by George Bowering

Surely it tells us something that more people
read Paradise Lost than even begin reading Paradise
Regained.   Things used to be different, but now
more people say “Oh, Hell!” than say “Heavens
to Betsy!” Of course a lot of those nice old names
have fallen into disuse, like spats or sugar tongs.
I was thinking of reading some more Milton because
his name starts with M, as does Marlowe,
whom I am reading now after a long hiatus.
Have you ever noticed that hiati are getting
longer these days? And really, there isn’t one,
not a true one, because I didn’t read Marlowe
so much as be the kind of person who has
read Marlowe, who went sometimes as Merlin,
as does the wise wife of my longtime friend Dave
McFadden, whose books of poetry I have been reading
for all our adult lives. Dave believes that Paradise
is here right now, all around us, and so he
absorbs it and bears witness that life is not
all subway noise and undersalted eggs. Heavens
to Betsy, I say to him, more people confess
willingly to reading your books of poetry than
even know about Paradise Regained in any edition.
He smiles like a bodhisattva who will have
no specific religion until time leaks out under the door.

by George Bowering

The toilet paper I’ve used during my life —
do I owe the earth a tree? Two trees?
But wait, haven’t my turds fed the earth,
or were they slid into the Sea?

At the University of California someone said
we western civilization people have cut off nature,
returning our fertile product not to the earth
but into the ocean, where all the salt is, except
that in the peanut butter I bought today, a jar
otherwise free of additives. Think about salt
in your stomach, in your small intestine, think about
those Road movies, Crosby and Hope back to that sound stage
where extras keep putting on ruffled sleeves and moustaches,
their fecal discharge in the Bay, not leaking nutrients
into a sun–warmed pasture. Southern California poetry
too could use some advice from was it Kantorowicz?
He said drop that basketball, pick up a hoe, and even your life.

by George Bowering

The neonate looked up at me with eyes
I have known forever. Then clouds, white on top,
grey underneath, slid behind those eyes, the way
a dog methodically licks vanilla ice cream
out of a paper cup. I step all over images
people have left behind in their hurry
to get to the delicatessen, where a famous
admiral is sitting down to a heavy sandwich.
His eyes have seen dark clouds in a medicine chest,
dancing men on a moist deck; he eats with
decorum, his devotees at the window, hands
beside their eyes, hungry and midsize in their
spring outfits. The baby knew I was there,
I know this for a certainty, its placid demeanor
no match for my anxiety, the quality
that has got me through a thousand confrontations.
If you have any desire to know my secret heart,
read on, I hear it coming, we can divine
the cosmic weather’s intentions by its ability
to imitate the peace beyond curiosity.

by Diane Wald

My undertaker
wears a lively cologne.
I like it. I believe

in his religion,
for he has seen a man pack up his falsetto
and travel, with only a sweaty seltzer bottle,
to the ends of existence. That same life

was full of heartbeats
that had made his heart beat bad. It was
the worst day of his life,
but not his fault. It seemed

as if the only comfort he could take
was in the fey voice of the TV weather person,
the local one, not the one who simply

refers you to “your neck of the woods.”
In my neck of the woods my moss
stretches out like a soft knitted scarf
intending to enjoy itself.

Exhausted by the surreal,
sometimes we falter.

Sometimes we keep ourselves
in a different room,
emerging only
to try to confuse the crowd
of innocent bystanders.
All we want is to see
the wonders of the world returning.

All we want is to steal a white–iced cake
off the trembling tea tray and get clean away.