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Free
Verse
Lilacs
Every time I pass a
flowering-
flourishing lilac-bush she's
there with me again, Yaksamashing
and Dobshaing,* tough with the
rest of the world, but always kolachki**
sweet with the likes of her only
grandson, me, teaching me how
to pass over into self-ness, find
out who I am, no matter what my
parents say, downtown in
Chicago for after-Christmas sales,
70, 80, 90, no matter how old she
was, always energy-time for the likes
of me, "You want to be a writer, so
be what you want," in spite of the
overseeing of my frustrated-ex-violinist
M.D. father and frustrated actress
mother, always trying to push me
into medicine, Spring comes and
the apple trees and lilacs bloom,
perennials always perennial inside
me, although I was supposed to be
Irish Catholic always passovering
me into wine and matzahs as I
moved toward where I should
be/have (Shalom) been.
* Czech (my spelling) -- How are you doing? Fine.
** Kolachki -- Czech pastry.
Memory
Pool
In Arby's, new beef
gyro, an ancient lady comes in,
Bam! Grandma Mary, Cicero 50 years ago, how did I ever
let go when she moved to the desert outside Tucson,
Latke and Matzah grandma, five years without seeing her
before she died, a blond guy with glasses comes in, I think
Kevin Buckley, best buddy in college, a blonde walks by
outside, Louise Altis, Madame Metzger's singing class, her
The Queen of the Night, me Sarastro (Mozart's Magic Flute)...
nothing itself any more but just pool balls bouncing off the
edge of a table called Unforgettable, maybe it's the leaves
coming down, the sun in the south, losing 3 minutes of
light a day, other curtains coming up, other lights.
Messages
Margaret leaves a
message we listen to after
Schul, "Since we got back to Boston, I can't tell you
how much we miss you guys," goes on about my
grandkids Alex and Rebecca starting school, part of me
still 10, 15, 20, no old man here, never got used to
pere, grandpere/father, grandfather, still about to make
my Bar Mitzvah, choose a career, a college, a why and
wherefore, no gallery of future Foxes to be born hundreds
of years down the geneological line, not used to my gravestone,
Hugh Fox, 1932-2???
Le Meilleur
Moment / The Best Moment
End of the day,
moving toward the end of the
endless goldenrod, dried corn, going-to-sleep
trees, year-end rain trickles moving toward
the edge of snow, holding hands, maple sugar
candy and Chinese noodles, moving toward
the Rosh Hashana Days of Repentance...
for exactly
what?
Re-Form
Wanting to reverse
time tonight, play
the film backwards, back to L.A. and the beach
at Venice, bring back the dead, Joe Schwartz
and Alexandra Garrett, back to the synagogue
Schwartz took me to in L.A., all orientalish and intermarried,
or Alexandra Garrett the day I went to see her at
Beyond Baroque and she was in the toilet, came out
just as I was leaving, "Hey, you're not going to get
away without a hug...," or run the time-clock back further
into Grandma Kolochkis and latke time, Louise Altiss
as Queen of the Night in Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE,
me as the High Priest, Sarastro...too rich, it would have been
easier to leave if it had all been old, cold and miserable
instead of being drenched in the arts and multiple cultures
where the only oddity was English without an
accent.
Waiting
Koans,
mantras,
yantras,
becoming the Buddha
as the last leaves
come down, my head
full of Brooklyn Heights
and Hyde Park, Chicago,
the Boston Commons,
somewhere back around
1870, waiting for Edison
and Ford, World war I,
the Muted Twenties,
Kokoshka, Schönberg,
Berg, The Swan of Tuonella,
waiting to be
born.
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