Judith Dorian
Borough ParkThe sun filters through windows
hitches onto tales nine decades old. A spectral witness-- I watch you and Maggie dressed in young boys’ clothes, steal cherries from the neighbor’s tree. Years later, you, your brothers and sisters (my uncles, aunts) roll up the parlor carpet, crank the victrola dance the Lindy Hop & the Shimmy. I still can feel the polished hardwood floor vibrate beneath nimble feet. When I’m no longer here can no longer dream of stepping from the kitchen door of the brownstone on Kenmore Place to the garden can no longer imagine the peonies in full bloom when my older sister was born or envision the glider that seats four— Who will recall the fragrance of the grapes? Or the goldfish swimming in the rock garden? Will such memories evaporate or keep sailing by— a ghost ship in a shifting sky? Morning VisitorsThe doves visited every morning
in the spring and summer came to the window sill and cooed till we stopped what we were doing, gave them our full attention. Shy in their presence, I refused to kiss you while they peered inside, shifting from one leg to the other bearing messages we couldn’t understand until they grew bored and flew away. Nonetheless they comforted us—our day went better. When you died, they stopped coming. I haven’t seen them in years…. so much went out of my life when you ceased to be. On a Moon Fragrant Night ☊On a moon fragrant night the ear a cauliflower
hearkens to the cries of the impoverished street singer, hearkens to the swish of his modish rags shimmering ‘neath the torn curtain of sky. Parched thieves crouch near the simmering pond, sneak into the poet’s garden, steal lilacs—white, purple, lavender—whose gnarled branches curl & twist block the crooks’ egress, banish them to anguish & the dissonance of unresolved chords. May you never know pain of the chop block, never suffer branding of your skin, never be felled by the moon’s scimitar, deafened by the cymbals’ crash or waste your dandelion years riding camelback through the Hindu Kush. Such trials are not for you, mon petit chou-fleur. Come sit beside me, listen to the song on the far side of the tattered moon. Then we’ll gather the wind-scattered seeds that lie beyond the bleak horizon, allow the stream of regrets to flow past us. Dreams will perch on our window sills, mirages drift past the scrim of sleep, swift as the golden fish who plunge into the bellowing waters. Listen! for the ear, the cauliflower ear will carry you deep into its spherical music. Afternoon at Frick ParkWe hike downhill--
just my speed these days-- Rupa and Kevin deposit me at a bench climb back up to retrieve their car, then me. The park seems deserted. I’ve been reading too much about guns, suicides, murders. A beat up car pulls into the parking lot a creepy guy coaxes his dog out onto the grass where the poor thing can barely move. “Goldie’s fourteen and her hips don’t work so good,” he says. Pedestrian traffic picks up: almost every passerby has a dog on or off a leash a child in or out of a stroller. A park ranger whose green shirt reads STAFF demonstrates how to strap a hammock to two trees, spaced well apart invites his colleague to lie down in it. “Is the hammock for park visitors?” I ask. “No,” he laughs, unties it, puts it in his car for when he wants a snooze. A clutch of clouds obliterates the sun, triggers a sense of unease. Two years ago today my neighbor shot his wife. The papers are full of such stuff—toddlers with loaded guns, terrorists, tedious accounts & statistics of bodies violated, mutilated, murdered. Wars spring up like children’s toys, Bop and Pop. The tale of Mayerling palls, ho-hum. Can we care about Crown Prince Rudolf--tsk! tsk! when history is steeped in our killing fields, in the French blesse during the wars, in the dried blood of Babi Yar or of Burundi, the Mexican clandestinas or prehistoric mass graves in Kenya? Is it still possible to mourn the murder-suicide of Crown-Prince Rudolf? For three years Niki de Saint Phalle was addicted to shooting works of art, mesmerized by pellets bursting from a .22 long rifle into bags of paint embedded in plaster. Boom! the monochromatic white blooms as sacks spurt and splatter violets and reds, oranges and blacks. Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns likewise take part in such innocent massacre. A woman in high heels and chiffon, a crown of flowers in her hair steps out of a Toyota, grabs a child’s hand. Friends and family (and the fiancé) arrive, spattering the grey parking lot with finery in greens, pinks, blues. The cluster of celebrants walk across the road to a secluded area where a minister intones blessings. The Scent of FleshThe scent of burnt flesh lingers…
in the fruit I eat the wine I drink ashes shroud the land with pelts of grey soft, soft they fall the violet thistle trembles… a gentle drum of terror seals the leaves of trees a red fox shrieks, a barn owl screams there is no secret closet in my home no place to hide fear slams one door, then another the hunt is on dark splotches rorshach their clothes spill down the stairs weep deep into the grass I flee into the barren hills trailing a river of grief ’s memories-- burnt at the stake buried alive raped stoned my arm an abacus its numbers the math of slaughter on a ravishing September day in Kiev we fell, pop, pop, pop the ravine told it all the imagination of cruelty is a crab whose overarching reach devours everything I wander here/ there, a charred ghost in this village or in that no one left save those who hunt and hunt and hunt me down their rage, the shockwave of an exploding star. |
"I ain't no sit-down man"he says
his spine bent beneath anthracite years. he works silently without pause, intuits potential in scavenged objects. Push-pull he hauls metal scraps― sharp edged wire, mattress coils bicycle parts, paint cans― to his 60-watt shed gathers lighter scraps― twigs, bird feathers, acorns, splayed leaves brittle with death boils coffee in a tin pot crumbles, smears an earth cake on wood textures violet wall hangings with house paint bought on sale the afternoon light fades as decay’s vintage heaps up around him. a shape emerges beneath scarred fingers that wield a welding iron and tame the jagged remnants. Fordham Roadand the Grand Concourse--
Sutter’s bakery excites passersby with the scent of pastry oozing high score butter heavy cream preserves chocolate. Boston cream pie-- an epiphany. Two blocks away across from Poe Park at 2535 Valentine Avenue apt. 3D Aunt Freda plays solitaire in her nightgown. After school I visit watch her deal hands watch ashes from her cigarette fall into the green glass ashtray. Not yet acclaimed for her sculpture (that would come later) nor for her mandelbrot (she hadn’t yet acquired the recipe) my aunt had attained a level of local renown for starting fires when she cooked pacha. To be accurate, it wasn’t the pacha that caught fire but the toast-- her attention distracted by solitaire or perhaps reveries of Russia where she’d spent her childhood. Whenever flames leaped out from the Sunbeam T-20 she’d unplug it rush to open windows-- too late. Smoke filled their apartment and hallway set off the alarm. Firemen arrived to find neighbors, fascinated by the unfolding drama-- yet again-- tsktsking on the sidewalk in front of the white brick building. . Perhaps my aunt’s toaster was defective or the wiring in the Bronx apartment faulty. But the pacha—calves feet braised with bulbs of garlic— was prepared to perfection the dish served glistening and wobbling on black toast. Jack's HouseThis is the house that Jack built.
This is the nail that lay in the wall of the little red house that Jack built. This is the tetanus caused by the nail that lay in the wall of the wood and brick house that Jack built. This is the fear the tetanus spread as it seeped through the rooms of the gingerbread house that Jack built. This is the spore that locked the jaw of the green beret man in the house made of sand that Jack built. This is the person, stiff as a claw, who could breathe no more lying miffed and sore in the Summerside cottage that Jack built. These are the children, they’re all forlorn, hugging their father tattered and torn who would soon be a corpse but now lay on the bed in the tiny blue house that Jack built. This is the dirge that clearly emerged in the hard concrete yard near the nail causing tetanus drilled in the wall of the broad expanse of the grey fieldstone manse that Jack built. These two strange men who climb over the fence are approaching the bench near the nail causing tetanus drilled in the wall of the home on the grange that Jack built. These are the guns the men slung and then flung towards the wall with the nail causing tetanus lodged-- you know where—in the white stucco house that Jack built. These are the children asleep in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads with nary an inkling they’d all soon be dead and buried instead ‘neath the treacherous wall that held in its thrall the nail causing tetanus which brought on the fall of the chimney and all of the once standing house that Jack built. Phone Booth at 100thMarried at 24
our first home 100th and West End Ave. the bakery and fish store a block away. From the bathroom window-- no blinds or curtains yet-- I crane my neck to make out the Hudson. Saturday nights, alarms and sirens murders real or imagined and on the corner, a phone booth. In the dining room a bell to summon the butler who never comes two claw foot bathtubs a dumbwaiter to store potatoes and onions. At night when we turn on the light roaches scurry over stove and sink. Throbbing with blood lust, my husband squashes ten or twelve adults, babies-- no matter. The exterminator visits short-lived peace until our neighbor sends them back in our ongoing relay. Between us a living is made.
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