Welcome to Fear City

It’s easier to enter
than to leave me.
The guards are given orders at the gates.
You may have wondered
why they smiled at you
why you saw no dogs or weapons.
But now you are in my city.
Its walls surround you.
At first you may have thought
it possible to escape,
filled still with ideas from outside.
You may have thought
that with time things would get better
or that the guard
who smiled so benignly as you entered
would remember you
and let you out again.
But then you saw his gun
and his dog snarled as you approached.
You rented an apartment by the river
grew vegetables
and ran a dry goods store
based on a knowledge of textiles
you’d brought along.
One hears little news
from beyond the wall,
and often it’s confused and contradictory.
Then the seasons pass
bringing snow and new leaves
and sweeping them away.
And then your children are born.
They’ll know you’re from outside,
but their children may not,
and their children will know nothing.
One year the river goes dry
and you wonder why.
It has never done that before.
But what does it matter?
You are dying anyway.
Old age has made you foolish
and it’s too late to ask questions.

Why I am a Rapist

I’m alone in this town.
My only contacts
causes and effects
and a series of disasters
I’m just halfway through.
My only friend is pity.
We dress in black
both of us,
two sailors in a mental honky-tonk,
hired by implacable despair
to pull this job.
In the dark
we grow warm
feeding off the rays of sentimentality
that surround us.
A passing consolation.
We like to think of ourselves as thieves
mocking birds of the human kingdom:
a small satisfaction,
but it does not last.
Then:
O God how I love you—
in my own way—
driven by a destiny
I cannot control.
I know I am the agent of your violation.
I have sacrificed everything for you.
My master won’t reveal itself
except in hopeless contradictions.
I find you on the street
and can only fill you with this
simple message.

Who Am I?

Daily
plotting a thousand infidelities.
A fan of intrigues
devoted to sentimental movies.
And sometimes of love’s secret service
reading the terror and horror
the contents of yesterday’s medicines:
spoonfuls of civilization
mother gives you
propped up in bed
a toy car beneath the pillow
and the small warm erection of security
looming under the blanket
unrecognized.
A hug and to sleep.
The bitter taste translated
into evening’s first dreams.
What I thought was a simple house
is actually a hotel
with strangers checking in and out
some with the day clerk
some with the night clerk
while the manager sleeps
or is away—
the owner rarely seen.
The rooms are not simple rooms
with doors and windows.
Some have secret ways
where guests have vanished
only to turn up later
in scandal’s bloom
or disappear
skip out on the bill.
And then there is the traffic
the countless meetings at the bar
the chance encounters in the elevators
on the stairs or in the hall,
untold stories
the meat of popular literature.
And then a letter from the owner
from Brazil:
Tear the building down
he writes
the property’s been sold.
Now terror’s in the hallways
disguised as indignation.
Bellboys grumble powerlessly,
chambermaids, cooks
and guests who’ve lived there many years
circuit regulars too
even the manager,
whispering the news
in small groups, in large crowds
and singly:
““No business deal in Rio
will put me on the street!”
one hears
or: “Just let ’’em try.”
Oh yes.
You know the story.
You know how it ends.
Maybe one old Christian Scientist
will handcuff herself to the bed.
Reporters will come
but even the papers tire quickly
of such news.
It always ends on the street.
The building falls
and all those little people
vanish like old hotels.

A dilettante of particulars
dynamite strapped to these dreams
born in innocence
praying for impossible ignorance,
a suicide
insisting:
Let them live. Let them live.

At Wagner’s Grave

Not far off the swans.
Perhaps a boon to the imagination:
the old guy sitting there
nervous fingers twitching
at the ivories
with blank potential fishing for a song.
It only takes a single swan
or the thought of one
to precipitate a stream
of words and music
when all that so-called art
has been waiting,
swelling, bursting
for an opportunity
to open to the world:
thousands of souls
depending on that moment
for the program music of their history.

Why I Like Hitler

Maybe it’s his boots
or his leather coat
or the way he wears his hair
or the parades and the flags
and the purposeful literature
I can read at home
or the speeches he makes
where the words seem to mean
what they say
or the way he fills me with worth
and puts me to work
instead of making promises
like the others.
“No one shall hunger or need”
he says and so we eat now
neither the blabber of intellectuals
nor the pity of do-gooders
but food that is love’s product.
We are poor
and must depend on others.
The winters are cold here
and charity is not common
among us.
We can neither eat promises
nor rebukes
for wars our fathers fought and lost.
They mock our past, every one of them,
and they do not let us forget,
none of them,
and we are weak,
not strong enough to live
without a past,
like children,
not strong enough to grow yet
without parents.
But he is proud of our past
and so are we now
and he does not let us weaken.
What is weak,
what does not belong,
he destroys
and we say nothing
even when we are afraid.
He has given us our honor.
The price is high indeed
but now we stand on equal ground
with all you honorable people.