Jayne Lyn Stahl

On Waite Street

“The monster that had resorted to arms must be put
in chains that could not be broken. The united power of
free nations must put a stop to aggression; and the world
must be given peace.”
--Woodrow Wilson, Address to the Senate, July 10, 1919

For Aram Saroyan

On Waite Street I pass an
American flag with cigarette
burns in it and think
if we can’t find Jimmy Hoffa
how can we find Bin Laden here on
Waite Street I think
maybe we need cliff notes so
our elected officials don’t have to
bother reading an act named after patriots
why read wait until
it comes out on video ---coming soon to a theatre
near you -- “The Patriot Act” – up close and
personal ---action thriller -- watch as law enforcers get to
storm through your living
room take you downtown
and hold you without telling you why -- coming soon to
a theatre near you – watch as
Miranda goes up in smoke.
only the software changes
the hard drive remains the same – battlefields just as
bloody now as they were five hundred years
ago virtual reality yet to replace rigor mortis
about the only change from cave man days
is location of the cave – hell – some are even
cable ready air conditioned
some are cellular & have internet access.
but how confuse acts of patriotism with patriot act.

whoever thought the
enemy would crawl out of a cave
except maybe Plato whoever thought we would see
the day when Satan could have his own web site when uranian
irregulars replace sputnik & electronic surveillance
replaces t.v. guide. we have treatments for
those who are lactose intolerant
but no treatment for
those who are liar intolerant. we live behind gates
carry guns in our glove compartments
drive vans that are larger than some third
world countries.
we pay a high price for
our dreams and an even higher one for
having them come true.
funny isn’t it
in this country
how crime
pays &
poetry doesn’t.

on Waite Street somebody
got their signals crossed
shattered glass lines
the street like
broken dreams
that bastard in his 4 x 4 staring
off into space his head cocked
like a rifle as I step hungrily
off the curb & miss
hit pavement while he keeps staring
straight as
an arrow or a marksman bullet or
maybe a guard on
death row waiting for
light to turn green for me
to fall wondering
if he shaves
his head wondering if
I mean more or
less than road kill if he were to run
me down would he still be
able to use the same electric razor
in the morning. his head
matches the impotent
flag he fondles on his
dashboard as he debates whether to
floor the gas yes less than a minute to
get up before he mounts me
like a wild horse in
his bronco thinking his truck is
bigger than my truck. it took me
nearly fifty years to learn what fear is --
only a deer in
the headlights can relate.
it’s alright with me if
evil remains an abstraction
I don’t want it living
next door. it’s alright
if evil remains abstract like
terror. it’s not terrorists
we need to worry about – it’s deer
hunters waving
their flags -- stoking their
arsenals -- taking aim at beauty
taking aim at all that is
delicate different –
if we’re looking for
the axis of evil
we have only to look
in our own backyards.

on Waite Street a flag waves on
someone’s porch it could be a swastika for
all its power no nuclear pilgrims here no bare
bottom may-
flowers no free falling monuments
only dust and
collectors of
dust. no victory
only illusions of victory. hatred wears
many masks -- simply put
there’s no there there.

real terror hides
behind flags
there can be no terror
without ideology I think
picking myself up
Don Quixote would have loved a war
like this
he loved chasing windmills somebody ought to
tell the Don that Saddam wants to
play ball – word has it he even rented
“Dead Man Walking” --
a war to camouflage assault on
civil liberties assault on
due process human rights & the right to
be read your rights --
a war on terrorism –to wax quixotic --
how about a war on abstractions.
it seems to me
there was another guy
in the old country
named George – King George --
our forefathers came here to
escape -- isn’t it
funny more than 200 years
later same battle different George only this one
never met
a fact he didn’t invent -- this one, when he’s not out
making the world safe for
democracy, is home trying to rewrite
the Constitution in ways that would make even Washington
blush – oh -- the real
threat doesn’t come from terrorists
it comes from legislators. founding
fathers would be pleased to know
we finally have a president
who’s out making the world safe
for metaphors.

incompetence is its own reward
forget hormone replacement therapy
what about human replacement
therapy what about enhancing
the gene pool with some
common decency what about garden
variety compassion empathy and yes
hosiery that doesn’t run when you
pull on it.

whose idea was it to
choose the word intelligence-- when lifting the cover off
the CIA the last thing we expect to see is
intelligence -- that’s like finding a cockroach in
a cookbook --
alas it’s often easier to use one’s arms
than one’s head --
solve the crisis in the Middle East
give Yassar Arafat a nose job
put him in an Armani suit
give him a haircut – better still
send him & Bin Laden to the same barber --
somebody needs to tell those guys
as we get older
we learn to either embrace our roots or
dye them.

our nuclear waistline is expanding
we need weight watchers for
our army fen fen for air force metamucil for
merchant marines

I’d like another serving of
American flag, thank you.
what I like best about flags is
skin heads hate crimes neo nazis cognitive
carcinogens -- make no mistake
those who torch synagogues
would crucify Christ all over again
only this time they’d be sure his eyes
were shut.

careful -- real terror lurks
behind flags – it’s not ideology
it’s the fervor I think on
Waite Street how
democratic
even the president gets to
hide behind a flag from time to
time what a great country
where one gets to
wave a flag and jerk off
simultaneously

what if we had a war, and nobody came.

it’s not fit for a poet to
descend to the level of political dis-
course but to
raise political discourse to
the level of poetry.

On Waite Street
I get tired of walking out
my door & tripping
over flags I’m so bored I almost
want to clean the house I liked it better
when I thought that redneck meant
carnivore. I think corporate greed belongs on
spin cycle -- and the war on
terror begins at home -- I confess --
when it comes right
down to it –
- I don’t mind giving up my
citizenship it’s my bed I worry about.
here on Waite Street
history will show intelligence is
optional with the vehicle here where
we’re putting off
the revolution to watch “Scooby Doo.”

November 30, 2002
Ojai, California

White Light for Sally

For Sally Weisbord (“Aunt Sally”)

“Et lux in tenebris lucet”
“and the light shineth in darkness.”
from John i, 1-5

Sally -- you never got to dance at my wedding
& I never got to
eat those latkes you promised to make for me. standing at
santa monica pier I watch smog form over the ocean & think you’d see
diamonds not smog you’d see dignity not homeless
man angels not pizza boys you’d hear symphonies from
boom box. I stand at the pier while
you fight for life in long island hospital
now able to speak only with your eyes I remember
you taking me by the hand, as a child, and showing
me where to find my strength --
something you never lost during
your twelve lymphoma years– never a complaint in
those awkward moments
a smile constant in
your voice as you ask “and how are you, dear.”
you were right about everything even right about
my landlord.
as I watch waves
crash against rocks I think I see you bending over in
the garden pruning roses your
oceanic blue eyes shiny as half
dollars. when I grow up
I want to be magnetic like you like
the time you took me to lunch in
your brown suede shoes from Italy the ones
surrounded by white light in my
closet shoes you wore when you picked me up
in little neck, snowstorm be damned, my tiny greek landlady
helping you downstairs you looked like a page out of a
five star hotel insisting we go to IHOP finding your escape from
great depression – from misguided belief
in mutual bonds and
mutual salvation from myths like reality and
collective renewal. you knew, even then, survival is
a solitary affair. the night you dropped me off my last
night in new york I held on to door of your cutlass supreme--
you got out and clung to door on the other side, & we stood
in the snow crying our eyes out -- a hard bargain to
survive, sometimes, we must walk away.
I never got to eat those latkes
you promised
paper rapidly replaces cutlery on table beside hurricane
lamp you gave me beside cobalt blue candles where I renew
myself like a nomadic vowel.
when I didn’t have a computer you had
one built for me. Oh, we fought, too, like the time in
coffee shop that day I drove from Boston
when you urged me to get teaching
credential -- my drive back filled with rage –
you cared about me.
when you lay dying in hospital your sister came to beg
forgiveness – she didn’t even have to ask-- forgiveness
as natural to you as breathing as
that amazing man you married who sat me on his lap &
read to me from Dante his paradise still
inside you. there’s a void where the void is there’s
lightning on the shoes you gave me
storms be damned if we knew we invented everything
we’d never wake up.
Sally you never got to
dance at my wedding. why does life
have to break our hearts time &
time again in this war we wage from the front lines
I salute you and
the grace you brought to
a sad lost planet

8/31/02