A Little Dark

A long table with a goblet set in front of each placard.
Seven shrimp hug the rim. A drop of condensation sliding
Down the pink. “A surprise.“ The only hint guiding
Adjourned rabbis through oak doors. What waiters heard
Next were rumblings. Shuttering Yiddish. A third
Of the goblets gone. The Reform Movement, born. Impaling
Flesh tails on jagged glass. The fringe Hassids calling
This the end of Jewry. The banquet awash in Kosher reverb.

I’m sitting on Bleeker St., al fresco, eating tom-yum
Soup. The Yeshiva lets out. Through beards, eyeballs
We lock gazes. They trudge on. Out comes my pork
(twice-cooked). I’m still waiting for Valerie to come
out of the bathroom. She appears. A Hassid catcalls.
She curses him out in Russian. He fades into neon dark.
*
She curses him out in Russian. He fades into neon dark
Of the shrugging buildings; tenements dying into Coney
Island’s Astroland. It’s OTB time, gotta bet on pony
#6. Then head through the cracked clown lips, park
entrance, to the fat Jew, hunched, with his mako shark
face and chummed hands. He gives free skee-ball only
to the cute Italian boys. They’re greased and bony
from tin-can diners and heroin desert in Bryant park.

Under the eye, the boardwalk swells to a blister
And splinter, catching our dragging tourist feet.
The girls want corndogs; we want the Cyclone.
Jersey kids trying to be Brooklyn tough. Mister
Lift-o selling the freakshow. “Minotaur of Crete
Today only, ten bucks.“ We pay. Paycheck blown.
*
“Today only ten bucks.“ We pay. Paychecks blown
On Florentine leather, and the Venetian glasswork
Mezuzahs. Topaz crabs. In the shadier corners lurk
Rolled sellers. Knockoff watches, folded homegrown
Wool, dyed church-sky blue. “Best deals! You own!”
One more trip back to the porcetta truck. The Pork
Man (you are what you eat) with machete and fork
Offers a taste. Savor the flesh like marbled stone.

Grimy lights (track and florescent) in the Bergen Mall.
Dry hands from re-alphabetizing yellowing Stoppard
To unsold Vogel. I’m done with customers who sneeze
On bills. We, $5.50 an hour cynics, want a bounty
Put on tongues that mangle. Tequila Mockingbird.
Waiting til Friday when the GAP girls come to tease.
*
Waiting til Friday when the GAP girls come to tease
The boys out of their wallets. Ah, this is Jersey’s
Diner culture. I eat eggs. Coffee black as cave water;
Brendan wants to go to the beach. Lauren frees
Her hand from his. He’s old from all the dead trees
In Home Depot. What’s left between us, brother?
My inky fingers. Your calloused palms, which saunter
On plywood. Distance has become our disease.

Brendan bought the same bass his brother has. Off
White. Gawky bodies. Fat Buddha; Hungry Jesus.
Youth is wasted on the Conversed and Pink Floyd
Crowd. Crushes on girls we weren’t good enough
For, too dirty. Never been to Europe. Tetris is
As close to culture as you get in this Jersey void.
*
As close to culture as you get in this Jersey void
Of limestone quarries. Chipping away the fragment:
Skull, wrist, claw? E. Drinker Cope’s still fervent
To beat out Marsh. The Yale boy is two hominoid
Species ahead. Met Owens. Guarding the trapezoid
Slicing a Colorado map. Waiting for President
Grant’s go-ahead. Then he’ll take his mules, tent
And guards. Collecting bones til the next asteroid.

We stalk, shoulders bunched-up, and balled stride
Embodying T-Rex and Allosaurus. Fingers, talons
Ready for the bloody carcass of the Apatosaurus
Seen on so many museum walls. Wide-eyed
We race the halls of floor 4. Magnetically drawn
To the Hadrosaur lit like glowing phosphorus.
*
To the Hadrosaur lit like glowing phosphorus
In the dark of Newark. Forget this past week
Spent bumming Camels down in South Creek
And the Freehold Mall. Another Beer. Jesus
Christ it can’t be past twelve already. The bus
Leaves at 8:30. Tomorrow. The girl, a sleek
Tabby is giving the look. Ignore these weak
Urges. Tomorrow you’ll be back in Columbus.

“Ohio sucks.“ I nod, eyes closed. We both want
to be back in Allenhurst, Ocean, or even Asbury
Park. We miss the sound of the sea smashing clam
Shells on the toothed jetty. We can’t take their gaunt
Cornfield limbs. Bored, we write the other’s obituary:
“Here lies a Jersey Jew, confessed lover of glazed ham.”
*
Here lies a Jersey Jew, confessed lover of glazed ham.
Valerie says it’s stupid when I do that. She won’t order
Pork. But she will pick off and eat the bacon on my tater
Skins at Friday’s. Passover/Good Friday at the Chadam
Diner found me eating a bunless burger; whereas Graham
And Brendan, Catholics, sopped up white toast with butter
And eggs. Our meal split up by ancient rules that are holier
Than us. We’re tangled up like Isaac’s substitution ram.

Yale decided to arrange an interfaith dialogue
Luncheon, between the Christians and the Jews.
The college clashed over which kind of polished
Wood. What food? Stew? No that’s too Prague
Ghetto Period. Not gilded. In the end they used:
A long table with a goblet set in front of each placard.
*
Neir Tamid, the pilot light, calling me home.
Past broken mosaics and peeling gold leaf
To the rabbi’s inflections filling the dome.

Days spent in gardens and the ruins of Rome
Eating procutto, sliding hands on Titus’ relief
Neir Tamid, the pilot light, calling me home.

Wandering, Jew-like, across broken stone
Dante holds out a flame, calls me a thief
I pass him, inflections filling the dome.

Too many nights drunk. Tastes like sea foam
On foreign lips. I’ve run aground on the reef.
Neir Tamid, the pilot light calling me home.

How many years has it been without the known
Touch of fingers on tefilin. There’s relief
In the rabbi’s inflections filling the dome.

I’m 21,872,641 steps from the Holy of Holies throne
Where the Kohen hide their Hebrew grief
Neir Tamid, the pilot light, calling me home
To the rabbi’s inflections filling the dome.

ISBN 0-9745909-2-4
73 pages $15