23 Skidoo
by Ira COHEN
Homage to Monk
February 16, 2002, Uris auditorium
Straight No Chaser
Monk is his own
evidence
In gaberdine
W―out formal
training
He was the
revolution
A stream of lions
under his fingers
Music in the ash
of your burning
cigarette
In the handkerchief
you used to mop yr brow
if you needn't who
else would've?
You outdid the
rain at its own
game
you left your finger
prints
on the sky
Turning in your
own
circle you wore
your music like
a hat
of distinction
Always here & now
even now that
you're gone―
Ugly Beauty
you said
lost in the spheres
First was always
best for you
Then you started
staring out of win
-dows
Don't blame me
You played
Leaving the suitcase
filled w/empty Coke
bottles behind
Your hat you kept
on
even while you were
sleeping
Then you went
Off
Minor,
You said to KK
that you weren't
there
Still the sounds
you heard go on
Not hard of
hearing
but so easy
to listen
to
*
Closing Time
Now I find myself
alone
in a vast museum
hall
where I encounter 30 ft.
tall wooden Duck Priests
of New Hebrides―
the shade of Thelonious
by my side. Hail to thee, O Monk,
You have heard
that which no one
had heard
And you played
what no one had
played
before.
You were yourself
the rarest thing
of all.
23 Skidoo for PLW
I wake from a deep unaccustomed sleep
& go down to my mailbox
hoping to hear from an old friend
(Tu Fu is far away somewhere
in the shadow of Blue Mountain)
and find your poem telling me
I am not alone
Even when I dial the Shekinah
I find that she is not at home
Encountering Derrida on Mourning,
the Work of Politics of, I find
not a single tear or sigh
Then Hadrian comes to say
that the little soul wavers away
For the Jew salt is inseparable
from religion & retains its nature
in a dry place like Palestine
I wake up from a dream and exclaim,
"Now I know who sent Sirhan!"
It was that All in All who also
brings the rain & makes even a civilization
which will have fallen,
yet to rise again.
―Oct. 24, 2001
General Insanity
General Motors
General Electric
General Dynamics
& General Powell
just three blocks from Ground
Zero
a successful day of trading
under the most difficult of circum-
stances
will be good for Visionics
& will add liquidity to complete
the embalming of Hope
The Good Guys are the Angels of Death
Instability can afford to bide
Despite all the terrible things,
the charring & the burning,
it is gratifying to know
that the Market is still alive
How to separate the appalling
from the appalling―
Cisco Systems away!
ask the Lone Ranger then
No, forget the Lone Ranger
ask Tonto, he would know
if is is snowing in Afghanistan
and if the road is slow.
―Sept. 23, 2001
Sadat Comes to Sinai
In the middle of the night
I wake up as the rain
begins to type on the roof
WASH AWAY WASH AWAY
We are all oysters in the basket,
wet dust in the ocean
Escaping the ghetto
only to find holocaust here
in every soul the same story
played out
from year to year
WASH AWAY WASH AWAY
Wash Away the baby carriage
in front of the cigar store
Wash Away the Bronx,
the elevated train heading for Cairo
Please, O Please wash away
the fear
guilt
barbed wire
The sphinx's smile remains
The bread is in the oven
Eat it if you dare
Sadat has come to Sinai
WASH AWAY WASH AWAY
The time is coming near
Nature pays for all revolutions.
―Oct. 1981
Spring Rain
It is pouring down rain
& I am sitting behind windows
at the DYNASTY with A.J. Arberry
pondering the needles of God
in the mouths of fishes
jumping out of the sea
The sound of the rain falling
on the striped awning
mingles pleasantly with the hum
of spoken Chinese & the random
xylophone of struck dishes
Far away from the Global Manhunt
I sit wishing to be found
While the desperate search goes on
the killers admire themselves
in the mirror of death
A bearded face swims up to the
window
& gives me the eye
Two bedraggled dogs pull their
mistress by
A drunken fool must have his say
& smashes the glass w/his fist
Ten times nothing is still nothing
What need of a witness in a house
of numberless windows?
―April 21, 1995 NYC
Imagine one day your neck torn as if by accident
Imagine me under a pile of debris . . .
―from an old love letter
Change of Season
To give the effect without mentioning it,
how to hide you in a poem,
The Poet lays on the spell
creating definite concavities―
The lingering effect of spilled perfume
invokes a multitude of empty rooms
where once we lay entwined
in the underwater boudoir of the mind.
That Gate of Ishtar now ruined,
some piece of wall in Balkh
bear testament to the handiwork of Time,
witness what transpires
between wind and stone,
lovers who at last
do merge and disappear―
And we who see each other
among the stars,
Who will know or care
when wind encounters empty wind
what wildness lies still hidden here?
O unheard tongue of poetry,
Sing the sudden rush of air
Sing, sing of the golden lair!
―April 20, 1976
Purim '96
―for Ralph Feldman & the Eighth Street Shul
It's Purim now & a little girl
is worried about how
her crown fits
she wears lipstick & carries a bag
full of Hamantaschen & candies
Her mother is thinking of suicide
bombers & twisted metal
while Rabbis are picking up
human parts for burial
In a shower of glass
she calls out her child's name,
ISTAHAR, ISTAHAR
Esther gave herself
for the sake of her people
Purim is a day of masks & games,
a stalker's holiday turned inside out.
Only through mercy does
the King's reign remain secure.
Reality Check 5761
―For Michael Rothenberg, Toe Dancer
Ariel goes to the Temple Mount.
Even rubber bullets can kill
Why not try them out on Ariel Sharon?
What about blubber bullets then?
It's too hard to be a member
of the human race-- It's the word race
as in rat race which disturbs me
I don't want to bring home the bacon,
especially on Rosh Hashanah
at the expense of my battered aspirations
I hear that the Dalai Lama will be fucking
Barbara Kruger in the lobby of the Whitney
Museum
to commemorate the year 2001
& the beginning
of the end of the American Century
Gregory Corso knew
about Elegaic Feelings American
George Bush Jr. knows that one and one
makes two,
but that doesn't include me and you
Hanging from a beam of light
no cook will ever cook my goose
or put my dreams to flight.
Hip Hip Harass
What a day! I woke up blotto,
stomach upside down, numbness
in my feet, swollen legs, a pain
in my arm―a few inconclusive
phone calls, an argument over
nothing with a good friend―
& then a police car pulls over
on a deserted street (16th St. & 10th Ave.)
where I am pissing under medical duress
I am lucky I didn't get three
summonses, the lady cop says
I guess I could frame the pink slip
she gave me for urinating in public
I think of Diogenes who was famous
for that in his day & much more
but then that was a philosophical
statement
Bush Two says he wants to move forward
but it feels like backward
Isn't It Rich? blare the headlines,
a good song to sing when you are poor
but at 66 what do I have to complain
about? I'm sitting at Tagine on 40th St.,
eating a fine Moroccan dinner
& listening to a jazz trio swinging
the night away--
a postcard I wrote to Lakshmi
was just published in Switzerland
by the Gruppe Thurgau, Bodensee
& Rhein
Thank you Florian, thank you Hamid
I remember dining on fish,
I think it was called felchen
which is unique to Lake Constance
an experience also discovered by
the Romans in another Millennium
I Cover the Waterfront is the name
of the tune & thanks to Adolphe Sax
the beat goes on under stained glass
lamps from Tetuan―
Headgear supreme I call it―
O Lord, your lamp is my bonnet!
―Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2001 NYC
Saturday's Poem
Am I giving a kiss or taking
a kiss?
Am I using enough of the
perfect vernacular?
Are my emotions under control
or will the black crystals of night
explode my days away?
Hanging on a solo branch
things are too real or not real
enough
If it is raining why don't they come?
I'm lying in the bathtub covered
in newsprint, the ink of our time
has turned my face black
What is the meaning of an earthquake
or an uninhabited planet?
All I know is that there is a lion
roaring in my head,
that everything which lives
must surely die―
yet there will never be a last line
or enough time.
―Sept. 8, 2001
