Sample Poems by Arthur Ginsberg

---

Pacific Sunset

A rat's nest of tangles and plaques
chokes my mother's brain,
as she sits on Chesterman's Beach,
fiddling with her grey wig,
unaware of the egg-omelet stain
that batiks her blouse, and tell- tale
wet spot between her legs, oblivious
to the booming Pacific that stretches
before her befuddled eyes, the salmon-pink
sunset, I have brought her to see.

There's our house, son,
she says, pointing to a cloud,
and, isn't Montreal beautiful?
In the next breath, she berates me
for marrying a shiksa, then asks,
a moment later, if she has said
anything wrong. I cling for comfort
to the sough of beach wind through
stunted pines. Reuben, (my father,
gone ten years) I want to go home,
now, she whines, a bewildered smirk
on her face. Sure Ma, I reply, and I take
her arm, light as a bird bone,
steer her back to the cabin I have rented.

By candlelight, I spoon into her mouth,
mammaliga, the corn gruel she loves
from Pietra Namsk in Romania,
where she grew up. What tenderness
I hold for this marred mind, how fine
to have known this palace of her spirit,
the template for mine. Lip smacking
speaks to a wordless content,
as she sundowns with the light,
leaves me holding
an empty bowl in the dark.

---

Daisy, Daisy

Thrown on the slag heap, each one
bears the stamp of metal. Simply
to have come this far merits praise.
For the visitor, there is John Charles,
example of gleaming chrome in opaque
corneas that see in the dark. He steers
by the soft crunch of hardwood floors
with a touch of divine carburetion.
Other fenders are broken by accident
and time, scattered on Lazy-Boy re-
cliners. With a Bentley's elegance,
John Charles glides through a doorway
to the terminal chassis of my mother.
He caresses withered hands, implores
in a falsetto voice, Won't you sing
with me? Won't you sing? Daisy,
Daisy, give me your answer true......
Behind wreckage, she flickers, headlamps
briefly brilliant, she finishes with him,
on a bicycle built for two. And
there is a shining of all the fenders.

---

Night Train Villanelle

Engineer, take Mother gently down the track.
A solid oak casket holds my priestess in white.
Soul, seek comfort beyond the watchman's shack.

Of sorrow, she would say, this world does not lack.
Compassion ruled her heart with a warrior's might.
Engineer, help Mother gently down the track.

Here's a handful of earth to marry heaven back,
David's amulet on her chest glows against the night.
Soul, gather comfort beyond the watchman's shack.

Bones bereft of breath grow light until they crack.
You were summer lilacs with a bit of garlic bite.
Engineer, ease Mother gently down the track.

Yis-g'dal, v'yis-g'dash, cover me with ash and sack.
How should a stockyard mourner anticipate such blight?
Soul, find comfort beyond the watchman's shack.

Death comes surely, as no birth would turn day black.
Closed eyes harbor peace without motive to indict.
Mother, round-trip is the ticket, throw my luggage on the rack.
Soul, seek comfort beyond the watchman's shack.

---

Day on Fire

He started the day like a match struck against a rough surface,
the tip, tungsten brilliant, laced with crimson and magenta.
Ingots of light poured through the windshield. Then the slow
drift of flame down the scrawny stem, leaving behind
its charred resume. Who can believe things burned away,
ever return? Music poured like smoke out of the speakers,
the speed limit was 60, to match the bowing of the cello
in Bach's third suite. Arachnid fingers amplifying the vibrato,
horse hair spilling wave after wave into the varnished grain
of its body. You could hear the genius in the last movement
galloping like a herd of wildebeests going over a cliff.
Gouts of dissonance coming out of nowhere-the sheer immensity
of an extraordinary brain rollicking through wildflowers.
A fifth wheel passed him, belching exhaust, hybrids ganged up
on him like hornets, approaching the toll booth. My god! It felt good
to let go, to be out of control in a flurry of sunspots glinting
like rhinestones or a runway's lights, down the ribbon of Bots Dots.
He began to cry for the other drivers imprisoned in their cocoons, stared
aghast at the woman in a glass booth who asked him for five dollars.
This is the journey ascending to the divine with grappling hooks
on your ankles and a garrote around your throat. The day on fire, no
speed limit, and the water cannons aimed and ready. The green Go light
winked him past the turnstile, Bach evaporated from the speakers,
he could smell the road stink enveloping him, familiarity of routine-
some cop in ambush, clocking speed, and the sky too blue and imperfect,
flaunting crows and a few smudged clouds. Heaven's gates closing. Now
the air conditioner filled his ears with the white noise of wheezing angels,
as if to say, this never happened. How can we know what moments are real,
what imagined, consumed like the matchstick? But a tiny part of him knew
he would hold on to the engine's rhythm of hope and faith. All the way
down the road to the empty parking lot at the end of the pavement.