Written by Mel Reichler Copyright 2002
A sample of memorable poems
A Response to a Request for a
Bedtime Story
(for Elyse)
DAUGHTER;
Daddy, tell me a bedtime story,
not too
funny but not too sad,
of tailors
and cobblers and fame and glory,
of danger
and courage and good and bad,
a
fairytale to start me dreaming,
with heros on horses and fairies and fools,
with
dwarfs and giants and witches scheming,
and rings
that talk and dancing stools,
a princess
enchanted, an unhappy kingdom,
a charming
prince who sets her free,
a knight
who gets what he wants and then some
a wizard
with visions of what will be.
Daddy, tell me a story to sleep to.
Start it, "Once upon a
time,"
in the
middle put something to weep to,
a
brother's betrayal, a stepmother's crime.
At the end let the kingdom ring
with laughter,
the world
secure, its wrongs set right.
If of finish it, "Happily ever
after,"
I'll put my head down and say
goodnight.
FATHER;
Once upon a time, daughter, it was
simple.
A prince on a horse rode out with a
sword,
and for
love of a princess faced a dragon and slew him
and
claimed the princess as his reward.
All the dragons today work for
large corporations
and do
awful things at authorities' call
or quiet
as mice they do the king's bidding
and a
sword against them counts for nothing at all.
Now the horses of villains are all
packed into engines
that make
the earth twitch and drive people mad,
but the
horses of heros belch smoke and confusion
so that no
one can tell the good from the bad.
And rings talk only in T.V.
commercials
and
knights sell something to buy at a store.
and all of
the princes are in law school at Harvard
and the
princesses just won't keep house anymore.
And giants are products of glands
misdirected
and dwarfs
are the same error compounded it seems
by a firm
manufacturing drugs for enchantment
for
magicians to use to capture bad dreams.
And all of the fairies are out of
the forest
and the
cottage is empty and the closet is bare
and the
witches all have been liberated
and a wolf
in a woods is exceedingly rare.
And charm and color belong to the
atom
and
strangeness is something that is seen by a few
wizards of
science in chambers of bubbles
and only
computers have the future in view.
There are no cobblers to speak of,
darling,
when our shoes
wear out we throw them away
and little
old ladies who make clothes in
are all
that is left of tailors today.
And fame and glory belong to
figures
who run
with a ball when bowl games are played
and
boldness and courage are found only on Wall Street.
in princes
whose killings are made with a trade.
So sing yourself to sleep my
daughter
for a
modern child such tales won't do,
yesterday's
news is to fantastic
and what
happened today will frighten you.
"Happily ever after",
I'll worry
whether
there's much of an after at all.
Tomorrow they may fuse their atom
and the
sky fall.
Renfrew of the
Mounted.
Renfrew of the mounted,
stapled to
the north
to frozen
wastes
to
whiteness
startled
by the mottled violence of his thoughts
thinks of Rumplestilskin,
reinvents
fairy tales,
rediscovers
inaccessible places he had been to,
women he
had known
prays for
violence
for
disaster
Sensibility is not a blessing
sensibility
is not a curse
some
things are better, somethings are worse
it
depends on where you are
your
surroundings, your place
In the west, on
mulled by
the smell of cow sweat
on the
plains, on the trail
Renfrew would have been blessed
But in the north
country
sensibility
pressed out to an extreme
he could
see clearlypast the far edge of his vision
no haze
obscured his sight.
Clarity is not a blessing
clarity
is not a curse
some
things are better
some
worse
it
depends on where you are
your
surroundings, your place.
On the prarie,
on the dry range
vision
obscured by smoke
dust
mediating far and near
on
meadowlands or grasslands
Ranfrew
would have been blessed.
But in the north
country
clarity
presented only the possibility of more clarity
clarityheld realityfrom realitylike the surface of a soap bubble holds
air from
air‑ and burst.
Things are what they seem only when
they are half clear.
II
Renfrew of the mounted
stapled to
the north, to frozen wastes
to
whiteness,
rocked
gently to fear by drift and floe
thinks
snow into straw, straw into gold
spins rumplestilskin but forgets his name
Memory is not a blessing
memory is
not a curse
somethings are better
somethings are worse
it
depends on what you remember
your
surroundings
your
place
In mountains, in hills even,
oiled by
mist and damp
stream and
river would have polished
the memoryof Rumplestilskin
until it
reflected all the possibilities of the present.
Renfrew would have been blessed.
But in the north
country
memory
only counterfeited perception,
only
reproached the past.
Renfrew imagined only what he
remembered he saw.
Imagination is not a blessing
imagination
is not a curse
somethings are better
somethings are worse
it
depends on what you imagine
your
surroundings, your place.
On tableland, on upland range
dew
soaked, cloud brushed
on bluff,
in gorge
Renfrew would have been blessed
But in the north
country
memory
only insulated the present
held past
from future like the surface of a soap bubble holds air from air
and burst.
reality
has to be imagined to be real.
III
Renfrew of the mounted
stapled to
the north, to frozen wastes,
to
whiteness,
cradled by
cold, blanketed by dispair,
thinks of Rumplestilskin but forgets his name;
hesitates,
and a
nameless wind
blows gold
into straw, straw into snow and ice;
Certainty is not a blessing
certainty
is not a curse
some
things are better
some
things are worse
it
depends on what you are sure of
your
surroundings, your place
hesitates
rembers he has forgotten names, directions, places
turns,
turns,
realizes,
he is
lost,
takes out
his gun,
hesitates,
turns,
turns.
VI
Renfrew of the mounted
stapled to
the north, to frozen wastes
to
whiteness
imagines,
remembers
duty has
an answer
even to
unanswered questions. Duty has a retort
to unmade comments,
duty
survives temperatures at which passion, desire, interest freeze.
Duty shades what sensibility
illuminates.
Because of indifferent geography
and unbroken sameness,
because to
every territory, however featureless
duty
provides a map; directions, routes, distances.
Because duty is certain,
renfrew of the mounted, stapled to the north, to
frozen wstes
turns to
duty
which back
is sure,
waits,
listens
for duty
to rescue him from fateless meanderings
from
endless pursuit of nameless quarry
from the
north, from frozen wastes,
waits,
for Rumplestilskin, to whom he promises himself again as a
child
to relieve
him
from his
appointed rounds.
LETTERS TO MY SON: THE PESSIMISTIC LETTER
I was thirty when the message came; Stop; Prepare
to get ready; Stop.
I was 31 when the lines started getting longer,
32 when they stopped putting exits on expressways.
I was 33 when people started leaving
34 when people started coming back saying there was no place
to go.
I was 35 when money became obsolete
36 when computers replaced poets, politicians, farmers,
soldiers,
37 when the electricity went off and the computers
suddenly forgot how to write,
argue, grow things, protect.
I was 38 when another message came; Stop; no one could read
the rest.
I was 39 when all the telephones started ringing at once,
and 40 when it hit the fan.
I had 10 years of clean air, more or less.
I think of the poor bastards who
had one or two,
whose lungs have always smelled
like latrines,
who never knew what air smelled
like.
I was
41 when the ride ended.
"Everybody off," a voice said, and everybody got
off.
But I had 11 years of a bumpy ride,
I think of the poor bastards who just got on
and the engine stopped, cold and
dead, and no refunds.
My son, I would gladly share those
years with you
give you
the fat and settle for the lean
but it
just won't work
(it
doesn't work that way! it doesn't work anyway!)
You'll have to take the memories
and they're not worth a damn.
We who were
supposed to know something turned out not to know much of anything.
We who were supposed to have
convictions had only interests.
We who were supposed to be
concerned were only curious.
We who were supposed to know how
things worked
knew only
how to throw switches.
We who were in charge of things
were in charge of lists.
didn't do anything for me at all.
The typewriter is in the attic
my gun is in the hall.
(Take what you can use, throw the rest away.)
All the advice I can give you is bad;
Most of what people say is just talk
If you have to go somewhere important, walk.
A MEMOIR
Even that memory is gone
the memory
that I husbanded for a day like this,
a day
fragile in
the morning
taut and
gray in the afternoon
by
evening, shattered like an archeological object
into
pieces of minutes and seconds to be
patched
together to make
24 hours.
A day scrubbed clean of city life
a day
devoid of easy city spectacles.
No store windows were being changed
no bag
ladies scavenging
or old
gentlemen propped up on benches
perfecting
dignity.
No one collecting for obscure
charities
or arguing
causes on street corners.
No policemen staging performances
of the majesty of the law
no
weddings spilling out into the street,
no Harikrishnas, no Moon children
no
musicians waiting for a line to form.
Even the bums were brooding and
sullen;
A day not even the dollar could
command.
Dead adjectives growled and moved
through city streets
attaching
themselves to objects,
Damp, distraught, algebraic,
Archaic words that you never could
use
because
they never quite fit anything
suddenly
applied to everything;
woe, pall,
melancholy.
I tried every trick I knew to bring
that day alive
every
minor pleasure and a major one or two
but
nothing worked,
so I dug
for the memory,
the memory
I had counted on for a day like this,
the memory
I thought secure
and found
even that
memory was gone.
Beached on the
beyond the
line of incoming waves
that
memory had seeped out of me
like the
evening tide caught in a sandy hole.
A fully explicit
day.
a day when
pious Forty finally arrived
prodding,
tedious, foreboding,
a day for
which I had laid down a memory
the memory
I thought secure
and found
in the place it occupied
like the
tiny crabs that colonize abandoned shells
an idea
which scurried across my mind.
"You have reached that time of
life when
experience
will not suffice and
memories
will not endure,
a cruel
and killing time."
PARK SONGS I; I LIKE TO SKIP
43 and skipping
I skipped into a wall
which was
where I was not looking
which was
backward 35 years or so,
and
knocked myself out
and lay
there imposing myself on passerby on the street
identified
as helplessly
hopelessly
drunk
waiting
for a sale
on good
sense to
start soon
in the store
north by
until a
friend
negotiating
my sprawl
embarassingly recognized my face
as
belonging to a 43 year old
architect
of words--
(who shouldn't
have been skipping
who gave
skipping a bad name,
who had
neither credit card
nor cash
and never
shopped at sales
of any
kind of sense
unless
accompanied by a grown up adult)
--and dragged me to my bench and
left me.
I like to skip but my feet get stuck
twist and
tangle in too long arcs
on paths
that have become to short,
At 43 I walk
in
intricate trenches on the surfaces of streets
and am
supported by to little air to skip.
I have seen too many movies
in which
skipping is always out
with
someone's heart in a paper bag
or down,
the last
indelicate motions of a man leaning on a tree by
his neck
from a rope,
whose
horse has just decided to go home without him.
And, while for children going up
and coming down
are the
quick halves of the same act
for me they
are solutions to two diferent equations
and at 43
the possibility exists that mathematics may fail;
one can
stay up forever.
Later I am tried in secret by my
former peers and found guilty.
I am condemned to become 45 more
quickly and
spend at
that age some additional years;
prohibited
from skipping during daylight hours and,
ordered to
buy everyone some candy.
Inventory of Knowledge: First Inventory
What poets know:
1. What knowledge is of uncertain color:
Some knowledge is of uncertain
color, sometimes silky green in the tenuous afterglow, sometimes, contrary to
expectations, grimy blue in the preliminaries, sometimes an indefinable faded
color, mostly between changes.
2. What we knew but forgot:
Words are just that and those words
are just those words, and the people into whose care words have been entrusted
often are distracted and busy with other things.
3. What we guess is the truth:
Money runs in ruts and circles but
lives ages and looses a little hair by the time it gets back to us again. Wisdom
does come out of the mouths of fools but also much foolishness and a lot of
other things like sponges, shells and reserve clauses: and out of the mouths of
babes wisdom but also considerable babbling and childishness and the names of
politicians.
4. What we might believe if we gave it any thought:
What we know for certain is the
first casualty of doubt and people rarely survive the bite of butterflies
(although the scars of the bite of the butterfly are at least as beautiful as
tattoos.) Poetry bounces checks.
5. What is of doubtful truth:
The names of things change when you
turn your back and most of what is work learning has bad breath and a ferocious
mien.
6. What knowledge is obviously true:
If we listen carefully
, long enough, to sufficient facts one of them is bound to sound true
enough to believe.
8. What children know:
Children know that there is a
turning toward and a turning away and a turning both ways at once without
moving a muscle.
9.What knowledge we learn too late
in life to do any good;
The best things in life may be free
but the store is always out of them and they spoil when you take them out of
the box and you can=t claim
them as dependents on your tax returns, whereas: the worst things in life cost
ferociously but are available on easy credit and are childlike and cling and
never grow up and go away.
10. What knowledge we never forget once we have learned it:
When the light comes on it=is wonderful but sometimes, later, you
yearn for the darkness again.
11. What is the tiniest bit of knowledge we know;
If you listen long enough you can
hear the heavy breathing of sounds lusting after words.
12. What knowledge you hold only in desperate straits:
Words grow under the toots of every
week and some vegtables. Some things are easier to
forget and other things are more difficult to remembers
and Umber is a slow color.
13. What knowledge we get free ( for
the good it does us.)
Most bits of the world are tints of
pink but the hues of our knowledge are flecked with purple and words have babies
as easily as they grow beards.