Map (19 page)

 

 

A dead beetle lies on the path through the field.

Three pairs of legs folded neatly on its belly.

Instead of death's confusion, tidiness and order.

The horror of this sight is moderate,

its scope is strictly local, from the wheat grass to the mint.

The grief is quarantined.

The sky is blue.

 

To preserve our peace of mind, animals die

more shallowly: they aren't deceased, they're dead.

They leave behind, we'd like to think, less feeling and less world,

departing, we suppose, from a stage less tragic.

Their meek souls never haunt us in the dark,

they know their place,

they show respect.

 

And so the dead beetle on the path

lies unmourned and shining in the sun.

One glance at it will do for meditation—

clearly nothing much has happened to it.

Important matters are reserved for us,

for our life and our death, a death

that always claims the right of way.

 

 

The old turtle dreams about a lettuce leaf,

when by that leaf, the Emperor appears.

A century hasn't changed him in the least.

To the turtle it's an ordinary affair.

 

The Emperor appears in part, at any rate.

The sun reflects on black shoes right below

two shapely calves in stockings, spotless white.

To the turtle this is just the status quo.

 

Two legs paused en route from Austerlitz to Jena,

above them, clouds where thunderous laughter roars.

You may doubt the scene in all its splendor,

and if that well-shod foot could be the Emperor's.

 

It's hard to recognize someone from snippets,

from the left foot only or the right.

The turtle doesn't know what he has witnessed.

His childhood memories are slight.

 

Emperor or not. How does it alter

the mystery of what the turtle sees?

The void has briefly yielded up a stranger

who flickers back to life! From heels to knees.

 

 

As a short subject before the main feature—

in which the actors did their best

to make me cry and even laugh—

we were shown an interesting experiment

involving a head.

 

The head

a minute earlier was still attached to . . .

but now it was cut off.

Everyone could see that it didn't have a body.

The tubes dangling from the neck hooked it up to a machine

that kept its blood circulating.

The head

was doing just fine.

 

Without showing pain or even surprise,

it followed a moving flashlight with its eyes.

It pricked up its ears at the sound of a bell.

Its moist nose could tell

the smell of bacon from odorless oblivion,

and licking its chops with evident relish

it salivated its salute to physiology.

 

A dog's faithful head,

a dog's friendly head

squinted its eyes when stroked,

convinced that it was still part of a whole

that crooks its back if patted

and wags its tail.

 

I thought about happiness and was frightened.

For if that's all life is about,

the head

was happy.

 

 

The world would rather
see
hope than just hear

its song. And that's why statesmen have to smile.

Their pearly whites mean they're still full of cheer.

The game's complex, the goal's far out of reach,

the outcome's still unclear—once in a while

we need a friendly, gleaming set of teeth.

 

Heads of state must display unfurrowed brows

on airport runways, in the conference room.

They must embody one big, toothy “Wow!”

while pressing flesh or pressing urgent issues.

Their faces' self-regenerating tissues

make our hearts hum and our lenses zoom.

 

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill

promises us a Golden Age tomorrow.

The going's rough, and so we need the laugh

of bright incisors, molars of goodwill.

Our times are still not safe and sane enough

for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

 

Dreamers keep saying, “Human brotherhood

will make this place a smiling paradise.”

I'm not convinced. The statesman, in that case,

would not require facial exercise,

except from time to time: he's feeling good,

he's glad it's spring, and so he moves his face.

But human beings are, by nature, sad.

So be it, then. It isn't all that bad.

 

 

Ground-to-ground,

ground-to-air-to-ground,

air-to-water-to-ground-to-ground-to-water,

water-to-air-to-ground-to-air-to-air,

ground-to-water-to-air-to-water-to-air-to-ground,

air-to-ground-to-ground-to-ground-to-ground,

 

Some Ground Air Water-

 

 

The bomb in the bar will explode at thirteen twenty.

Now it's just thirteen sixteen.

There's still time for some to go in

and some to come out.

 

The terrorist has already crossed the street.

The distance keeps him out of danger,

and what a view—just like the movies:

 

A woman in a yellow jacket, she's going in.

A man in dark glasses, he's coming out.

Teenagers in jeans, they're talking.

Thirteen seventeen and four seconds.

The short one, he's lucky, he's getting on a scooter,

but the tall one, he's going in.

 

Thirteen seventeen and forty seconds.

That girl, she's walking along with a green ribbon in her hair.

But then a bus suddenly pulls in front of her.

Thirteen eighteen.

The girl's gone.

Was she that dumb, did she go in or not,

we'll see when they carry them out.

 

Thirteen nineteen.

Somehow no one's going in.

Another guy, fat, bald, is leaving, though.

Wait a second, looks like he's looking for something in his pockets and

at thirteen twenty minus ten seconds

he goes back in for his crummy gloves.

 

Thirteen twenty exactly.

This waiting, it's taking forever.

Any second now.

No, not yet.

Yes, now.

The bomb, it explodes.

 

 

Up the verdantest of hills,

in this most equestrian of pageants,

wearing the silkiest of cloaks.

 

Toward a castle with seven towers,

each of them by far the tallest.

 

In the foreground, a duke,

most flatteringly unrotund;

by his side, his duchess,

young and fair beyond compare.

 

Behind them, the ladies-in-waiting,

all pretty as pictures, verily,

then a page, the most ladsome of lads,

and perched upon his pagey shoulder

something exceedingly monkeylike,

endowed with the drollest of faces

and tails.

 

Following close behind, three knights,

all chivalry and rivalry,

so if the first is fearsome of countenance,

the next one strives to be more daunting still,

and if he prances on a bay steed

the third will prance upon a bayer,

and all twelve hooves dance glancingly

atop the most wayside of daisies.

 

Whereas whosoever is downcast and weary,

cross-eyed and out at elbows,

is most manifestly left out of the scene.

 

Even the least pressing of questions,

burgherish or peasantish,

cannot survive beneath this most azure of skies.

 

And not even the eaglest of eyes

could spy even the tiniest of gallows—

nothing casts the slightest shadow of a doubt.

 

Thus they proceed most pleasantly

through this feudalest of realisms.

 

This same, however, has seen to the scene's balance:

it has given them their Hell in the next frame.

Oh yes, all that went without

even the silentest of sayings.

 

 

“Today he sings this way: tralala tra la.

But I sang it like this: tralala tra la.

Do you hear the difference?

And instead of standing here, he stands here

and looks this way, not this way,

although she comes flying in from over there,

not over there, and not like today rampa pampa pam,

but quite simply rampa pampa pam,

the unforgettable Tschubek-Bombonieri,

only

who remembers her now—”

 

 

My sister doesn't write poems,

and it's unlikely that she'll suddenly start writing poems.

She takes after her mother, who didn't write poems,

and also her father, who likewise didn't write poems.