Greetings at Work

“Hello, Poppy”
“Hello, boss”
“Hello, fuck-off”
“Hello, sweetie”
“Hello, handsome”
“Como está?”
“How’s tricks?”
“Hello, king”
“Hello babe”
“Hola, compadre”
“Hello, meatball”
“What do you say?”
“Go home—we don’t need you”
“You’re here. Our troubles are over!”
“Nice to see you, sir”
“Hello, sexy”
“Hello, chief”
“How’s your love life?”
“Did you come here to look good
or to make money?” 

I Almost Recited a Poem to Peres

Shimon Peres, the Foreign Minister of Israel, ate at Sardi’s and I was his waiter. I admired Peres and Yitzhak Rabin for the peace treaty they made with the Arabs, and the way Rabin answered critics for cutting a deal with Arafat by saying, “You make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.” Rabin had made the reservation but didn’t come here to eat; for security reasons they didn’t appear at the same places together. Suddenly Peres entered and I recognized him right away, the long gray face and somber expression, head bowed in thought. They say Peres was the architect of the Oslo peace vision.  He made his way to a long table set for twelve with the Israeli Consul General of New York, Colette Avital.
Peres said hello to the two customers sitting at table nine and added, “Pardon me for sitting with my back to you.”
They drank wine, vodka, smoked cigarettes, laughed. They’d gone to see Showboat, and the show’s star, Michael Burstyn, sat with Peres. After two drinks, Peres motioned the headwaiter for another round. “You know that Scandinavian vodka, whatever its name is.” Peres searched for the name.
The headwaiter asked, “You mean Absolut?”
“That’s it!” Peres said. “Just bring us the whole bottle!” Everyone laughed.
I made the Foreign Minister a Caesar salad. After an hour, the Consul General asked for the check, signed the tax-free sheet, then the credit card voucher. They stood to leave. As they passed me I said in Hebrew, quietly but distinctly enough if they wanted to hear it, “Happy New Year, everyone!”
Peres slowly turned his head to me and said, “You speak Hebrew. Where’d you learn to speak Hebrew?”
“In yeshiva,” I shrugged.
“Where’d you learn in yeshiva?” he asked with approval.
“In New York,” I said.
Colette Avital said, “You learned in yeshiva and you work as a waiter?”
“I write poetry,” I said defensively.
Peres’s red face grew happy and he said, “Let’s hear one of your poems right now. He too,” and Peres glanced at the man standing at the far end of the table with a folder tucked under his arm, “writes poetry and composes song lyrics. Let’s hear one from you.”
“OK,” I said nervously, “This is a poem I wrote riding the subway,” and as I said the first line the whole restaurant pretty much came to a stop. The waiters stopped serving, customers ceased eating, a sudden silence and everyone watched the Foreign Minister as he waited for the poem to come from me. “Friends can be the highest form of inspiration,” I began, but I couldn’t remember the next line, a poem I usually knew by heart in my sleep.
“In English, say the poem,” Peres coaxed.
The crowd waited but my mind had gone blank, I tried to speak but no words came out, so I stammered and said, in Hebrew for some reason, “Sorry, but my thoughts aren’t in order.”
Peres laughed and slapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’ll tell us it another time!”
He left the restaurant with his entourage.  

Practicing to Quit My Waiter Job

Wanting impossible guarantees for future correctness of decision
Nodding vaguely when asked by the boss about coming back
knowing life unfolds into great distances
Not sure of the reason for quitting because
after the decision’s made the job seems easier
Thinking of a change when we don’t get union benefits promised
Quitting because I don’t know how to sift through the politics
and the managers aren’t sure how to handle me
Wondering how long my body can take it
Noticing how many friends are urging me to quit
Leaving with difficulty as though this were my greatest task
Quitting with a sorry feeling of “failed again”
A whisky quit on the last night with the other waiters
Wanting this quit to be constructive, well-timed and inspired
Quitting to go to another country to live cheap
with no pressure about keeping up
Quitting while the job is at its peak
Just talking about quitting is a tiny taste of freedom
Giving three weeks notice instead of two
forgetting how easily replaceable each worker is
Wondering if I’d get fired on the spot for giving notice
Hearing in my head advice from my parents not to quit
but having the backing of historical personages
like Frederick Engels and Emma Goldman
who were my real parents
They met in Siberia but raised me in South Jamaica, Queens
Quitting because of the sickness of believing
any place that wants me permanently
is bound to fall apart
and I don’t want to be there when it does
A quit that takes the boss by total surprise
makes the worker feel redeemed
The day I get any job I fantasize
how to get out of it
Consistency good at first turns dull and reactionary
Fear of missing that money which never seemed that much before
Forced to pay taxes on every tip
Tempering the tone of quitting in order to be able to return
shrugging, “I’m not quitting, just leaving for a while”
Leaving with a feeling for the ones who remain on the job
Quitting for a job with more self-esteem (cough-cough)
Wishing I could care more about money but doubting I ever will
Quitting for a job with a pension?
Grateful to the boss for all he’s done
training me to chop a salad
Not blaming the boss for my anger
It isn’t his fault I have to have a job
It’s been fun telling rich ladies with jewelry the fish specials
Quitting as a sort of religious quest
to experience the void of renewal
To snap the tight tedious two-week vacation tempo
Feeling trapped in between middle-class values
I wanted to leave
and alternatives I set out seeking
Finding it hard to separate after all
Surprised to see I’ve gotten close to this boss
wrestling six years with one person
Will quitting be a time of discovery as it’s been in the past
or injuries without medical coverage?
Quitting in order not to grow old at one job
Not exactly smiling goodbye
Quitting with handshakes and a shrunken ego
Disappearing from a furiously emotional job
with no show of emotion
without making much notice of going
almost like never having worked here at all

Jungle Freeze

I want to see your zoo
My friend wants to see Mary's favorite melody
That tooth wants to sit under your cake
I spilled the tree in bed and had to eat grass
Father has eaten a cow
The cow has eaten a tree
The tree has eaten a tree and a cow and father yesterday
Someone has my god
I want Mary
Mary wants a new zoo
Mrs Buttons wants a melody
The melody wants many subjects
The subjects need a present
The present is hurting me
It's hurting me to stay in bed
To stay in bed is a subject hurting me
The newspaper is hurting me in my feet
I left the present behind newspaper under the tree
to wear my hat to the zoo
The zoo is my favorite melody
I wear the melody of Mary in my hat
I miss Mary and kiss her in my glass
I miss this house that is mine
seeing wearing Mary she's missing her glass
Maybe I will see her under the tree
that is shading this bed
where good cakes are coming from the newspaper
I left the newspaper under Mary's tree
because it promised cake
but it spilled ink onto the tree
and I gave the cake to the tree
that father ate
that Mary said is a new hurt
that made me smile the pain away in my hat
That hat that has just come home with my tooth
Sit down please on the mat
Should I take off my shoes to sit on the map?
Should I not miss Mary?
I can say I love Mary
and want to marry Mary
because that's not her name
and it's not Harry either
though I know a Mary
who ties her hair back to imitate Harry
I didn't want it to go in this direction 
I wanted it to stay with Mary
with her absence which I won't let
anyone take away from me
William Shakespeare loved my Mary
and took her away from me
but he says he'll give her back
if I can marry misery and make her glad
I'm glad this morning
that the arguments of last night's subjects
seem to have subsided
The sun rising over the jungle
is a subject I'm not arguing with
because I know I can love Mary
and bring her to this jungle with me

30 December 1997 * Kathmandu Valley

Bernadette Mayer is Standing Alone and Detached

Bernadette is standing alone and detached
wearing shades on a third world street
of many colors, closed rock club posters
closed cheese shops, atmosphere of faded times
a warehouse district
mushroom sun
old boots, jeans, torn denim jacket
mysterious to me she smiles slowly
and faraway
and at another guy and I who want 
to love her
Bernadette 
tells him ok I say but
I want to make it now after years I’ve waited 
to love you
She says ok to me too
A man stands nude in a second story window
turns around once slowly
to show his articulated oiled forms
six pack abs, biceps and body builder back
to draw up a passerby from the street
It’s a choice between him and Bernadette
I follow the sound of my own steps down
a deserted street to the blue painted door
after Bernadette’s lovely form
upstairs to abandoned 
store rooms, a doctor’s exam table 
from a bankrupt business, I lay her down 
gracefully 
her black hair generously
falls across the mechanical table
everything’s happening slowly the other 
man has followed and wants to watch 
Bernadette says slowly ok but I’m angry
about voyeurs and want him gone
Bernadette says slowly ok tell him to go
her eyes dim she’s fogged or dying
I passionately kiss her back to life
but what I am holding
is leaving me has gone into me
and is lost
Squatters remain
making music on pots, graffiti walls
dripping ketchup red white bed bled blue

A Lot of Cities Have Changed Names Recently

I like “Varanasi” more than “Benares” but
not having been there yet I can’t say which one fits better
Benares sounds blunt like Western mispronunciation
of a civilization it means to denounce     I love this
ancient place I’m riding though, it’s the third day
of my forty-forth year and a fire burns near a tree
Many fires are intentional to burn rubbish
though I used to call it garbage
if I could only learn the language of birds
if I could only let a woman lean on me
I’d be the man I left home to learn about
They’re carrying something heavy on their heads
too far to see from here what it is
in red dress which means she’s married
in blue shirt the boy keeps pace
a ready sister under a setting red sun
Not a lot of people have addressed the sun as F.O. did
with admiration and friendship
Not a lot of people have nice things to say
about this bus system
but if seats were farther apart
prices would go up
Wish they’d let all animals roam free
Sometimes I feel like becoming a painter
crossing faraway plains of gorgeous
yellow green Van Gogh grass
poking up bright brilliant benevolent
a redolent mud field
It could be the way the woman’s eyes
look down softly feeding a baby
Could be the meekness of a man
sadly smiling he’s been robbed
Winter nights without heat
make my fingers red for weeks
but I don’t mind
somehow the cold gets us all
closer together and though I don’t get cards
from everyone I write to I think of them
I’ve gotten tougher leaving bed
on chill nights to use an outhouse
under bright moons that keep
broken rocks to step clearly lit
It’s a beautiful world and it’s time
to say it and it’s an ugly world too at times
but “those are other times”
Mimi doesn’t need to apologize or explain
going her own way many years ago
it happened and though I wished for a time otherwise
forces may have led me anyway to some place like this
Her mother who took me in those years is near the end
as near a good soul as memory can hold
this poem goes out to her for peaceful passage
I think of things far back in time on long bus rides
Wish I could’ve reached Varanasi by nightfall
big mango trees are lit
off and on by lightning and there it
goes again

Lines Written in a Remote Area of Nepal

It's getting late in the trip
and though I don't want it to end I
do want to eat food I miss at odd
moments    a crow circling
icy sky's temple pagoda
Melting snow
is tonight's drinking water
blank white rectangle
shimmering far down valley
is handmade paper
drying in watery light
In a nun's clean mud cell a blue
curtain casts a blue light from
a snow sun.  Sister Tsering
Chenjom says I remind her of
her brother and I say
she reminds me of my sister
who likes to laugh is tender
toward me 
and religious too.  Will I ever 
return?  Sister asks.  If I could.
No arguments here, only simple 
statements like, 
“Please come to kitchen
and eat rice”
Everything sounds distant
8,000 feet in thin air
Children call to each other
through the blue
wind
Extinct trees
that used to grow here
are tiny bushes today
Rice won't grow
but potatoes will
I don't want to burden
anyone with my questions
but be a man
who dives under ice
and surfaces with clear solutions
Hail 
is pelting my upturned 
face.  Where do you go when you
feel sick
from events no one
can see or touch?
If I go into myself
all the way
where do I come 
out?

On Bigu Mountain, today