All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

Babooshka 

An old woman in

a black overcoat and

shiny cellophane

Easter bonnet

waddles stubby, nyloned

legs on wet pavement

between drops

from the leaves of trees.

A two-wheeled shoppers' caddy

bobs at the heels of her rubber shoes. 

        Very deep in

        a shallow puddle

        there on the sidewalk,

        treetops wave in the wind,

        dead leaves arise,

        a bird flies

        through deep cloudy blue and gray. 

A step and a splash, she

lightly mutters curses

(in the Old World tongue)

against the rain. 

Stairway to the Attic

You are the salt of the attic—

The wit in the willows—

The saltwater dreams found 

Soaked in your pillows.

The light on the stairs 

Flashes his fangs,

Shoots needlepoint rays

In tingles and tangs.

Old ladies climb

One step at a time

(except for Lot's wife

Who gambled her life

On a curious crime

And now she supports the attic ceiling)

Although she did not hope to turn,

She looked back in anger.

We that look on but laugh in tragic joy. 

 The Sex Life of Nuns  

How can they maintain

on prayer

      alone?

Trombone vibrato and

saxaphones from the past—

How old

How secret

How lost in a dance with a

Bath towel. 

Tears sear the worn wood of

Her teakwood rosary. 

Kleenex, and the joys from 

a red, scented candle

a brocade collage bric-a-brac

a clean, white sink with hot-enough water

and  the good taste of eggs. 

Service

This is the table where antiphons meet

This is the table where followers eat

This table, a fire-breathing Magus—

Rocky foundation of that torn meat torment

Blood-stained tenement.

The red velvet temple curtain tears

The holy temple which we rent

Shed blood and water with his tears

Sacrifice and Sacrament

(if not for us his blood was spent).

He   at the Canaan wedding

He   who had no bedding

But slept his head upon a Rock: 

cried Hosanna with the stones

denied him three times before the cock

built the Church when the stone rolled away

Driving all the demons out

Into a herd of swine

That drowned in the water

He turned into wine.

DEMONTHINK

When the weak link is broken on time's lengthy chain

And silent fires consume the firm—

The sky howling down and invincible rain

And each breath sucks in cancerous dust;

When the last of the skyscraping towers is lain

And ashes of blood and carnage remain,

The quick become cold and commune with the dead

And planets glow lifeless as lightless gems, 

Then visionary hopes and unfulfilled dreams

Will waft through the clatter of profligate schemes.

OLD MEN IN THE SNOW

Where does our horizon lie?

Like a eunuch in a harem on a red-clawed planet.

We march, we sing, we cry out vulnerabilities

As if to make Death lazy like a tranquilized grizzly

And we deaden ourselves to the growing weeds

On the descending gyre. 

What then?

To chatter apocalyptic clatter like broken projectors?

To press mirrors into our eyes and implode

In dim-lit basements?

To eek out new gods' lies of sky pie?

Myopic utopias dwindle dystrophic

Dissevered hands holding broken boot straps

The humanist hernia here collapses.

We fall to the floor, buckled, guarding

The hollows of our thighs. 

Lost Disciple

Riding 42nd Street

10:25 on a Saturday night,

Walking through, scanning surfaces

Times Square transcendent—

A Holy Ghost in the Church of Wiles—

Skating tiptoe between

Hungering, faceless bodies.

But when he saw the wind,

He became afraid.

Though hoping to keep his feet dry,

He sunk,

flinging quicksanded cries

into the loveless friction above.

Game

The old man, sitting,

Laughs his wheezes

And stomps his dry feet

As the big-breasted blonde

In the low-cut blouse

Bends over to pick up

Another dollar bill.

Her childish giggles

Pretend at innocence

As she rolls the note, 

Licks it like a cigarette

And pokes it down her cleavage. 

And oh, how their eyes widen

Then resume their wrinkled blinks

Until the old man's laughing

Turns to coughing

And he fishes in his wallet

For another dollar bill. 

In Fields of Crystal

Icy gray-white, chill air tourniquet

twists limbs tightly,

lightly blue.

In fields of crystal,stand

tall translucent quartz tombstones,

gravehead monuments,

funeral memorials.

Grass gone frosty gray,

Unseen rainbow prisms

angle in the failing light.

Wind in lonely fences—

the gate flaps (its catches sprung)

a single, spackled, slapping rung

cracks a slack echo.

Wooden sparks slowly dissolve

in the light gray air

tolling for wispy faces.

Handsome mausoleum:

misty marble walled—

a lonely-faced ash museum

(a mighty column fallen).

Crow carrion lies beneath

the love graffiti.

The restless moor collects

another generation of dust

as crickets toll the hour. 

SHE WENT A LITTLE CRAZY

She went a little crazy

at her birthday party—

She wanted to cut the cake with a chainsaw.

Her friends told her to get serious: 

    "Think of the mess"

    "You'll ruin the cake"

    "You might hurt someone"

She put the chainsaw back in the garage

but kept the same look on her face

well after the cake had been eaten

and her friends all gone. 

I told her to go back into the garage

and hang her hungry expression on a nail

somewhere well away from the chainsaw. 

THE KEEPER OF LOST SOULS

An aging nun friend

who is losing her mind

carries a ketchup bottle

wherever she is allowed to go. 

She says: 

"The souls of my sex

are all in here." 

Her fingers grip

like a vice,

constantly turning,

ever-tightening the lid.

At worship, she twists the bottle,

wrings it closely like rosary beads—

like the grail itself— 

even as if it were filled

with the souls of all women. 

The other sisters

can not get it

away from her. 

LOGUE #6

We talked about personal things

But when I told her

She would be in my thoughts and prayers

She laughed (at me)

like a tiny girl 

who laughs at poodles

jumping through hoops

at the dog show.

SHE LOOKS KNIFE

Where can she walk from this bridge?

Her hair strands in soft tendrils

while she shakes out a thought.

I have never had money

but I love the colors that burn

their names into the muddy banks

of this dirty river. 

I have never needed money

except such sweet currency 

as can be traded for light

once lost between the shadows 

of these leaves.

The elastic goes snap as she pulls at her panties.

Where will she go from this bridge?

Perhaps there are young men 

to carry her off—to lift her away

in tame rapture—to lift her away

to one bank or the other (whichever 

he decides.  He must, he feels

save her from the tyranny of choice

and the tyranny of choosing

but as he comes she would jump

into the thick wash of brown water. 

She would force choice from the

dangerous waves that dirty her hair;

She would choose a mouthful of gutterwash

over rapture.  She would have

her eyes closed by foul grit

rather than to be taken. 

Sister, will you not pray for her soul?

Sister, can you cleanse the water?

The elastic goes snap as she pulls at her panties. 

A wet wind chases the muddy flow of river

indifferent to life on the banks.

She looks knife as the wind drags

the hair down her back—

her mouth in a grit

and her eyes so attack—

She steps from the bridge, off

into her wealth, trailing from her hair

the name of the color of fire. 

DUMB MARRIAGE

In a humid night I dreamed of you:

rolled onto my side toward your space,

reached out one arm to embrace you,

but you were not there.

There was a mark on the sheets

like someone shot in the streets

or a shadow on a Hiroshima wall. 

In the dark morning I howled your name:

threw my poor head back and let fly

through the empty rooms of this empty house

but your name bounced around

through the vacuumed  halls

off the faux-marble walls—

restless Echo failing to alight.

On the kitchen floor I drank to you:

raised my empty glass to your memory,

spilt the hallowed toast from my open mouth

as your name crossed my lips

propelled by the breath

of the Angel of Death

I puckered for a few final sips. 

Washing the Feet of Judas

Jesus knelt at the feet that would soon betray him,

Peeled off the dusty sandals while Judas smiled.

Judas shared eyes with the others,

Shared puffs of nervous laughter. 

Jesus balances a wide bowl of water in his hands

And sets it before the dirty feet of Judas: 

    Hands on feet, all in water

    Hands soon pierced, feet to dangle

    (death this day they hold in common)

    Flesh touching flesh that all soon loses breath.

    Flesh losing blood that expires into dust. 

Dust that flows with water off dusty feet

Onto clean, wet hands:

    Wet with wine, with mud

    With water that turns into wine and then blood. 

At once: 

    The tear that flows from the eye of Judas,

    The tear that flows from the eye of Jesus,

Wet with wine, with mud. 

Roman Catholic

The pigeons scuffle on the ledge:

        Slavik babooshkas

        Puffing their way through the crowded square

        Overweight and dignified, bobbing their heads,

        Balking steps near the bread vendors.

The gray, leaden throbs

aching out from the cathedral tower

send these pigeons flying. 

       THE CHURCH

We moved around the nave

In the midday darkness—

Shadows collapsing into shadows,

Corners within closets of corners

Where prayers of sins gather and

Hang together like bats in a filthy cave. 

There are rumors of angels in the vaulting.

One old woman saw Gabriel

Through her plastic rainbonnet;

Another saw Michael floating

Above the microphones,

And still a third saw Fatima

Somewhere behind the apse spotlight:

        "It was as if she were there operating!"

We laid in a pew and considered the space

That all seems to go to waste: 

What is the purpose of this height

If no giants move about

Or birds of any known color

Make their nests on the capitals?

Doesn't it seem some great empty womb

Barren by abortion or miscarriage?

Even the windows wince stained

As if to keep light from beaming

(except for a stray spot of purple or blue)

Where it might fertilize this ghost of a woman. 

We listened to the silence as we lay still

And heard great emptiness collapsing on emptiness:

Void of silence, void of light

Wrestling together by some unseen might.

They tumbled into the corners of the trancepts,

Rolled together as one giant ball,

Scaring the angels into triforiums,

Scattering sins like a halo of flies.

Void of stillness, void of care

Soaring conviction assaulting the air.

Next through the womb came a ravenous fire—

Some Wild Purity,

Some Holy Ravage—

Reading to us from the clerestory height

The glorious forms of sweetness and light. 

The colors so gentle, the players so brave,

Some principal actor proclaimed through the nave.

We ate and we drank, we listened for more

As shadows collapsed upon silence, 

As silence heaved upon light,

We whimpered (we raged at the death of the night).

We moved around the apse

Looking for an entrance.

Hard marble and cold concrete

Turned from us.

We thought we heard laughter

Somewhere near the vaulting:

      Oh, how they roll on their sides!

We searched, asked and begged

That we might have but one taste

Of but one drop of air

In that womb gone to waste. 

Void of the moment, void of repair,

Give us a word for this holy affair.

The Ravage had gone up

Or to some other place

So we plod down the aisle

Through the cold empty space.

We walked through the narthex

Toward the massive front door,

Pushed through the hinged yoni

And struggled against the light—

Squinted, fought and cried out

At the brightness of the light,

Of the faces of the people near. 

There was a sweetness—

Some Wild Purity—

And we leaned back and laughed

Sucking sunny air. 

The Ravage dispersed as it blew from our lungs,

Sprayed on the grass and spread toward the clouds,

Caught the eyes of passers-by who looked to listen. 

    We held our ribs on the steps of the church

(the Principal Actor within us abides);

The people nearby surely think we are drunk

For Oh, how we roll on our sides!

Spirit

It feels like silliness—

like the suspicion that you are dying

from some mysterious and fatal disease

and you hardly even know it. 

As a child excites at reaching four feet tall

you want to believe that this growth is permanent,

that there are no chances of becoming less again. 

You want to burst into a plethora of clichés

for they now gather great depths of meaning

in your new utterance.

You want to forgive and love old friends

and step toward the newness of strangers

in hope and risk of love. 

Almost afraid to move at all

were it not for the joy that movement brings

as steps are taken and breathing calms you.

Everything is bathed in waves of newness:

the newness of strangers, the novelty of light,

a world now reflecting not itself

but some wild Lord. 

    Grampa Walked Me

Grampa walked me to see the trains everyday. 

I was three; he was over eighty.

We never talked; I never knew his voice

nor he mine,

but he held my hand

and we walked to see the trains everyday. 

We stood together on the sidewalk

back from the tracks;

the train soon came.

I reached out my small hand

to point, touch and taste

but he squeezed my hand hard;

the strength of his old hand kept me back.

A flash of red rolling before us

followed by a large, roaring silence

As if to say something. 

    Gethsemane

The hands of Jesus folded

on the rock table like a stray

bunch of grapes

or the writhing bodies

in search of high ground in Doré's Deluge.

As shooting stars shower through black nighted skies,

I lean toward the fire and the smoke burns my eyes.

Allowing all to be as it would,

he smells the oil in the olive air

as Judas approaches. 

     The Necktie

    I tie my collars in many bright colors.

I shove the papers from my desk 

and pray to hell with all this!

even as if such were an option. 

All I have is longing with sighs deeper than tongues.

As thirst has its answer in water

and hunger its sigh in bread,

should not this heart-consuming fire

in its longing by passion be fed?

    The silk snake coils around the knot in my throat,

    slithering across Adam's apple.

There were tears

    before my sighs did dry them

There were flailing rages,    

before they surrendered their bitter fears

    between gold-gilded pages. 

There were blackened seasons

    whose fogs obscured both sun and moon,

    whose clouds diminished the major tune. 

So I take my evening, my sigh,

let my dim-lit longing lie,

pace my hasty, inward eye

and hence this easy yoke untie. 

 Sermonic

At this point,

see yourself seeing this.

Catch yourself in the act of

catching yourself in the act of

seeing yourself

seeing 

this. 

At this point,

feel yourself living this.

Catch yourself in the act of 

catching yourself in the act of

feeling yourself

living

this.