Poet Island Press

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Two Poems from Barry Tagrin's work in progress: The Bluest Dog

POSTED 2007-11-28 IN POEMS

PHUKET DANCER

              (December 27th, 2005)

You are at work tonight, my darling.
I know you are full of hope, dreaming
that money will come your way.
I see you’ve dressed up in that outfit I gave you.
The one that covers over your shyness,
and the fear you have about your body after the baby.
It will be more difficult you tell me
that you are less now than what the men want.
At twenty, past your prime
and the innocence they love to eat out of you.
It’s true you will seek to perform in the dimmer,
more romantic light. Turn the lamps down,
and work more at quickness,
when in the past you were a princess of time,
giving more than you must.
Even to the bad ones, who you thought
your richness could alter.
Like me you believed there had to be some goodness
somewhere in the process.
Your child now, little Tam, is home with your mother.
Your father, you say, was killed in the big wave.
I’m sorry, my gifts are all I have left.
Probably I too am damaged by this world of the body
and the commerce of affection.
Nevertheless, you were surprised that as my time
was running out, I was wasting it
getting to know you.
When perhaps I could have asked for more,
I asked for less.
We come together, just because we are so far apart.
This evening, the sky is back, and the sea is calm.
The sand along the lonely beach glistens anew.
Good bye and good luck.
When you have an all night guy now,
you take care best you can,
body and soul.
And keep your heart just as it is.

HEART IN THE WHITE ROOM

For dear George Crane

In the noisy sphere, the rain falls.
The world crawls on its knees.
The sea, how it washes away.
Death a seed
in the time form within me.
Dear wife at the stove,
wife at the cloth.
Woman to take care of heaven.
My child is God,
about six weeks old.
Fight the great closing,
remember the honey that fell
on your lips.
When you could eat anything
you longed for.
Dreamed in the narrow lanes.
Struggled with dialogues,
the maze, and the lies we tell.
In a slim cot not far from the wall,
squirming, a line of ants
in the king’s underwear.
Bless the going over too much,
the great ship of tons in the wave.
The brain, the mind, and the nerves.
The whole constellation in the
heartbreaking basement.
Love to tie the little strings
of my daughter’s pajamas,
rock her beautiful feet
in the moonlight.
Kneel to worship the stars
that whirl above.
Yes, to it all.

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