Triangulation
He says that foremost
Mao Zedong was a poet,
and knew that all poetry
must at some level
be political, must
incite the reader to rebel
against complacency.
I say that Zhao Zhenkai
wrote as Bei Dao
as the ultimate act
of rebellion, sacrificing
his very identity.
He says that I
am anchored by
the weight of realism,
and I say that he
needs reeducation.
She says that neither
of us will ever write
the just open bloom
of spring’s first rose.
Pensee
I do some
of my best thinking
he whispered,
when I think
of nothing at all.
Did you know
that if not
for the Babylonians
entire worlds
would be cubes.
In fact they were
for centuries.
It’s like sex
he continued,
it’s best when
you are celibate.
But then again
Bally shoes
are no longer
hand sewn,
and taro is best
served
room temperature.
Occlusion
After the stroke
he couldn’t remember
much, was the woman
in white who bathed him
his wife or someone
he slept with once
before he had gotten
married. Monogamy
was a word that he
remembered, though not
its meaning, or why he
had sworn to abide it.
When the aide brought
in the flowers, they smelled
familiar, like the odor
of capon slowly boiling
on the Sabbath stove.
He heard the concerto
small radio tinny, but it
sounded strange, gut
of cat sawed across strings
crying out against
the injustice of it all
and the chair against
the window, was it one
he sat on at the edge
of the stage, bowing
to the audience as
Mozart’s crescendo
still echoed in his ears.
Louis Faber is a poet and retired attorney and college literature teacher, residing in Rochester, New York and Coconut Creek, Florida. His work has previously appeared in Exquisite Corpse, Rattle, Cold Mountain Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, Borderlands: the Texas Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Pearl, Midstream, European Judaism, Greens Magazine, The Amethyst Review, Afterthoughts, The South Carolina Review and Worcester Review, among many others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A book of poetry,The Right to Depart, was published by Plain View Press. Visit him at anoldwriter.com