Oh, where are the rest of my shipmates,
And why am I not at sea,
And what is this lonely valley
Where no one is but me?
Have they sailed away without me?
Will they ever again return?
I never thought when he was dead
A sailor’s heart would yearn.
Oh, how did I die? In battle?
Or how did I die? Asleep?
Were there any who laughed when they heard it?
Were any too stunned to weep?
But who dressed me up so neatly?
Who brushed and combed my hair?
Some fellow just doing his duty
Or someone who tried to care?
Beside you while you slumbered, lad,
My restless heart had lain
Through all the hours of the night
Aware of love and pain.
Aware of love and morning’s light
And eyes that must betray
When someday you should look in mine
Then ever look away.
I’ll come to where you slumber, lad,
If death shall mark me not
And say the prayer that now I pray,
And thought I had forgot.
They shot him as he left the house
And stripped him in the snow
But still he held the samovar
And would not let it go.
Who knows from what fine home he came
With afternoons at tea?
If I had been that lonely lad,
They would have shot at me.
For I’d have run as desperately
Behind some log to settle,
And sit me down beside my theft,
The big, old Russian kettle.
But dead he lies; the snow piles high
And winter fills the land,
And only spring will move the thing
And take it from his hand.
His ship is on the ocean
But the sailor lad’s ashore,
And deeply, deeply sleeping,
He’ll waken nevermore.
We buried him atop the hill
That overlooks the bay,
And one there was who walked from there
With slower steps away.
And one there is on watch at night
Who wears the strangest smile,
Because he sees a specter lad
And talks with him awhile.
Across the world he comes to me,
And far horizons dim,
And I await the day when I,
Instead, shall go to him.
I would have brought you fire for those nights
When you were cold and lonely and in doubt.
I would have brought you laughter for your tears
And given you new dreams to dream about.
But look away, your eyes are much too bright,
And sorrow has lent beauty to your face,
And should I cast aside this cloak of years
And live forever after in disgrace--
It is an old temptation sprung anew,
Yet must not be.
Ah, look at me and you shall see
I am, my love, as miserable as you!
Of course they were doomed,
born with a curse; the whole litter mewing, cradled by
the torn out seat-stuffing in a hearse on flat tires.
Of course we took them; a chance to be gods and healers,
our internal boggle turning like mileage to spell "Mom."
We boxed them on blankets and sweatshirts,
fixed a water teat to the side within reach,
administered formula feedings in a warm kitchen none
of it mattered. The weak ones
died before the debate on names.
She was soggy-faced, her prize pick
wrapped in a cardboard coffin box
like a Christmas gift.
It weighed less than a Beanie Baby, its yellow eyes
shut beneath stuffed animal fur for always.
I dug a hole out front with a stone and tucked the box under
this is what you'll come to, picking about
in earth, pulling morning glory roots
like long white worms and heaping them
beside you of a morning: you will become
distant and glum, and as your wrists dry up,
caked in clay, you'll look around you, and
not your small red barn, your irises,
your bamboo patch, your oak and ash,
your three brave maples rattling in the breeze,
your small house bracketed in lilacs, breathing smoke,
your woodshed stacked roof-high,
your mint and parsley putting on new life,
your geese, your ducks, your pear trees in bright bloom
will rid you of the thought of what this is
that you are digging, bit by troweled bit.
Assuming the sun will come out, which now
My father is 88.
Yesterday I got a letter from him.
He said he has not been feeling very well lately
for in these last six months
he has lost four of his friends
and three of his teeth.
My eyes are not like doors
to just close and sleep.
A ruthless rebel is my yearning.
It desperately keeps fighting with my past.
I close my eyes to welcome sleep,
yet unconsciously
the pale face of the moon
and that of my mothers
in the agony of her death,
walk the alleys of my memory.
Slowly. In silence. Keeping me awake.
On this rainy afternoon
while I walk alone the streets
the music that my shoes make
on the wet asphalt
sounds to my ears
like a funeral symphony
and my walk like a dead march.
Casually raising my eyes
to the mountain in front me
I notice that the white cloud
which in the morning
was kissing the mountain
is there no more.
So, I say to myself;
‘these wet drops falling
are not the rain drops,
It departed at 8:32pm on 1st October, 1963
from a maternity hospital
in a small town in North Albania,
stopped at a creche to collect some cries,
toys,
ink spilt on shirts and trousers,
a broken pencil.
Other stops included
dull classes with mountains of books,
copies, fights, loves, hates, mistakes,
first kisses, white dust from the chalk,
lost shoes on football pitches.
Then it stopped again
at different workplaces
where the head was not needed at all, just the arms,
because the bosses were the ones
Laugh lines and signs of failing liver
Wrinkles and knobby belly
They say one thing
‘The child has turned old
The child has turned into a crocked man
And he crumples up like a dry leaf
On the dance floor
Ask the janitor for a shovel
Scoop up that dry corpse from the dance floor
Do it quickly
Do it fast
Let the music last
And last