Mr. Right

Oh Mr. Right, I love you so,
Though where you dwell I do not know.
I hold you safely in my heart,
For ne'er to meet is ne'er to part.

My Cherished Friend: The Charming Stranger

(Dedicated to Trudy Katzer)

You are my rock. He is my rainbow.
You are granite. He is gold.
You are the north star, strong and steady.
He, the wind, blows hot and cold.

You are my harbor. He is the tide.
You are my anchor. He is the sea.
You are my touchstone; you keep me sane and real.
But he is a song; he sings to me.

And oh my friend, I need you both:
For he is the murmuring sky,
My father, a lover, a poem;
And you are the solid ground,
My mother, my friend, my home.

To Carry `Haiku'

Because it can't be moved by the morning sun,
Or quickened
By the curling aroma of coffee
And the first hot swallow,
Or ever feel your smile
As an intimate caress,
A computer,
However clever,
Can never
Translate a poem.

Neither can your dog,
Because he cannot sympathize beyond his nose,
Or shed a tear for those he'll never see
Crouching in crossfire on a Beirut street
Or pressed against a wall in a Belfast alley.
No, neither can your dog,
Although he sometimes has long thoughts
And bays at the moon.

It is left to you and me, my dear,
To carry haiku
Over the seas
And down through the years,
Past barriers
Of language and culture and taste,
Of history and class and caste;
Like smugglers,
To steer round the rocks,
Find the inlet at night,
And bring
The lightest of cargoes,
Delicate as camellias,
Mysterious as stars,
Into the dark harbor,
To the shore
Where the listeners
Wait.

Galatea

I shaped you of words, Galatea,
Of language malleable as clay.
I molded you, neaded you, pinched you,
Made you curvaceous--all--over,
Like me...

Then stood back and squinted,
Circled around you, chanted you, pinched,
Chanted, waited, pinched,
Waited...

Chanted again and squinted,
Repeated, repeated, repeated,
And polished and waited,
A yellow-eye cat,
For the last piece of puzzle
To find its own place.

I chanted and throbbed and waited,
Until like a swimmer too long in the sea
I grew numb to the waves,
Unable to feel anymore
How distant the shore, how deep the water.

I drifted away for a night and a day,
And came back.
Too soon.
Not yet.
So I wandered away for a year and a day,
And came back.

Then the last word appeared,
The glass slipper.
I had shaped you complete after all,
For without me, you started to vibrate,
The music and rhythm, they were in you,
And you rose on your toes
Ah! to dance.

Lay

Watered at the spring of
--Dare I say it?--
Sexual urges,
All poems are sublimation.
Mine certainly are.

I may or may not
Be a good lay,
But I'll damn well write one.

And on the 1002nd Night

Many men have sworn they loved me
(None enough to do the dishes).
Genie poured from bottled smog,
If I truly have three wishes,
Give me health and wealth and worldly fame.
Forget the prince; the frog was delicious.

The Drunken Soliloquy of Prince Charming As the Clock Strikes One

Out of her glass slipper I drank dreams.
Bubbles they were, light and frothy.
Such small feet she had, such slender bones.
I drank from her slipper and gazed, enchanted,
As she whirled aaway, barefoot,
Flew down the stairs and away down the street,
Dancing, still dancing,
Drawn home by the dark drums of hunger,
As all the gilded clocks of the palace,
Tinkling and chiming, struck twelve.