David Shapiro

Some see a dove And think Pigeon Others see pigeons And think Dove Some know that all pigeons are doves Some angry as if pigeons were not doves But the city lover knows And I try to reconstruct The tattoo on one of your many branches The more arms the more power I think of you, O pale tattoo All pigeons, all doves You friendly cliff-dwellers

If one saves a butterfly, has one saved the world? Rabbi says: If one saves one butterfly, even with long wings, one butterfly that has fallen into water, it may be said: “He has saved the whole world.” If one saves a motley moth, is it the same? Rabbi: It is valid. If one saves a dirty monkey from a flame, for example, it is as the saying is: He or she has saved the whole world. It is valid for all creatures, and not more so for the creatures who know how to recite the blessings. It is always valid, even on the Sabbath. It is said: The creatures of the sky are owned by no one, like the land. If one saves the Book from being destroyed, is it also saving a world? Rabbi: God forbid, yes, saving the book from the fire, saving the book or books from the fire, is known to be comparable. He who saves a book and he who writes a holy book, it should be said: They have saved the whole world like a book. If one saves a rose, one rose, from the garden of your dead Teacher, is it still appropriate to think: She has saved the world. The Rabbi was silent and seemed troubled. He replied: If the house of the great teacher is in ruins, and the garden is a scandal, and one saves one rose from his garden it is said even of one rose: It is like saving the world. It is also said the rose will grow as large as the world.

The trees have sex, Teach, Focus. Tohu Bohu Chaos in a green light. Alone again. How alone I twist at the end of thought when illness is forgot and the speaker is punched on the bark on the soft models. The old abbot looked at us and laughed. He loved electronic gadgets for his tomb. You were as beautiful as six almonds as beautiful as the naked foot of the messenger of peace. You sat in a corner of the page.

Owl small be enough The child for all his feathers was a cold. Oh wow the owl. The poem the vowels The owl, look its vowels That branch for you Owl, are you an armature vector And a large step for mankind? Owl astronaut burgeoning owl is a gift You give to me give to you Terrible other things happen. We stay on our branch. A hundred eyes Two will do

Sisyphus had a bad back. Why? Well, I get up in the morning And my wife wants me to carry A big blue bag of garbage To my son now Sleeping in a studio in NY. Five flights he will not carry. Oh I say I’m not supposed to carry More than five pounds of garbage And she crosses the border with it There was a dead body like little Pedro rolled down the Hill by Buñuel and not the long kiss Of L’age d’or but the dog and dog-dream In Los Olvidados. How do you abandon dirt? The blue bag also rolls down by itself, full of Pedro Something little Pedro always wanted to do It’s a cold day. Man is garbage. Sisyphus has a bad back.

There are those who feed only on oranges. — S.Y. Agnon Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. It stands alone, with luster in a far tinge. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. On Saturday it’s blue like an orange Or like a surrealist sight rhyme in a garage. Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. But rime riche is rich enough for an orange. Still my doorman sings, Put it away in storage! It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. Orange replies: I’m drunk from my last bar-binge Half-rhymes like hangovers suddenly impinge. But nothing rhymes in English with an orange. While my wife in French eats one in her nude linge Playwrights Synge and Inge flap forward on a car-hinge. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe. Pronounce it orange and then expunge. So ends the story of the very violet orange. Nothing rhymes in English with an orange. It stands alone, and seems to make a star cringe.

1. My son said Daddy are there words for everything? I said You mean the space between The clouds? “Yes!” “No!” Like those who love to think one word will take care of Maupassant’s tree and his landlady. But it turns out you will get no further than the words that reach and do not touch. X uses a hard word one per poem like throwing a true diamond sale or throwing a Ruby on a Corten steel table, a little gold in cardboard. There is a country where They make their own cardboard. General words the French love, a thousand eyes but only one Kaleidoscope. Even Merleau-Ponty not specific enough (said Meyer) like very pretty exit signs Without numbers. Paul Valéry said the world was made out of nothing and sometimes a bit of that Nothing shines through. No grin, no cat. But I think: The world was made of gold, and every once in a while Some of that gold shines through. You. They say it doesn’t matter that you can’t read the Book of Splendor in Aramaic. “Just leave it in your house.” Amazing debilitating magic at the door! If there were the right word for everything, each young philosopher Could dream without sleeping. Using the same ruler and we’d all Have the same measures and ladders without rungs, with regular risers. Music without words: it does a good job of caring about you, X-ray of thought the architect wanted. X-ray for the lovers— I always loved to climb that ladder without rungs, I collect them. I fight over them, I forgive My antagonist. Even the wild ladder without tongues. Even the literal is a metaphor. This is not nothing says the boy to the teacher who could care less. Multeity. And if I made up a word Would it survive like a quark of strangeness? Depends on which dictionary you’re using, I told The president of that company. And if you made it up, like a rare country? I loved you in the near distance like a word and rare cool blood. What was I thinking? “You actually think?” 2. family ways My old dead father put it to me Women of an “intimate” age Reconciled all separation He sung it out Oh family ways, ah family ways The song contained a pregnant pause pun praise Patiently he observed, as the rat jumped out Patient in music, patient in clay Patient in love and in death, a satisfied ghost

O put a hand on her hand On Exterior Street The day was full of day On Exterior Street Moths drank tears from sleeping birds On Exterior Street You could think and look On Exterior Street The balls of the sycamore were swinging On Exterior Street Storing the definitions loading the differences Why did I still want to give it away Why not wait and write about that beautiful green sweater I was a virgin and learnt all about cells from Penelope Even the private road is exterior As one said all breasts are beautiful The Flower this flower is falling over It will never be more exalting It will always be more exalting On Exterior Street