DAVID BIESPIEL
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Mnemosyne's Lament


Whipped like a bishop’s weed, my somberness is simpatico
     with the noose.
What I know of modern languages, these days,
Is, often enough, just a carte de viste or late draft for an
     obituary.
Too many sick leaves, too many self-inflicted full-Nelsons,
     I ease with my sourness.
No one comes within a Chinese li of this dream: Sometimes
     my sneezes chill like a sin,
A hunch, a hollow boodle, a faint Buddhology
(I’ve rubbed that tummy, its isles of curves, its veers and
     big-tented shows,
Its extra-professional vices and decent verse). Most only
     give eye service.

How ruffled I’ve been without my little ones. Poor Osip,
How much I gave of myself at X, when you wanted to
     jump from the window.
You were shorn as an oracle, droll as a flare, flooded, clever.
My mangy Walt and my petit Sappho: What of their parallel
     sound?
And what is it with the torque of creation anyway?
I give and give—and no one visits just to visit.
I’ve got wounds from fools, rot, and chromatic repercussions,
But no one comes round, the whole lot of them, my poets,
     with their sissy whimpers.

 

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Kohain


So I came over like a fool, pilfering the shells from parables,
     a fellow of the inbred drink (my duh tonic). The idée fixe,
An edited riff, was fair. Efficiently, I came over and handed
     back the covenant like a coin.
Initiated, tizzied, unself-helped, cool-headed, pampered,
     conventional
As italicized palmistry, I got out of there right before the
     aliyahs got given.

And the road was a repeating panorama, and anything narrow
     preened like fire, and the ale was fine,
And there was no probation or rotgut. The tiller steered right
     to the sun’s idiot veil.
I came over and wasn’t burned—
And my somber face wasn’t ashamed. Though some days

I sometimes have to put both hands over my eyes, and hold
     them there, to forget it.

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Kohain (II)


Out of bounds, bowlegged as a beggar, I lost the sprightliness,
     if I’d ever had it, having given up my dark clothes,
And so had nothing to wear in the skin-tight temple but a
     borrowed coat.
The gold buttons on the bluest suits, the tie-pins, and the
     screen-tested kipahs shimmered,
And the blameless faces shattered with tears and misfired
     hopes.

That’s when I left the velvet intimacies and enduring
     handshakes and became grist for junk,
Staging my midrash for the stars, dancing at the old city
     gate, like an outlaw in love with disgust.
That night: the autumn breeze embroidered the streets with
     broken loves—
And the birds seemed hand-knitted in the branches, and the
     sky ached with its dark horse.

And though I knew clearly the star-systems, I chose the
     orphan’s court over the clubby, the chanters, and
     come-home dogs. Besides, my muscle memory was no
     good. I’d think loam, but I’d say muck.

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