Olimpia

'The way I look at it' she said
unscrewing the cap and rolling
a longish pill from a small vial,
tan and smooth, with rounded edges-
a girl-from-Ipanema of a pill,
into the palm of her hand,
'We are like thirsty houseplants
that curl up, sink into themselves
and wither-shrivel.

'What do you mean'? , I said.

'Bright, high-achieving dolls'
she continued, like that
talented chick in the Offenbach opera
but we run out of steam'.
'Cheers', she said, interrupting herself,
and onto her tongue slipped the pill:
her swallow muscles moved and stood still.
Don't think, just do-

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Show Tune #3

What a lovely matinee
intermission long enough
but it's snowing, now, the wind is blowing-
well, you get my drift,
Baby, can I give you a lift?

Your way and my way
go the same highway-
the cabbie knows a byway,
I don't, so do say, do say
Baby, I can give you a lift.

In the cab we'll gab
laugh and count the many ways
that life is like a Broadway play
you can bet I'll pay, I'm good for it,
Baby, can I give you a lift?

When you get home, bone-dry
you will invite me in

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Aunt Fritzi I

What she was is not exactly clear
but as often shown resting in an armchair reading the Times,
a journalist, perhaps? the way she looked
she could have been an ex-rockette.

It is natural and understandable
that she kept so firm a rein on Nancy,
her ward, troublesome child,
who lived with her for reasons

equally not clear; her parents dying
simultaneously in a plane crash? ; maybe her father
was a diplomat in a communist state;
maybe she had a learning disorder

or colic, and her mother,
kinder than an antique Greek, declined the exposure option;
or maybe the child was just impossible
in all the many ways a child can be

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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A.M. Oversight

If I were God
and in passing, caught sight
of you, Manhattan,
on such a summer's day morning,
sparkling
divvying the waters
of the mighty Hudson like the rock you are,
in twain (in what else?) . If I...

...were God,
who is quite old-
bent over and not a little crotchety;
who long ago stopped having sex in any form
and who has only one child...and...

caught sight of you, Manhattan,
monkey's fist of glimmers and glares,
rayons and fountains
and finials of blinding light;

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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St. George

Improbably he veers and peers at us
not the dragon-demon at his feet-
the argent steed, whose sire, Pegasus,
carried the Favorito, Perseus
down the wild, airy steep.

and pledges with his sapient, little face
the Rider, the amazing savior,
mailclad form of scarcely bearable grace
trust without measure, endless faithfulness-
so shall we pledge Jesus our Redeemer.

But this dragon is not the fish of tufa
that slid heavily barnacle-implanted
out of the pearl-stuck grotte
to menace pale, golden-haired Andromeda
while the king lamented:

this is the Fiend, the Evil One, the Liar
who prowls the world plotting the souls' ruin

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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In The Museum

Quite something it was to see
how in the museum, around the famous image
by Monet, the poet of waters, running and still,
the Master of Givenchy, painter of green-running rivers,
yellow arches of bridges, wands of yellow willows
trailing their tips in the water's depths;
star-flowers sitting squarely a-squat flat pads
stems cork-screwing down into the water's velvety dark
above eel-grass undulant in swales below the current's jade,
shadows and reflections everywhere, mystery compounding,
shadows and glints of color there and here
the outcome and culmination of time spent
in the shrewd, impassive, life-long observance of Nature-
observance being essentially an act of worship-
taking time and reams of patience to begin to refine;
reflections that hint at the mind of the Creator,
reflections that make for the highest end of living,
reflections that poultrice the insult of living itself,
unburdened by any cloying bourgeois 'should'-
water, air.....

poem by Morgan Michaels
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Swans lll

And many, many more
along an endless shore
their light-militia up the flood extended
fluid, fierce and sotto-sounding
further than the eye could see
pissed as if they had to pay
mortgages, with fees compounding
on which their lives depended-
but, actually, they didn't, needing nay.

Then there came a dawn
so curious, I can't forget
it morning was and blowing quite a bit;
down in a desultory way
the snows of dawn fell down that winter day
when all them turned, acceding to one will
and over the water sped and faster till
they one by one began to disappear
into the low-set clouds like jet succeeding jet
clutching his fellow's tail in his own bill.

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Wintergarden l

I know you don't care. Do you care?
when I call it uncanny, the way
they continue to continue, far into Fall
under a dim, day moon
under a denim sky of washed-out blue
cirrhus-streaked, here and there,
which means it will be cold soon
each little ball
opening like a fist,
crickets ulullating in the mist.

Opening sans-cesse
one upon another after another
whispering how the show must on:
fringey purple cosmos; endlessly ambitious
sea-blue convulvulus, all more or less
wrung from tendrils, less or more
conforming to the trees they wind upon,
dew-strung with little crystal pears
but never so delicious;

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Dream

Dream, what are you, you look familier.
Why am I chasing you? Do you even know I exist?
Zig to my zag, zag to my zig
You make me dizzy, so I keep my eyes steady
On you, on your horizon.

Sometimes you take the shape of a horse running,
Dream, sometimes a cloud
Changing into a horse changing into a cloud
Changing into a running dream. I laugh-
Of course I laugh.

Every night I imagine we're through.
'Just go away, I say,
Punching the pillow for emphasis.
But by daybreak, there you are again,
Newborn pink around the gills, cyanotic and green

With scabs and a hematoma-
Alarmingly apneic

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Truth About The Truth

What for you is true
or isn't
usually depends on how many
choose to believe
your version of it:
Hence television. Hence Hollywood.
Human truth, alas, is local;
though most agree
gold will always be
a bully basis for a currency:
Truth being wearisomely,
equatible with usage,
practicality,
who has bigger guns,
and what is ego-tonic to believe.
'This is true, because it's always been.'
'God believes it, too.
Daddy served-why not me? '
In spite of any war, though,
In spite of banks and oil magnates,

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poem by Morgan Michaels
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