Through the glass I elevate with the doctors
yanked by chance, the goyish meshuge boychik
rising to rabbinical spring convention.
Biblical scholars
crowd against the corner of full length mirrors
dangling in a system of cable pulleys.
“Hello!” badges scribbled in magic marker
curl at the edges.
Luck would have me wearing the black fedora,
hirsute, hair shirt, overcoat austere business.
Funhouse image davening to the skyline–
Kyrie Eleison!
At 50 I am likely to arrive
with roses from the gas station, in need
of better shoes, a less frenetic haircut.
With a smile just barely managing
to hold the road. But here’s the sticking point—
a destination. Someone at a real
concrete address to take delivery.
The county ledger tells you I’m a fool.
And when I come into a certain green
suburban arrondissement, fast
with grade school children on an asphalt strip
along the Watchung ridge, a little girl
drops everything. She stands and looks
at me. She makes me stop the car
so she can run up to the driver’s side
and rap the glass with hopping urgent news.
There’s paperwork downtown. Municipal
directories. A letter with my name
upon a table. Here’s another thing—
the siren echo as the street games end.
And, then, that jagged fire in the trees.
This is the sonnet sequence that closes my chapbook, Aquinas Flinched, newly published by Modern Metrics.
Video and Youtube technician: Roger Pitcher
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York
More and more it seems to me
That evil is stupidity
Incompetence and laziness—
“Look, no one would have asked for this,
Stuff happens!” Donald Rumsfeld said.
He hit the nail right on the head.
Union Station, Washington, DC
No, it wasn’t sponsored by McDonald’s, though it should have been. Just another ironic juxtaposition of commerce, public service, and transportation. The interactive colon, right there between McDonald’s and the bar at Union Station. Mothers chatted outside of it as their children ran through it. The whole thing seemed a bit ironic.
This year–not until November, mind you–I turn 50, which, as we all know, is about the time in life when we must take on new medical regimes. The colonoscopy is one of them. I had my first, because of various gastro problems, when I was 26, at which time a small polyp was located, removed, and deemed benign. Since then I have had regular procedures with no recurrence of polyps. This experience prompted me to have prostate examinations on a regular basis starting when I was in my mid 40s.
Men, we are told, are a lot less likely than women to work necessary examinations into their yearly healthcare regimes as they get older. And men pay a price with colon and prostate cancer. I hope this exhibit at the train station, which shows you the possible progress of the type of polyp I had if it is not removed, prompts men and women passing through to take advantage of simple, painless, quick and really important procedures.
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My New Chapbook from
