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THE DEAF
reading in a School for the Deaf
imagine a woodsman
swinging an axe in the distance
the tree speaking out of sync
then nothing
except what is left in your eye
chips still fly but your ears
dumb fleshy things
hang from your head
useless handles frozen stiff
the world around you
fills with dead air
the quiet thickens
till the atmosphere is packed solid
surrounding you like clear wax
and every one there
rides in a limousine
stars of the silent screen
seen through shatterproof glass
the faces glide past
lips moving like goldfish
the trumpet has lost its voice
the sea shell — mute as a dish
my god in a place like this
what do you do with a word
like inconceivable?
spell it she said
hands moving behind the question
in a kind of semaphore
and you talk to fast
later that evening
the poems fell from my mouth
little naked birds crying for life
and who would have known
they were there
had she not taken them into her care
holding them up
till they could fly on their own
and back where this began
the tree came crashing down
and the sound
was the sound
of the deaf applauding
Leonard Like Vincent
and yet
when my friend Leonard
the mad poet
comes out of the zoo every six month
one shoe on — one shoe off
I’m always glad to see he isn’t cured
that he still limps in his mind
old nutty Lenny
because you know I really don’t want
to run the instant replay
of yesterday’s baseball game
I need his insane rhymes
like straws to clutch at
not the box score — I watch him
Paul Gauguin
watching through his own window pane
his crazy friend Vincent
winding his head up in gauze
knowing the hurt
to be the very ground
in which art grows
and far better for him at least
than filling galleries
with slick paintings of wet city streets
colors reflecting
or of little kids with big sad eyes
at fifty bucks a throw
and though it seems unfair of me
I need him there at sea — adrift
tending his mad menagerie
another kind of Noah
I need him there
dropping me a line each time I fall
into that awful blue period of mine
LIKE RACCOONS
(diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer)
like raccoons
trapped suddenly in headlight glare
we freeze — petrified
ultrasound and biopsy results leaving
us scared stiff — eyes wide — jaw slack
but think about it folks — think about it
we’re born — we live — we die
so what’s different now? Not a thing!
except being blessed with a constant reminder
to never let another unexplored moment slip by
my condolences to those
who fall prey to the fatal surprise
the unexpected cardiac arrest
the sudden traffic casualty
forced to depart short of a conclusion
short of the all important “good byes.”
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