Bilski 5th Street, Mayfield, Pennsylvania

Joe
Anna
Veronika
Stanley
Josephine
Julia
Stella
Walter
Margaret
Mary
Peter

Moja Ciocia Veronika

93
not bad, Cioc,
you outlived Annie
by 20 years

I'd still like to sit
with the both of you
on a Sunday afternoon
drinking beer
and playing pinochle

I don't really care
what the infant of Prague
is wearing today

Here's That Rainy Day

should have saved
Those leftover dreams
Funny
But here's that rainy day
Here's that rainy day
They told me about
And i laughed at the thought
That it might turn out this way
Where is that worn out wish
That i threw aside
After it brought my love so near
Funny how love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here
It's funny
How love becomes
A cold rainy day
Funny
That rainy day is here

Sparks Building 1968

an undergraduate in the elevator
with the head of department
awe
respect
reverence

until he said
"when do you think you'll disappear?
guys like us do that. One of my friends
disappeared from Grad School in '49. He left a wife
and a kid behind.

I met him in a bar in Jamaica in '60. He told me not
to use his name"

I'm still here, master of Provencal.
Still visible. Still invisible.
Neither famous
nor obscure
learning still
and teaching naught
I feel the shame
of missing my calling
of missing my duty
to pass on the thought
unlikely to live it
unlikely to change

Pax Vobiscum-Pax Tecum

Dahlheim
Boedexer
my last few months
Easter
Spring
the birth of a new age
the death of an old one

I will not think I have created this
it is enough
to think
I have survived it

a few years ago
a father
a husband
a man

today
something more empty
than a natal mind
ready to be filled
with something
with nothing
with an immaculate idea
an inimitable notion
a great, hairy, smelly mind
forgotten for love
resplendent
in historical garments
tattered
faded
raiment
words gone stale
in the shadow
gone pale
in the wake
of love
sinking
sucking in the flotsam
visually interesting
life threatening
aurally unimportant
enough of that
enough of this
one egg is un euf

Heidelberg

it rained all day
we bought a green umbrella
sat under other green umbrellas
drinking cappuccino

it rained all day
we walked and laughed
and talked and didn't

after dark
we drove to Schwetzingen
and ate mussels

on the banks of the Rhine
i met an old friend
and confused him
with my better German
and my worse sense

i photographed the makers mark
on the wall of my apartment building
in Neustadt
and showed her the Elwedrietschen
and and and and and......

nothing
everything
mind blank
heart empty
one wrong word
in one hard language
in one sad world

Sixty

ask me a question
i am old
and i am wise
i know all about much
and much about nothing

ask me about love
or loving
i will wink at you
and say
"it all depends"

August 27th, 2004

My fan asked me "How is your evening?"
It was the end of my world.
It was the beginning of my world.
It was so simple, so complex, so.....

And now,
the space and time accumulate
and my evening is boring, lonely, without my fan,
without my friend, without love, without futurity.

I'll survive, as will my fan, differently, without our easy way
of being
without our easy way of loving