Poems

Not at all what I had expected . .

denny — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:40:51 GMT

but certainly worth reading.

d;-)

Monk’s Last Night and Modigliani’s Lady

Ted Burke — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:24:53 GMT

Monk’s Last Night and Modigliani’s Lady

Monk plays his last note

on the last track on the

last return to the bridge

in “Off Minor”

and again turn in

the chair in a big room

full of computer parts

too see exactly no one there,

only a print of long necked Modigliani lady

tilting her head to the side,

as if coyly urging me to

scream a little, play piano some more,

find another record

to play and fill in the spaces

between the pages

of the novels whose stories.

I imagine, confront their

heroes with much the same

dilemma and the variety of solutions,

“It’s all or nothing

and forever is a long time”

is what I hear myself mumbling?

as I turn off all the machinery,

pace the carpet with the cordless phone.

your number rings for the

third time, and now the fourth,

there’s the fifth time, and

nothing from that,

I put down the phone

and pick up a work file,

a bunch of applications

to be sorted through,

scrutinized, tortured with an

eye that reads only bad news,

every question I ask is a set up,

the trap door I’m leading

them toward, screams and

whimpers follow as they fall

to the alligator pit, you didn’t want

to work here really, did you,

and nothing’s been done

about the space junk whose orbits are

disintegrating, nothing has been detailed

about the lack of Limbo contests

in Nova Scotia, the news that makes me

the sickest is that

so few people remember

Question Mark’s real name,

c’mon, you know,

that “96 Tears” guy.

remember?

Modigliani’s swan necked beauty

still smiles, teases with sighs of

future nicknames, says in

a language heard only

when the fever is high

and the medicine primes you

for the deep folds of slumber,

“lie down and stop thinking for

a spell, everything that hasn’t been done will

be waiting for you when return …”