NAMES
In Latham,
just off the southwest corner
of the K-Mart parking lot,
there’s a small memorial-
one name in English and Arabic-
a thanks to a young pilot,
whose plane full of cancelled checks
plunged down from the night sky,
for avoiding the nearby homes.
This need to name the dead.
You could spend an entire day
in the nearby capital city
reading each individual name
on its monuments and memorials.
A tale most eloquently told
on the long, black granite wall,
this naming in such contrast
to the lone soldier with musket or rifle
standing for the mass dead of past wars,
this naming so unlike the fate
of the Irish famine dead,
their names ripped in shame
from their parish registry pages,
this listing of precious lives
that would seem to ward off
more war, disease or tragedies.
But nothing ceases fire.
We go on naming,
adding panels to the quilt,
have faces and stories for each
soldier dead from our wars.
And each day adds its untold toll:
from the Congo, from Pakistan,
Columbia, Peru, Sri-Lanka
Palestine or Liberia.
And each day has its tale of tears
from famine and disease.
Each day, somewhere, out there.
We do not know their names,
have no images of their faces,
no idea of their likes or dislikes,
of who they left behind,
of what they did before they died
and nothing ceases fire
out there, somewhere.
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SWEETHEART
Old, tiny, lame, hunchbacked,
she raises her crooked, wigged
head and smiles-
revealing lipstick, pearls,
tailored clothes
and, as she passes,
an exquisite perfume.
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57
How to sum up a year like this?
March 17th compared to same last year.
Despair disgust replaced by
oh fuck it death goes on what
can I do about it got my own problems.
The people on the street any city street
the one we’re on now
going to or from work
standing at the bus stops
coming out of or going into
restaurants
bars
shops
grocery stores
coming out scratching for escape
in the distance the war proceeds
towards the next 17th of March.
The men lined up to sign up
their brown body parts flew into the air
our armored troops tanks arrived
to reconnoiter secure the area
again
into the air flew the dark body parts
of men who’d lined up to sign up
our armored troops tanks arrived
for the cleanup the cameras
and again
the bodies of men who lined up to sign up
were blown into the walls the street
our armored troops tanks arrived
to cordon off the area.
Where was the will to change to manage
for our armored troops tanks to arrive
before the men lined up to sign up
so only dust of the desert blew into the air?
Did anyone call congress on their behalf?
I didn’t. Did you?
We had our own problems worries
and plenty of them
let me tell you.
Happiness too.
Early spring along the Willamette.
Our son got married in August.
He aged away from any draft. Won’t go anyway.
How about them Red Sox!!?
And Beslan was only a nightmare
we quickly forgot, right?
One love won’t read the paper anymore
another hits the flashback before anchors
can say the “raq” in “today in Iraq…”
If our leader is like Hitler
then who are we?
So it ends even worse here
and in the distance, much worse.
I’ll proceed as a twittering fool
go out at night among the shadows
of children in far away places
friends loves lives long gone missed
promises desires possibilities lost faded
specters of myself also gone
or perhaps to come
post notices looking for those met once
who might have found the answer:
We met on the midnight bus out of Albany.
It was 1976.
You were a paralegal. I was a laundry worker.
In Buffalo, you got the next bus to Toronto;
I the one bound for Detroit.
I didn’t find a job there, had the best fried chicken
in the Cleveland Greyhound station on the way back,
found someone that looked like you
in the 25th Anniversary edition of Playboy,
pretty much led a charmed life,
never found the answer.
Did you?
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MIDNIGHT
White sheets hold
tree limb shadows.
Nerve bundles connect.
New snowflakes reflect
moon and star light.
Synapses spark.
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THE MORNING AFTER
The wind howls, the sun is weak, the scones stale. But.
Up the band that played “Louie, Louie” in front of St. Patrick’s!
Up the old jazzman who quoted “Danny Boy” late in the subway!
The crowd from the Whitney Biennial has traded spaces
with Old Country Buffet denizens from Latham Circle Mall.
Thin girls in jade leather boots scream
“BRING THE PEASANTS HOME NOW!”
as they sit breathing the antiseptic cafeteria smell
where thick toothless women gummed green Jell-O.
Stunned bald men and their progeny suffering from
unintended consequences of electronic Little League scoreboards
carry signs saying “BRING THE CHIC HOME NOW!”
as they shuffle where sensitive dark-haired young men
tried to be, oh, just so in the moment yesterday.
On Broadway, tourists snap shots of genuine
NYC style sign waving loudly shouting demonstrators
crowded into pens behind steel barricades,
mostly young and cute despite their anger.
A gray generation interspersed screams, “AGAIN?”
Their collective amplified protestations,
their three year old NOW’s
sucked into the energy of the city
like yesterday’s seven hour parade,
like its most grievous wound.
Enough debate about what art is! ENOUGH!
Paint, sculpt, film, photograph, dance, act, write, juxtapose and compose.
Slip into an obit, “his last words were, ‘bring them home.’”
Tag the walls with the ashes of burnt flags spelling NOW!
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THE ABCESS
I’d been walking over a river bridge in Cohoes. Suddenly, a cloth with a strong medicinal smell was pressed over my mouth. When I came to, I was at a table in a stainless steel room sitting across from a very tall young woman who was staring down at me. Her dark suit made her appear very official. I scanned her shimmering black hair, long shapely legs, a skirt and blouse seemingly tailored just for her body. She was ravishing.
“Awake at last,” she said impatiently. “I’m from the FBI and will give you your final instructions,” she continued ominously.
Ah, the new FBI, I thought. Well, I’m old school and thinking massive thermonuclear blowjob from you my dear.
“Why are you smiling?” she asked.
“Where am I?” I replied.
“The Terminal.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s what we call this place. You have no need to know its official name. It’s your final destination. The end for you.”
Suddenly fully awake, I asked, “What? Is this a prison?”
“Not exactly,” she replied, “people get out of prison.”
“I’m here forever?”
“Until you die.”
“Why?”
“You have been found totally reprehensible in terms of your views, your writings, your conversations, your very thoughts. You have been censured by both the state and the federal level. You have been extracted from society.”
As you can imagine, I was shocked. “What the fuck!” What about my rights? Who sent me here? What’s your name? Who’s your boss? I need to call my wife to let her know where I am.”
“You have been extracted,” she said calmly, almost soothingly. While she wrote on a clipboard, she went on, “I will bring you to a small stainless steel cell. You will be locked inside it. Forever. It’s designed to meet your basic bodily needs and provide physical nourishment. There’s a slot on the top that will open for an hour each day to reveal the sky. I am the last person you will ever have contact with. You will have no access to events outside. No TV, no internet, no papers, no books.”
“How about a bible?” I interrupted.
“You have been extracted,” she continued, “you will remain here until such time as you die naturally or such time as your thoughts become reprehensible again, whichever time is less. If the latter, you will be immediately gassed. The cell you will be in can read your thoughts and will know your very dreams. There’s a very low tolerance. We need to turn these cells over quickly. I’ve written additional instructions that if you ever again think or dream of me in a sexual way you will be put to death in a special way. I’ve ordered that, in such circumstance, your end be ‘massive and thermonuclear.’”
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Bob Sharkey resumed writing poetry after a pilgrimage to San Francisco's