Joe’s
In Charlestown, they went down fighting
As boatloads of redcoats dragged fresh ordnance in, they still stood their ground
In Charlestown, there rose an Ice King
To hack up the Boston cold and watch it sail off, Calcutta bound
Visiting justice on gross ingrates
Daring to dream of the first free state
Giddy to see the world swing
Round the hinge of your imagining
We slept on the floor of strangers
We piled in a bucking bus and headed west to go door to door
We bid our desires derange us
We drank through a bright fall day, then fell together, then drank some more
Strivers and poets and reformers
Skirmishes shaping their own borders
Skinny and brilliant and dumb
Thrilled at what we thought we might become
CHORUS
But I’m going to go up to Joe’s tonight
To watch the Sox on the plasma screen, have some beers and sweet-potato fries
And I might get laid or get in a fight
…Or talk sports with the other guys
And stare at the bartender with the dark brown eyes
There’s something it seems I’ve missed
But that doesn’t mean I think there’s more than this
I’ll thunder upon the hilltops
I’ll rise like a mighty flood
I’ll fall like hail on the doubting horde
I’ll charge at a German pillbox
I’ll dive for a drowning man
I’ll break the seals where the casks are stored
Reckless, relentless, and refulgent
Fashioning virtue of indulgence
Able to say that until now
The world’s accorded with my will
But first I’ll go up to Joe’s …
Same Girl
On a spur of land on a northern shore
Playing sunset tennis where we did ten years before
Cloudless sky just as blue, the lagoon as still
The stone beach as bright. But the air …
The air’s grown chill.
So we head inside and pour some wine
And watch the sun set fire to the tips of the western pines Then you say, “Ten whole years. Can it be that long?
Back then I had such big plans.
Now they’ve all gone wrong.”
CHORUS:
But to me you’re still the girl you were that spring
When we’d just met and every morning
Promised everything
Traffic south the next day is pretty thin
So we’ve made it to the causeway when the tide comes in
At our sides waves explode on the banked-up stone
And you say once we’re back,
You might need some time alone
CHORUS
… everything is dull and empty when you’re gone
I put the garbage out. I mow the lawn.
At dusk these days the Hancock Tower is incandescent
But my life’s not real till I bring it home to you
CHORUS
If You Change Your Mind
That’s all it was then: a fling, and now we’re through.
I had a good time. You say that you did too.
And even though we’re not getting younger
You shouldn’t settle for the first warm body you find…
…but I won’t be back if you change your mind.
I guess I misjudged what you were in this for.
The way you kissed me, I thought you wanted more.
The way we’d talk in bed for hours each morning
The way you curled into my arms as the day declined…
…but I won’t be back if you change your mind.
I’ve been around the block
And given better than I got
Could be my bill has just come due
Relax, I’m not a child:
I won’t make scenes or drink and dial
I’m not pretending: I grant that this hurts
But I’ve been through worse
And I’ll get through this too
The wind is howling; the snow shoots up like spray
I’ve lit a fire and uncorked a cabernet
The Sunday paper’s on the couch beside me
Where a week ago our bodies lay entwined…
…but you can’t come back if you change your mind.
You can’t have me back if you change your mind.
So don’t waste your breath if you change your mind.
Memorials
On this day, in this place,
We knew what we had to face
We dug in, come what may
On this day
On this day, where you stand,
I first dared to take her hand
All I am I can trace
To this place
I met up with Paolo in Salamanca
He’d been drunk since finals ended
He said we could stay on the boat of these two
German girls that he’d befriended
So we headed for the Tunisian coast
But things began to sour when Paolo tried to trade their beds
They dumped us in Marseille
So Paolo sprung for train fare up the Rhone to Besançon
And his uncle’s ski chalet
And I was going hiking with the girl from the bar the night before
And the best Bordeaux the uncle had
And where we were meeting stood this old man in leather sandals,
Shorts, and a short-sleeved shirt of a different plaid
I nod and he nods back
And then he says
“On this day, in this place
We knew what we had to face
We dug in, come what may
On this day”
The brass had come in on the noon flight with their lawyers
I could smell the kill
But with 25 minutes to go until our meeting
I was up on the Hill
Still squaring things with the subcommittee chair
The oldies’ station’s on inside the cab, and “Walk on By”
Got us down to the parkway exit lane
But after standing still for “Every Day” and “In My Room”
I bailed out and headed for the train
I slogged up the hill to where the street vendors parked their carts
And stopped to phone in my latest change of plan
And there, in a linen suit, complete with boutonnière
And pearl-inlaid cufflinks was this quaint old man
I nod, and he nods back
And then he said,
“On this day, where you stand,
I first dared to take her hand
All I am I can trace
To this place”
Children of Wolves
The girls came down in white gloves and floral dresses
Doubts half hid or hope that every look confesses
Pressed and light and clean
And with a paleness none has seen
The miles from Devon back to school are long enough
The Pines have farms, and Camden boys are pretty rough
Boats in quite coves
And late White Mountain snows
But out in the badlands, shadows are lengthening
Coyotes wail, and a snake leaves a trail in sand
She takes his hand
As she steps to the floor and tries to ignore
The hammering of her heart
A Monday off: the park is full of flying Frisbees
Street vendors, tourists chasing history
The packed cafes
Couples slow at shop displays
And work has stopped on the subway renovation
Piles of rubble, pits exposing cracked foundations
Siding flares
On the temporary stairs
Pits like the scars of a bombed-out roadway
Warped siding like the walls of a squatter’s shack
Walk down the track
And you’ll see, where it turns, how the midday sun burns
On the new station’s curved glass walls
Though cities topple, though the sky fill with flames
Still, you’ll be in my arms tonight
Of all or striving, nothing at last remains
So, in the cold and dark, we might as well
Attempt to steal a little warmth and light
We might …
The girls came down in white gloves and floral dresses
All our pity, rage, and all of our distresses
Sometimes lock in phase
And then there dawn strange days
But for the rest, our humors take a random walk
Spats at home and grousing as we punch the clock
We build model trains
And launch clean-air campaigns
It’s the same balustrade, but the varnish is wearing through
Same rug and sideboard, the curtains sill half drawn …
But the girls are gone
Child of wolves, honed and scarred
I step out into the yard
Under skies of the clearest blue.
Old Haunt
Bottles and butts in the strip mall lot
Where beneath the prairie moon
Kids in clusters eyed one another
While truck-cab doors blew tunes
In the dark, each denim jacket
And gleam of light-brown hair
Like the shock of headlights in your lane
To think that she might be there
At the checkout line, in the time it takes
To ring up a case of beer
You’ve learned the cashier’s mom and your uncle
Went out their junior year
Through the plate glass of the booth
By the home improvement aisle
The guy who used to steal your floppy disks
Gives a sheepish smile
And above the flat and scrubby plain
The pale horizon seems to reach
To the edges of the earth:
Manhattan or Manhattan Beach
You sleep in your backseat
And for a weekend’s pay
You could get to the coast in three days
A bird’s been stuffed, a pumpkin gutted
And a quart of whisky drunk
When you join the boys for the yearly ritual
Of watching Tech get skunked
As you stare out at your dad’s
Homemade garden-hose reel
Your cousin says, “I saw you on TV
For that genome deal”
At 2:00 a.m. when you can’t sleep
You slip out the mudroom door
And drive toward the car lots
But turn south just past Route 4
You find you’re stopping where you parked
When you cut Aunt Ida’s grass
And watching that same door you’d hope
Would open at every pass
And above the scrubby plain
The night has cracked apart the shell of day
The stars askew as though if you stepped out
The earth would fall away
You’d drift into the silence and the cold of space
Where there’s nothing to recall you to this place…
Paris
When I was in Paris, alone, before the war,
To make ends meet, I played piano at the old Hotel d’Empire.
The gaunt maitre d’ helped her coat off at the door,
And what had driven me from home at once came clear.
She asked for “Night and Day”.
“For the same, in turn,” I said.
She had eyes like summer thunder,
And lilac petals in her bed.
Her family was Prussian–estates, a coat of arms–
And they had hoped a trip abroad might mend her father’s failing health.
For his part, he seemed…unimpressed with my rude charms.
But love, like anything, seems richer plied in stealth.
We’d meet in low cafes.
We would meet along the Seine.
But when Poland fell she told me
That we could not meet again.
So I consoled myself with music and philosophy
And with egregious quantities of wine
But when the German tanks rolled through the Arc de Triomphe
I found something new to occupy my mind
The information my confederates would bring me
I’d encode as fake transcribed orchestral parts
Which I’d bike out to the suburbs, waiting at the checkpoints
With the cows and vegetable carts.
Someone got careless or somebody was broken
Half our cell vanished in a night
I reached the countryside but never got back in the fight
And you know the rest–how, at last, on Norman sands,
Across a body trail, the Allies ran the German guns to ground.
She stood at my door, bloodspray on her face and hands,
And said that it would mean her life if she were found.
But love is blind as justice,
That love is doomed that starts to doubt.
I called on friends and called in favors:
They didn’t like it, but they got her out.
You say she bore secrets. Well, this I could not know.
But if you’re right, and if I had, I fear I would have done the same.
You see, I still loved her, and whatever winds now blow,
My only crime was love, and love my only shame.
Carve these words below my name.
Periodicity
His reign concluded as it began:
A king’s blood loosed on the courtyard stones
In the kingdom of the invader
The servants of the exiled prince
Uncurtained an empty bed
War gongs and conch calls
The churned lake left a red film on shore
But in time the prayers and tears, too, subsided
Merchants went to market
The reservoirs were filled
The golden gates and towers start to rise
Our tuk-tuk puttered past stands of trees
Where barefoot women swept up loose brush
And dropped us by the path to a temple
Invaded by silk-cotton trees
With roots like a serpent’s folds
Cracked gods and tipped walls
We tracked sounds of a string band to a far court
The players all had lost limbs to land mines
Girls in gold-trimmed dresses
Danced their stately dance
From the cloisters, kids in third-hand clothes looked on
The spray of chandelier light on stone
A jazz quintet and an open bar
Stone lions at the foot of the stairwell
Wore top hats made of wire and scrim
We dined in an open court
Starlight and champagne
The tech fund had had a bad spring
But by August, some bets paid off
We sat down with light hearts
And when the dancing ended
And we went out to catch a cab
Across the square, the great glass towers rise …
Proximate Causes
The bright, whitewashed gables
The cozy brick facades
The square was full of folding tables,
Kids sloganeering and harrowing frauds.
He’d been riverside reading
About oil in Ecuador
She was stationed by the pipe store, pleading
For U.S. aid in the Sudanese war.
She said, “They’re raiding food trucks in Bahr-el-Ghazal.”
He said, “Weren’t you in my Spanish class last fall?”
He bought her a cappuccino
She gave him a sheet of facts
And as he left, he asked if she’d go
To Tuesday’s talk on petroleum tax.
They met up in the foyer.
They tried out each other’s names.
He was better dressed, and she was coyer,
But both felt inspired by the speaker’s claims.
He said, “I’ve asked some friends to my parents’ summer place.
They’re away this week, and it shouldn’t go to waste.”
Sun
On small-town steeples flickering through the trees
Sun
On tide pool cattails twitching in the breeze
Sun
Across the dashboard and on her bare, brown knees
A swim
To wash away that film of city grime
The lawn:
Touch football and croquet for those inclined
A driftwood bonfire cookout along the waterline
And with the last few dishes on the drying rack
And as the last, loud carload pulls away
He says, “I guess that we had better get you back.”
She says, “I guess. Or…maybe I could stay?”
He left her sleeping in bed
And took the paper out to the pool.
Thirteen Sudanese children dead
‘Cause they’d been sent to a Catholic school.
Thaw
You wake to the sound of bells
Outside, blue flooding into every corner
The air on your bare flesh,
Space and self resume their customary order
The body complains as it takes its weight
As though it had never been flung around, disdaining
All restraining
Of its youth and strength
Cream of wheat and coffee
As scraps of the world outside appear in halftone
But you can find no trace of pain
In sunlight on the wet flagstone
Lying in bed of a Friday night
You’ve started to hear walking home from dockside taverns
Laughing slatterns
In the street below
CHORUS:
So every autumn at first frost
You declare you’ve finally lost
Those stupid adolescent yearnings.
But when the dogwoods start to bud
There’s a thawing of the blood
And they come flooding back again
The guest room is still a mess
And at the start of June, the kids are coming
So all afternoon you fight with drywall,
Rotten boards, and leaky plumbing
You carry your beer to the yard at dusk
The glow of the tulip shoots as the maple’s roots toil
Through the wet soil
Underneath your feet…
CHORUS
For Elise
A bar downtown as summer ends
I’m three drinks in, and time’s begun to slow
’Cause I’m stuck with the other boyfriends
And talk has turned to people I don’t know
So I just looked at you
Your sudden smile, your eyes so blue
As though the world had dwelt in shadow
Until you looked our way
You’re where the light gets in
On the greyest winter day
The golds and greens and reds of spring
All bloom around you
We’re at some airport, homeward bound
Your laptop’s out, and your look intent
Stepping up when the chips are down
Cool under fire and poised and confident
But no one here can see
Who you become when you’re with me
The way your heart can swell to bursting
With other people’s cares
You teach me what love can be
Press your body into mine
And with the warmth of you my cold limbs stir
And I begin to breathe again
The Inexhaustible West of the Heart
We dragged our luggage through the slush
Squinted in the freezing rain
Our soggy socks, the subway crush
The wait as they de-iced the plane
But to at last alight
In the Caribbean night
The air like slipping into a waiting bath
The ragged rows of hand-fired brick
The steeple where the lanterns hung
We toured a wooden battleship
Saw where they’d placed the harbor guns
Beneath a swinging sign
We stopped to have some wine
The firelight shadows played on the wooden beams
So we track down the fugitive summer
So vanished worlds may be revived
What incantation will let me recover
What I was at twenty-five?
They sunk the casings in the ground
And ran light rail out to the shore
They pumped the valley waters down
And built the planes that won the war
A kid in a basement room
Transcribing doo-wop tunes
Dreamed a world and by dreaming made it real
The westbound wagons tracked the prairie with blood
The coast is strewn with dreams that fell apart
But there comes a morning when the sunlight will flood
The inexhaustible west of the heart