young manwith long hair and a halo, his hands tied above his head, slumped down beside a tree and looked upward while he bled from arrow wounds: seven arrows. The rising sun's shafts of light trapped brilliant specks of fast movingdust and rose to light up bits of gold high in the cathedral's dark mosaic dome.

A steady, cold draft blew round my ankleswhile I knelt, watching closely for my cueto ring the gold bells when Father Wily

© Raymond T. Caffrey, 2005 1

raised up the host and his bright gold chalice:the church became still for that long moment;a huge silence would gather to embrace the music of bells ringing their finest tones, and like a great organ sustaininga note, the empty church echoed and sangthe bells' cheerful song, then let it fade outslowly, gently, till it was the faintest hint of music gone from perfect silence.

The taste of the host was still in my mouthwhen I took off my surplice and cassock:it made me hungry. The cold sacristychilled my coat and made me anxious to leave:I took my books, my lunch bag and I hurrieddown the aisle. The church was dark, oddly still,vacant; the sun now sent shafts of coloredlight down through dark stained glass windows. Each dim beam lit an empty space in the dark pews. My quick steps echoed through the hollow churchtill I pushed open its heavy, arched doors.

The skies were blue and not a cloud behind bright sun that warmed my face and eased the chill from morning air. I was awake and gladfor a donut I found in my lunch bag.The last church goer drove his car aroundthe corner and the grey stone parking lot became our school playground: I wanderedalone, curious to find beer bottlecaps, cigarette butts, broken glass, bobbypins, the telling signs of a playground'slife after school and before morning Mass.

The school was shut, silent, asleep; its sandcolored brick sparkled in the bright sun


like the brief, faint smile of a pleasant dream.Not a soul about and the place so still--it seemed impossible that soon noisybus after yellow bus would come to pour streams of boys and girls in blue uniformsscrambling onto the playground to awaitthe shrill, piercing bell that signaled the start of another day. Such a fine morning! I wished I were free to go home and play.

Morning Prayer


Lord, grant me greater correspondenceBetween motive and action, intentionAnd result.

I am sick with a slow declineOver long years of working hard to do Nothing to earn a day’s pay.

Days are ruledBy their need for pay. We do not rule the day With work of our own invention.

We work at nothing, putting little ones into Big ones, hammering the huge rock, reading Long, dull reports, adding vacant numbers,Stuffing envelopes, collecting money, loading Trucks . . . and who was born to load a damn Truck?


There's no tellingwhat you won't seeif you don't look.

Eden

Now it’s eat the apples and fear the animals(Too numerous to name);Grow your own and bear up under The entropic orbit of body And chaotic movement of soul. It’s mystery over wonder, time, The elements: we’re not safe; If the earth’s faults don’t a tornado Will, or a parching drought sun, or forty Days of rain, high winds, treacherous Snow, tidal seas, Cain killing Abel, fire,


Garbage and seagulls, deadly sinsTo trample beatitudes gone slack To platitudes: “the meek shall eat Handfuls of dirt whilst traipsing homelessThrough dark allies as if in frantic Search of someone.” The morning Sun rose white hot, a perfectly round, Platinum ball that burned through dense,Floating fog, looking small, like a roving moon. The Yucca bush sent up long snakes of buds To bloom sudden white flowers that struck The first burning strokes of summer; in the evening, Fire flies sparked golden lights that twinkled Briefly above tall broad grasses in the field That sloped from the road to the low land Near the brook and the woods. We found a crow’s Feather in the garden near the house, and Joe Returned with cantaloupes, a hand made serape, And his smile. We brewed coffee and laughed About the crows that ate all the bright red cherries In the tree top and spit the pits to the sidewalk Where they left red stains. The moon rose full Just before dark and shone that bright yellowish White some say promises a hot day, but I reveled In the warm, silent stillness, compelled by all The summer moon inspires, conceals and reveals.


Mystery

Mysteries abound. Consider: “Give Unto Caesar Those Things That Are Caesar’s.”Who better deserves Caesar’s things?

There are joyful mysteries of annunciation,Visitation, and nativity, mysterious mysteries, Illiterate mysteries, long-legged mysteries, Glorious mysteries, astronomical mysteriesOf politics, economy, religion, psychology,Medicine, education, law, ignorance, arrogance, Sorrowful mysteries, mythical mysteries.


What things does Caesar want?

One rather glorious mysteryIs the perfectly proportioned Symmetrical mons delicately carvedIn the stone of Stella’s marble belly. Even dry, it looks slick enough.

Who might want Caesar’s things?

A short, round cleric in black cassock And cloak topped with an egg-shaped head Gone bald, his lips pursed and oysterEyes magnified behind thick glassesWalked by ignoring his students.

He taught mythical mysteries: Circe And her Sirens, who touch the magic wand To pleasure or distress the hunter, the thief,The juror, the milkman, the witness, The carpenter, the writer, the priest . . . Father Hennessy walked with eyes downcastHis head bent to one side as he picked An unencumbered path through clustersOf laughing boys.

One young girl, a teenager wakesTo find herself pregnant. Who will believe She is a virgin? Joseph? An angel told her, She said—quite a mystery, that. Je vous salut, Marie . . . Amen.

Suicide is a sorrowful mystery. Ernest Hemingway shot himself. I felt the cut. He was dead on page One in large, bold, black, dark thick print. I read his books. Now he’s dead. He took dead aim and shot himself: quite a good


shot, too, but he was a hunter.

A mad scramble for Hemingway’s things ensued. I looked the other way. It was all right to read Huck Finn: Twain lives on; Clemens is dead. He’s goneA long time, but Hemingway just shot himself and died. John Lennon would not have shot himself;He had to rely on someone else.

Lazarus died and Jesus criedWhen he arrived. Lazarus, aliveWalked forth and sighed, “Oh, well.”

Father Hennessy liked the old fish story: Jesus told his men to pass round their fish And bread. All were amazed that so few loaves of bread and so little sushi fed so many. A dry affair. No grill. No talk of beer or wine. He reserved spirits for weddings.

Cold water over ice; A drag from the exhaust of a clean Carburetor, white with smokeSuddenly gone. Sit back to rock,Maybe have a red wine. Too much is too muchEven when it’s just enough.


Whiskers and The Victorian

She was a shallow stream,a wader's dream,and he liked fishingup minnows.

Hers was a fetching gleam:the moon's full beamconjuring a steadyunder-tow.

He splashed on self-esteem,to an extreme,and thought to give hera good row,

but, t'was her secret schemeto reign supremewhilst he was bathing


his ego.

Their puddle sure teemedand raged, till it seemedlike oceans aboutto overflow.

All those wordsMother taughtme not to saycome in handyonce or twiceevery day.


Conversation with the Wall (VIII)

No sops for Cerberus;so let him growl,while we fetch Persephonewho's been too long gone.Long toothed Winterhas made us irritablewith excess.

The romance of fire cools when we must keep it alight through too long and too cold a winter.

We learned that in Marchwhen this withered old wretch conjured twenty tornadoes and two volcanoes and winds to agitate seas,and snowstorms to kill off the crocuses.


The GardenThen Jesus prayed like you and I:“Father, I would rather not die.

I'd be content to step asideand, in time, grow old with my friends.

I would rather avoid prison.No one values lambs, doves, the pigeons

we kill. Scapegoats take men off that hookbut that hook still hangs in the water,

baited, waiting for them to takeanother day, and these men here,

these, my sleeping friends, what can you ask of them? Such as they are? Not

much, I fear!” So He prayed, then stood, and woke Peter and James and John

and He waited with them, alone:as He lived all his life, alone,

a stranger among men, apart,puzzled by puzzled crowds who came

to see they knew not what, to hearthe words of one whose words escaped

them. They came like the puzzled soldiers who came that night, armed and wary,

fearing the moment, the darkness,to capture one who would not flee.


Good Friday

Lily's eyes stared wide and roundas if stuck open with startled dismay."Come on," she said, "what's all theseclothes doing here? I didn't finishyesterday's wash yet . . . ."

Pink Floyd's Wall filled the hall,too loud--"We don't need no . . ."The washing machine clanged; the vacuum cleaner roared its angry scream and the dog barked and jumped as if he would attack its every move.

An ill-conceived Spring with sudden snow burying limp crocuses too quick to live.

Easter eggs boiling for dyeing--at three the stress of Lent is gone.

Lazy, graceful, languid snow dancing,drifting down, floating slowly downthis Friday in April.

Melancholy lilies hang their headsin mournful shame in Shepherd'schilly hot-house. "They've been forced,"Shepherd said, "along with the mums and azaleas. Lilies don't take it well. They're no fun," he chuckled.

Tomato soup and tuna fish--dinner for a damn snowy Friday in April.

Fuzzy Chaos


Stripped of old illusions I sat in a corner of myself Looking out on my confusion:

my thoughts shown like shards of fractured light strewn about the street: I dreamed a reign of terror too frightening to recall—a rundown sandstone dwelling

with mirrors on narrow walls.Each spoken word re-echoed like shrill screams at night.A woman, a cat, a baby cried out with frightful random shrieks.

If not monks with quills, surely Silent Renaissance sculpturestanding deftly in long corridors with thick carpet to lure old men in black velvet gowns, grown impervious to the echo of age-old folly.

Grim, aging, in long vestments, Father Wicker stood outside his church and extended a hand, his large wide hand with thick fingers, like the fingersof the milkman whose hand I have shaken once or twice--what a large handful of wide fingers. Can these be the fingers of a rogue priest?

Conversation with the Wall


In mocking hesitation,Old Whiskers bowed his head:"It's mostly of this erato live in fear and dread

the push along the subway,the stranger with a gun,the organized militiaarmed and having fun,

the nuclear reactors,terrorists, and more,the nagging threat of livingthrough the very last world war.

No telling what they're thinking,down there in Washington's Mall,but everyone who goes theresits on Humpty's wall.

So fare you well this fun house,wisely choose your way: we'll know you by those things you do.Not by those you say."


Chaos

Sometimes I think God is a wizenedOld man, gone mad,Senile and nasty

Wednesday (on the road)

Heavy rain and turnpike trucks: the wiper blades are shot. Radio news promised sunshine before noon. Invisible planes--muffled roar above. Suddenly one begins to emerge from low grey clouds, just above the car; two engines near the tail. The plane roars loud as it floats--slow,too slow for its size--across the road and down, down;


just above the airport fence, it disappears with a fading roar.

***************She said her name was Helen, but I think of her as Cathy: nearly called her Cathy once, till I caughtmy tongue and stammered, "Helen," with an odd smile.

***************Freddie wants a 4 x 4. He means to sell his van. "The truck will go for ten; the van will bring three grand. I'll borrow some and pay the bank a little bit each month, like I did with my swimming pool,"he said, proud of his scheme and his means.

***************The rain did not abate. From one to another, and noluck at eleven: "You said I'd have it Monday!! Todayis Wednesday, and it's still not here!! Your companyis all be-cocked!!!" spat Doug, still stung with reprimand.

***************Rain gave out and sun blew in. A cool wind thinned the cloudsto reveal blue patches of sky that shone bright on wet roads.

***************Valerie got a swimming pool with her very own apartment:she'd make a sight in bathing suit, but her heart is seton money, big money, but plastic will do till then.

***************Over-dressed and under-paid: "much too cool for tennis,"Marsha said, made-up in hope of the dear, stray compliment,"My but you do look pretty today," she hoped to hear,thought she heard in her nine to five daydream.


I'd had enough for one day, perhaps three. "Bye, Marsha,"I smiled a weary smile. "Windy, now the rain's gone. Careful on the wet roads!" I refused to give in.


Ordinary Time IV

I'm fond of my new umbrellawith its slick black web, like the wingsof bats sewn together. My type-

writer is new. I'm only nowfinding its feel, learning its touch.I'm certain my new typewriter has something to say, if only

I can learn which keys will allowit to speak. My silver and goldfountain pens each had one or twomagical tales to tell, and if

my foot did not hurt I would havethat sense of well-being that comeswith luxuriant equipagewhen one can walk with a lilt.

Conversation with the Wall (IV)

In as much as it pleased


God to take Bob in Juneat sixty and Alice,Oh, Alice, at fifty-sevenin July, we cannotbut submit to his willand we go on Mondayto bury Bob and we go again on Thursdaywith Alice, and we wonder,through silent tears aboutGod's pleasures.

Vietnam is a memory now: remote as Korea, World War II.

Once Nam was everything:once, for a long, long painful time.

"A brief war, as wars go," will say the books. Hard to face then, Harder now:


men, grown from boys, eighteen, haunt

street corners like lost souls, they beg in frayed uniforms: spare change can not change a life spared in war, doomed

to haunt lost souls, victims themselvesof private wars, wounded, scarred, numbed,their own horror haunting them,

they cannot hear the anguished voice: "Spare some change for a vet, friend?

Ordinary TimeTwenty-Second Sunday

Thank you, thank you,one and all!So nice of you to come!

Let me thank you,one and all!Ho-ho, ho-ho-hum!

Goodness me, so niceto see you!Nice to see your face.


So nice to see yourfurtive eyes,your precious weighty grace!

So nice to see youhere again!So nice of you to Come!

Ho-ho, ho-ho, ho-ho-hum!

Well.Old Jim'sbusy now,pushing upthose daisies,I guess.


Uncle Jack's Last Address

We are meant to live welland to gather a wisesense of life as we go,or as it goes; to raise up a soul that grows talland strong as the old oakthat stands beside Sutter'sCreek in the snow and rainand the bright, warm sunshine.


Ordinary Time V

The old guys get to know the supermarkets:some wander round the gadgets while the wifelooks over the cookies.

Others push the cart in stone-faced boredom,while the wife lumbers through aisleafter aisle, absorbed in her list, searchingthe same shelves, day after day.

Some wait outside in the parking lot,hours at a time, while the wife wandersthe store alone, having time for herselfevery day from eleven till she remembers to come back.

Then there are those who stew in silentrage as they push the cart and checkthe list: rice, canned hash, prune juice,tomato sauce, olives, Raisin Bran for the wifeat home, who's busy watching her soaps.


That poetry stuff is hard work:old man Lawrence did not know that;he never knew the strenuous pullhis son, Bert, made.

He worked all his lifehacking coaland spent his last yearssitting heavilyin a canvas strap lawn chairswatting flieswith short stiff strokestoo slowfor flies.

Bert fashioned his poems,painted his pictures,and wrote out his novels--twice or three times;he worked every daylike his old manandlike his old manhe took home too little.


Old man Jordan livedin this house and raisedchickens in sheds and soldeggs and ran a bookif the webs of phone lines could speak the truth.

Now this house is mineand heavy rain stillwets the cellar floorbut the sheds are goneand the field is cut into tight wedgeswith smart, new housesplanted too close to-gether round a smallblack-top cul d'sac,

and this, it seemsis how it will be,

and I am pleasedto believe it will be so,

though secretly I know that one

day a young manwill gladly say he lives now whereold man Weston lived.


If you look at whatyou are doing whileyou do it, you will not have to look atwhat you did whenyou have done.

Eight-Two-Three-Eight-One

Stuffy, severe old Valdimir spokeSunday throughout the Times Magazine.He'd a think or two left in himabout that maniac Dostoeveskywho "looks like literature


to balderdash readers!"

Though his quarters were crampedhe held forth against Buster Brownwith one stocking on, tugging anotherfrom Tide's teeth, though Tidewas conspicuously unnamed,being, no doubt, dead as Valdimir, by now.

Bloomingdale's seduced with showershaving, a rite for one performedwith seven available itemsand a mirror rounded by black sweating tiles and dense steam,and Geico sketched a happy ending for a stick smart bride who proddedher newly acquired to completethe provided form that would insuretheir new car!

Cramer's crystal chandeliers and Castro'sconvertiblessqueezed Nabokovinto two inchesfor D's educationand some unpleasantyears in Siberia.

Hand knitted hat and mittens seguedfrom Siberia to the miracle of ascending stairs without walking,with the simple installation of an elevator in your flat.

Dupont waved three smiling kidswearing jeans beside a toytractor while D’s going madderin Siberia till he married


at the bottom of column twojust next to butcher block desks and flash frozen steaks.

Old Nabokov worked deftly roundescargot and AALBORG SOMETHINGto say that Dostoeveskyat last succeeded with The Possessedand a speech upon the occasion of the unveiling of Pushkin's statuein 1880; after which he abruptly diedbefore the only full column gets going,and a good thing he didn't live longenough to hear Valdimirsay he had no taste and wallowedin the tragic misadventures of human . . .something interrupted by concupiscentphotographs designed to conjurea wish to hurry off to the Bahamasin hope of finding that particular beachwith that particular girl,or at least to be lounging comfortablyin a Carlyle couch of leather . . .

"Dignity." "Human Dignity" were the wordslost in the distraction of the Islands:"the misadventures of human dignity!"Nabokov then says the brain is the stomachof the soul and Irving Trust says it's smartto have a personal banker.

By now they'd had enough of Valdimirwho got shoved off to the back pages:he next appears on 63but hasn't the shadow of a chanceagainst two shapely versions of the love-touch bra: one holdsits weight head on, and the other shifts it slightly to one side.


Atop the ski ad, Nabokov makes his lastvaliant stand: he shouts down Dostoeveskywho is "too rational," and uses methods "too crude! His people don't live; his facts don't exist: he's mere mechanical convention."Period. Little black square.

From beyond the grave, the celebratedghost hooted his book with Macy'sand Bloomingdale's and the Bahamas:he held his own too, till he got to ladies' lingerie.

School

Last year?We didn't learn nothing:we didn't learn nothingoff Miss Hackett.

She said she's not an ogre:but nobody wanted to go near her.She was like an ogre.

Ogres are large animalsthat live in cavesand eat people;they have sticks with chainsand a heavy ball on the endbut they can't come out in the lightthey can only come out at night.


The teacher before her was old.She was nice, but we didn't learnnothing off her neither.All we did was color,but she was nice.Miss Melon was her nameand we had her becauseMrs. Racket was sick all year.So we didn't learn nothingoff her neither.

But you got to go to school.

WHAT I DONE FOR SUMMER VACATION

my old man got sick and he got operated on in a hospital in new york and got better after a month and come home but he couldn't do nothing for a long time after that. When he was home he told me what to do for the summer--paint the picket fence white. Cut the grass. Pull weeds. Trim the edges. Plant the garden. Weed the garden but don't touch the cucumbers--kills 'em. Wash the car. Clean out the garage. Catch worms at night for fishing. He fished in a lake and never caught nothing. Then he heard about the bay. Didn't need worms for that. We needed other fish to catch little fish. Small blue fish that were only sort of blue on top and white mostly. Then we caught fish. Lots of little fish. I learned to clean them. You cut off their head at the gills and cut them down the middle of their belly and get the little skeleton out and scrape the scale knife over them and get rid of the scales and when you're done there's not much of a fish left. But we had a lot of them and he liked them. Or he liked that he caught them after all the time on the lake with nothing coming up after the worms and the bobbins still on the water and the lines got tangled and we had nothing to eat or drink out there in that boat and there were mosquito bites. He liked seeing the red and white bobbins dive down


into the water and stay there while something ran with the line. And the reel sung out. Then a priest that taught him something in school came and told me about girls and nice girls don't like it. They let you do it if they like you but they don't feel nothing and its a sin but I knew about girls and was scared because I wasn't supposed to, and when he asked me if I did, I said no. So I made faces like I was surprised and my face hurt after a while. He liked talking about it, and wanted to make sure I was going to be good. So he finished up and we went downstairs and ate, but I was tired. After a while he came back and I had to make believe I liked him and was happy to see him again. They talked and left me out of it, and I was glad, but then they came and said I was going with him to Canada on a bus with some people from his church. I wasn't sure I liked that much, but they wanted me to pretty bad and I made faces like I was happy. I stayed at his house and didn't like getting up early for mass the day we left. It rained. I met two girls I liked, one in a white pleated skirt that hung nice over her and made it look like she was nice and her friend was shorter and had nice long fingers and nice hair and eyes and she was pretty, and the priest kept trying to make me sit up in the front seat of the bus with him but I kept going to the back seat where the girls were. He didn't like me leaving him up there alone but I couldn't think up nothing to say to him. Couldn't think up nothing to say to the girls either. But I liked them and I liked sitting by them. We went to these shrines up there. They gave us little candles at night and we lit them up and walked around holding them and said the rosary in french. I didn't know french and it took too long but it sounded nice and they had crutches hanging up in church and wheel chairs from people they said got cured out of something without getting operated on. And when I got up the last morning, I met the girls and had coffee and I never had that before and it wasn't good, but I kept the jar they brought it in. When I left the restaurant the girls made believe they were shocked but they put it in a pocketbook and walked out like nothing. Outside the restaurant I saw newspapers in english standing up in a rack and one said ernest hemingway killed himself last night. Biggest print I ever saw.


The Wisdom of Eight

You don't calla teacherby its first name!


Ordinary Time(Trots More Or Less Iambic)

The leaves began to pass awaygoing, in dry season, to vaguefall colors.

Miss America crowded AtlanticCity with bus-loads of spectator-gamblers.

Hot, humid, suffocating, yellow airhung like a scrim before Manhattan's silhouette.

The Feast smelled of Garbage.San Genaro's band playedtheir old march through smoke hot streets with imperfect rhythm:aging musicians whose spirits were high, though their numbers had dwindled.

In Kennedy Park, little boys and girls


played fall soccer in fast waning lightwhile the sun fell huge, round, gold behind thinned trees and burnedthrough crooked gold branches with profound silence that drownedout the sweating shouts of menurging breathless boys and girls to victory with excitement near anger--the high pitched frustration with side-lines and the short-lived concentration of small boys and girls.

Fall 1992

Those were the days—before the launch, yes-Terday or the day before, when books Were read, and songs were sung—radio;Before television. Now it looksAntique, like a chair in need of glue;They spoke of Modern then, and they thoughtModern meant new: Avant-garde, DadaSurreal, the Symbol, Abstract. They foughtOver a word, an idea, a turn Of image to make better prufrock.

We’ve brightened up Michelangelo—Peeled off his tortured gloom: turned the clockEither back or forward or around. Turned up a stone age corpse kept on iceThese five thousand years. Someone knocked Off his scrotum, took his boots—a niceWelcome to this nameless age of rap. Grammar’s a goner—we put our buts First. Jesus is a figment of Paul’sImagination, a myth that cutsThe road to Rome and the scrotum, too. Beware the aged prophet whose handsReach toward your pocket: feeble fingersQuick as a humming bird that darts, landsIts feed and disappears all in one


Sudden flick of a slick, nimble wrist,And politics!

Rhetoric gave way To the coy, segment-sensitive twist. Dwarfs on stilts with speechlets, nee slogans,Sell fall sap with sly ten-second slots. Lipstick girls in slender undress begLess disbelief than “VOTE FOR ME” spots. We’ve had George’s war, and Ronnie’s naps,Jimmie’s piles, Gerald jokes, Richard’s crooks,Lyndon’s spooks, Jack’s back, Ike’s golf, Harry’s Bomb, Franklin’s wheel chair—history booksWill call the game with retrospective Calm: a slow curve (the deep recession),A back-door slider (pretty Flowers),The inside fast ball (a concessionTo incumbent powers): fall chaos Played out like the World Series’ last game.

These are the days of commercial spin,Cosmetic tucks, uninspired nameCalling, shrewd strategies, cynical Calculations designed to sell Hope. Better were the days before the launch—Before the Enola Gay cut loose the rope that moored today to the sturdydock of yesterday and the day before.


October again,and damn it,the leaves have gone to color:reds this year,and yellow-orange and red-orange,all becoming circles of browndebris beneath bare bones trees:the harvest.

Birds fly low in elongated Vschasing this way and thatcircling roundreluctant to leave nests that lie exposedhigh in the crooks of spindlebranch trees.

It was then Artie died--not suddenly, but finallyat fifty-seven:his heart gave outjust as the sap descendedand the leaves coloredand felland birds circled in frenzied formationsearching out the breezethat would take them southfor they seemed to know the reaper takes his cutof the harvest.


'Tis always sadwhen the life goesout of a happy man

Turning Back The Clock


Now, as if all at once,without warning,the inevitableis upon us.

Spring has grownto full summer.Summer has slippedinto autumn:and we aresuddenly without the sun!

We set the clockto catch the sun:at ten till twoit's ten till one,but even this daring strokecan't keep the sun.

Halloween and early dark:no tennis, no bikes riding roundthe park; westbound trafficsnakes its way into a huge glaring sun that melts, molten,like gold flowing into the road.

The Dodgers lost two then won


four straight from executiveYankees who had lost their vigorfor World Series overtime--some working for too little pay.That tantrum strike knocked hellout of the summer; here it is the endof October with summer gameseating into mid-autumn.

It's later than it seems. Thanksgivingsoon, and Christmas shopping--cold nights, winter coats, dead-looking treestossing their leaves into the wind. Stillthe prospect of snow has its charmand Christmas can be nice--after the rush, though Grandma's movedoff to the Pine Barrens this year,and Janet left old Duane and the twogirls, and Donna's gone to Denverwith her three and that one she married.Seems too bad sometimes, too bad.

Two to six is four;


six to ten, four more!If what you need is eight, ten's not sleeping late!

Ordinary TimeWeek Thirty-Six

Have you seen that homelessman shuffle off to bed:cardboard on a subway gratehis hands around his head?

Have you seen that tunnellady advertise her breast:she winks a blackened, swolleneye that says she needs some rest.


Have you seen that drunkenman talking to the wall?Have the windshield raggersscared you with their drawl:

"May the good Lord bless you, Mister.Merry Christmas one and all.

Conversation with the Wall (VII)

Not much call for carrousels these days.Merry-Go-Rounds spin to carnival musicBut the horses creak as they rise and fall, their brasspoles are tarnished; their chipped saddles carry no riders.

Rainbows are split: their arches decayand their struts erode with an iridescent glowof purple and pink and yellow and blue that saythe fabled gold gave way to plutonium.

Tis’ a chastening experience to visit the dyingand bury the dead. "Life comes to that," they say,and those brave words help one not look too hard


at the face with its eyes shut in imitation of repose,and its lips sealed with sutures: those lips might tellquite another story of what becomes of life.

Not much call for adoration these days.The gods have gone the way of carrouselsand rainbows. We visit the dying and burythe dead with clenched teeth and vacant stares,too stunned to scream, too stunned to noticethe plaster Virgin who looks on through crackedeyes, her broken smile beyond repair.

I am quite afraidNot to believe in God,

But fear, it seems, Breaks the spell of faith.


Introit

He wandered the long concrete walkthat ran along the side of the house:a tall house, enormously high,and a long walk from back to front.His head ran even with the slightshadow line below the grey edgewhere the lower row of shinglesslipped neatly under the second.He'd measured and watched as he walked.

The sky glowed bright, piercing blue, highabove the house and the sun's brightdistinct morning yellow warmed his face.He beamed with bristling calm.

No need to find his green plasticsoldiers who assembled on dirthills to contemplate, with quietconcentration, the enemy,invisible, behind the back fence where his numbers gathered


on other days. Nor was he pressed to think where he left his baseballglove and ball, nor moved to rousehis red bike that slept on its sidein sparkling wet new green grass,glowing in morning sun.

He ran his fingers over groovesin the grey shingles, and wanderedslowly toward the tall front hedgesthat hid the street and poked branchesthrough wide holes in the cyclone fence.He surveyed the whole expanse of yard with its dull silvery fenceand its new green grass and its stillswing hung from a tree near the woodfence that hid railroad tracks beyond. The brown square sandbox his fatherbuilt enclosed a brilliant patchof sparkling light that danced and rosefrom bright sand, and the tiny leavesjust sprung on the tall tree flickeredin the warm, bright sunlight that coursedthrough him with quiet, bristling calm.


An aging professorremembered Tess:'quite a sad girl,'he said, 'she wanted more of life than lifewould give; so she wentand wrung life's neck.'


Late Winter

Sometimes we endure,without joy,without pleasure,though the sun shines brightfrom blue skies,and crocuses tempt cold March windsto bloom white,blue and yellow,and daffodils budand floweryellow besidepurple hyacinths.Sometimes we endurewithout joywithout pleasurethough love shines constantas the sunfrom cloudless skiesand we endure likethe dormant rosein winter, awaiting the sparkthat will bringus back to life.


The Nights become daysand days become nights; weeks pass like a vague blur on the late shift.


At some point,late in myyouth, I waschagrined tolearn by trialand failurethat I wasnot the stuffof which theymake drill pressoperators.

Scrupulous people


Blame themselvesWith an excess of dismayFor events over whichThey could have no control.

When Scrupulous peopleCreate trouble,Make a serious mess,They shift the blameTo someone elsewho could have no control.

Not In Harlem

Hey Joe! I was reading that bit Saint Charlessends round to touch fond alumni, and damn!After all these years, there you were, as boldas life in black type under "Sixty-five;"so I read on, eager for news of you:"Mr. Joseph Brady," it said, "an ex-patrolman in New York City, died Maytwelfth, we are informed in a recent notereceived." I had overlooked that faint crossthey put before your name, or I did notwant to believe it. That was them, though--no


grief; a final faint cross, another name off the list. No word about your life! Didyou marry? Have children? Had you been ill?And . . . what does "Ex-Patrolman" mean? Huh? Sounds oddly like "ex-convict." "A recent note received . . . ." Sounds like someone scribbled in pencil on scrap paper in late May and oldFather Hardtfleece filed it away aftera nice lunch, in that tomb of an officeuntil November when he dug you upfor burial: a terminal faint crossbeside your name to mark the spot. Amen.

So! An Irish Cop! An ex-cop--you swappedseminary black for New York Cityblue--uniform cum arma . . . well. Had youkept your habit of smoking cigarettes?you'd hold it down and meet it half-way: bendyour head, almost furtively, lip a quick,intense drag, inhale, turn your head and blow the smoke aside, absorbed, still listeningto the talk around you. Now and againyou'd be caught up: someone would say somethingthat made you start to laugh while all the smokewas still in your mouth--you'd stifle your laugh,swallow the smoke, turn bright red, then burst outlaughing--the smoke would pour out from your noseand mouth and you'd look like your head had caughtfire: you'd hack, cough and choke on the smoke.I can't remember much of what you said:it was usually little--and sly,like that phone call when I was in Harlem.You were somewhere: I had an old numberfor you and called. I had just married. Wewere visiting with my wife's girlfriend, Jo.


It was getting dark. You were laughing outloud, skeptical: "Seeing an ex-nun areyou? I Harlem?" you snickered. "Yes, that's right,"I said, with my straight seminary face,dead-pan, politic. Jo read my matterof fact tone and guessed your thoughts, "Yes," you wereeager to see us, one and all, but notat the risk of your life--not in Harlem.That was Sixty-six, I think. Autumn. Was it October? The last I saw of you.

Do you remember our last train rideback to school after Easter vacation?We both left the cloth to mend itself thatyear, in May. I thought it odd that fortunethrew us together in that crowded train.

Later, though, it came to me that you got on in New York and kept watch as the trainrolled into Newark. The crowd dragged me alongto the narrow door. I was unhappy,thinking, "Shit! Standing room to Baltimore.Again!" I did not want to take this tripback. I had had enough. Then, there you werein your black suit. We were compelled to wearthe uniform for travel. You knew where to find me. You smiled, then chuckled, slylywaving instructions with your head and brighteyes. I threw my things up into the rackwhere yours were, and you led me calmly throughthe thick, scrambling crowd, smiling back at menow and then with the devil in your eye.

We found the dining car empty, quiet.No one at the bar: I had orange juice


with vodka. You drank good scotch--neet. Doubles.Two to my one. Christ! We leaned on the barand drank our way to Baltimore. The carseemed to stand still and vibrate while outsidesped by--a blur that darkened as we went.The car windows went black--became mirrors.

The crowd found us out and pressed in on us,but we held our ground. Somewhere along theway those two girls appeared behind uslike a vision emerging from the crowd:would we buy drinks for them? Black suits, black ties,black shoes, black socks? You looked at me and I looked at you: "Damn! What luck!" our eyes laughed.

"Okay," I said. The Lynx talked for them: darkglasses, fur coat, black stockings, black toplessshoes. Her friend stood near you: red dress, red coat,not nearly fur, thick legs--she wanted none of it. We bought their drinks--I think you paidfirst. They thanked us. They turned away toward oneanother and talked make-up, shoes. The Lynxtalked fur. I gave you my look: disbelief.You blurted a laugh. The red one blushed: hadWe offended them? The Lynx shot a lookat you through her dark glasses. You shot oneback. "Enjoying your drink?" I smiled. She crackeda quick smile and reached her empty glass towardme. I felt a shock--her smile: she had bad teeth!To set off her fur coat. I turned and placed


her glass on the bar. You turned to me: "Nicegirls!" you said, under your breath. "What is this?"I asked, under mine. You flashed your sly smile,and shook your head. I paid the black porter,who seemed to know and had that look abouthim: he'd earn himself a good tip this trip.

I felt a jolt of fear as the train slowed,and the dark blur outside became a slowrolling scene of sparsely lit abandonedlots, brick walls, old brick smoke stacks--back doorsof nameless factories. The dark blur stillsped behind my eyes. I felt numb and faint.We looked at each other without a word,and turned to pick our way through the crowdedcars to find our luggage. You handed my bagsdown to me, grabbed your own and led the wayto the door where we waited for the slow rolling train to stop. Those two girls walked justahead of us on the platform. I wavedto you to wait a bit--you understood,stepped aside, and kept an eye on the crowdwhile I caught the one in fur from behindand took her arm: she knew. She turned around,tilted her head and waited for my mouthto find hers: she had thin lips--I was gone,suddenly lost in the dark swirl of hercool, liquid kiss. She never flinched. Darknesssped through my blood like the train. I searched herfur--her breasts were small, soft, silky beneathher warm fur that began to take the chillof the night air. Suddenly she stopped cold,took one step back, looked at me through her darkglasses, turned and slipped off into the crowd.


I had searched her dark glasses--an odd shock--her eyes were skewed--I watched her back as sheslipped into the steady current of slowtravelers carrying bags up the widestairway--then she was gone. I felt puzzledand dazed. I felt I was moving--a darkblur sped outside while I stood dead still.

You broke the spell with your look of concernand led the way into the streaming crowd that pouredout on to the street where the night had gonecold. We gravitated toward the black coats that accumulated near the taxicabs like debris collected by a snagalong the river bank. You worked a cab,and we packed in with others like dunnagestuffed round out luggage. We sped awaythrough the dark night. I was crushed between youand the window, inert. I closed my eyesand felt the thin cold air stinging my face.The streetlights shone a steady beam that burned through my eyelids like a torture. I turnedmy face from the lights, and summoned a vagueimage of that girl . . . I must have passed out.

I woke abruptly when the taxi stoppedby the concrete dock behind the school; whitegloss bricks glowed in the odd light of one streetlamp. We came and went through back doors: the new, modern dormitory shell had no front entrance, no front at all: a four storyrectangle that stuck our the right hand sideof that ancient gothic heap with its hugearched front doors of carve mahogany.


They opened those doors on the first and lastdays of each school year . . .

We grabbed our bags and climbed to the second floor where the Prefect lived: Father Klotts. We called him Scratch for his bright cue ball head: tall bones, young, big bony hands, thin, huge teeth in a big mouth--he was an act: if it was time to smile, he'd get up a big, bright smile; if it was time to be severe, he would get up his flimsy bit of hollowseverity. We'd talk him out of it, though: "Father, are you being too severe?"He'd flutter and fluster and wave his hands,groping with the air; then he'd give it up,"Oh!" he'd walk away confused, embarrassed.

You left me at the second floor entrance:a look to ask if I could manage it.I nodded a "yes" and off you went upthe stairs to your room. I opened the hall-way door, took a deep breath, stiffened my back,and found Scratch's door open: I wanted thisto be over. I dropped my bags and knockedon the open door. My eyes burned, stomachchurned, and I fought off the darkness that closedin on me. I summoned a smile and walkedinto the room: Scratch was lost in oneof his thick books. His eyes bulged; his eyebrowsarched and etched wrinkles into his foreheadthat pushed up a bit into his bald head:he looked amazed, absorbed in his big book.


Scratch did not hear my knock and I shatteredhis composure with, "Good evening, Father!""Oh-ho!" he exclaimed. He began to whirl--his face shifted to its forced smile, his handsfumbled, juggled, then tossed his book: he droppedhis smile, focused and caught his book beforeit hit the desk. He sat forward and heldhis book tight and set it down on his deskwith careful attention. He searched the deskwith his hands, like a blind man, looking straightahead, seeing nothing, groping for hisleather roll book, a pencil. His set smilereturned to his mouth, and his big eyes bulgedas he opened his book. His composurereturned: he was prepared to welcome latecomers who rode the train to Baltimore.

"Well," he said, as he ran his pencil downthe list of names: I felt certain that hesearched the list, trying to recall my name--I was tempted to help him, but I lethim fry: he'd taught me history four timesevery week for two years, and gave me "A"s;now here he was struggling to decide which name to check off in his roll book! Shit!I'm not sure he got it right, but he checkedoff a name, looked up with his vacant smileand said, "There, now! And! How was vacation?""Fine, Father. Thank you," I held my fixed smileand it made my numb face ache. He looked downhis list of names again, still strugglingto remember mine. "Well," he said, "You're in!""Yes, Father. Nice to be back." My fixed smileached. "Yes. Yes." He held his fixed smile, "Welcomeback!" "Thank you, Father," I ended and turned


to go. "Night prayers at ten o'clock," he said,hurriedly, as I reached the door. "Right, ten!"I said, over my shoulder, determinedto escape, "Good evening, Father," I steppedthrough the door. I was out. I took a deep breath and stood still for a moment, let dropmy aching smile, took my bags with a sigh,relieved--it was over--I'd got past him.

Next I woke on a cold tile floor be-side a toilet, with Scully lifting meto my feet. "You all right?" he asked. He knewbetter. "Yeah. I guess." He led me awayto my room, opened the door, threw my bags in, and said, "Half an hour till night prayers.You gonna be okay?" "Yeah. Thanks." He left.I closed the door, left the light out, and layback on my bed. The darkness was quiet,nice--the room began to spin. Dark walls spedby like the night outside the train windowsand my bed began to spin as the wallsand ceiling gathered speed. I fought againstthe spinning darkness, struggled to stop it,gave up and swirled in the fluid whirlpool.

Next thing I knew the room was bright with sun-shine silhouetting Tom against the wallof windows. He was wearing his black bathrobe,his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunchedforward. He looked out the window in thought,not quite seeing the brook running below,nor the wooded hill rising up beyond.

We were forbidden to climb up that hill--beyond was "The World," that dangerous placeagainst which we were being fortifiedin holy confinement: "Happy Valley."Tom turned round as I began to rouse.The musty scent of stale alcohol filled


the room. I was shocked to find my bed stripped:no sheets, no pillow cases, a singleblanket. "What happened?" I asked. "What happened?"Tom mimicked with nervous indignation."You are a nice room-mate," he said, "but youcan be impossible at times." He wasa first year man, a "poet" as they calledfreshmen. We were "Rhets," the upperclassmen--the terms dated back to the gothic stonesof the main building. The freshmen studiedpoetry and the sophomores studiedrhetoric: once upon a time, long, longago. "What happened?" I asked. My head ached."You came in drunk! Dead drunk! And you threw upall over! All over everything--clothes,bed spread, sheets, floor, walls! I hadto clean the whole goddamn room while you snoredlike a bum sleeping on a sidewalk, deaddrunk. I worked in the dark, hoping no onewould come by and hear me, and I was upthe whole goddamn night washing everything in that little goddamn sink!" "Oh," I said,"sorry about the mess." I looked aroundand found a huge ball of wet clothes, towels,and sheets sitting heavily on the floornear the foot of my bed. The stale smell seemedto radiate in waves from that wet heap.I severed my connection that night--therewas light ahead, a few weeks more: exams,graduation. I would study as hard,maybe harder--Seton Hall was a realschool--but the subtle, perpetual strain


of Sulpician suspicion lifted.I felt better, almost happy, and spentthe last weeks at ease: the routine becamepleasant. The weather warmed. I read Browning,and Poe, Williams, Camus, Sartre. I wroteabout The Great Gatsby and fell in lovewith Zelda and the Twenties, Hemingway.

"How in hell did you get in here dead drunk?"Tom wanted to know. "How did you get pastScratch?" He was under their spell and amazedthat the net had not closed on me: I had come in drunk, missed night prayers, and nothinghappened. The sky did not fall. The sun rose.He lived by the fear they hoped to instilland felt cheated. He did not want troublefor me, but the infallible had failed--he was confused. Imagine what he'd feelif news of the homosexual priestsamong the faculty caught up with him.He was naive. Good. Sincere. He believedin the righteousness of Happy Valley,but he was not shrewd enough to becomethe Prince. He was a good man--saved my ass!

I kept my faith, but it's hope that sustainsme, though it declines a little each timeI try to realize that you are deadat forty-three. I feel a bit like Tom--cheated, confused. I wanted to know whyor how, so I looked you up in the Timesmicrofilm. I sped through May, slowing downfor every obituary notice,like a train rolling into a station.I caught some news for each day as I went:it's all the same. Back streets get front page: cops


and robbers, drugs and sex, floods, disastrouswinds, volcanoes, money, rape, politics:we still elect thieves and liars--biggerliars get bigger votes. A woman killedherself: parked her Grand Prix in her garage,started it up and let it run--May tenth, but not a single Brady all that May.One Burns every day. Sometimes two, three, but not one Brady. Burns was a fertilestrain, like rabbits, or Chinese. One of themwas ninety-five, survived by a wife, threeyears older and flourishing still, it said.You were not there. I was disappointed.You simply disappeared--like a visionthat faded into the crowd without a trace:in an odd way that makes it easierfor me to think you're okay, laughing itup, having a good scotch--neet--doubles--somewhere in New York City.

Apocalypse

In the end it's over.


Done.

If it starts up again as something new,

it's not over and done.

In the end it's done. Over.


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