Memorial Day at Battery Park

Shells of men

Swept by wind

Utter memories

Drowned by whirling

Blades of warships

Turned to tourist

Trips around the

Tip of ancient toil

Remembering the lost

Lives forfeited to

Unending notions

Of hoary honor

Masking the horror

Of man’s inhumanity

 

Gerald Harris

May 26, 2013

CITY OF THE DEAD 

Hovels stretch

Beside the road

Crumbling tombs

Used to shelter

Life even as they

Curtain death

Who lies here?

Who lives here?

Bare existence

Barely exceeds

Non-existence 

Gerald Harris

January, 2011

Cairo

 

 

WATCHING MY FATHER SHAVE 

In the doorway of the dim hallway

I stood and watched you pose

Before the cracked mirror in the

Yellow light of the only bathroom 

Watched you assemble the three-

Piece razor, swirl the frayed brush in the

Soap mug until its foam was

Spread across your seamed face

 

Winced as you drew the sharp

Blade across the stiff gray

Bristles spouting on your cheek,

Spread by fingers to ease the razor’s passage

 

Heard you call for Mama to

Shave the places you could not reach

Even though her careless swipes raised

 Speckles of red down the nape of your neck

 

How proud I was when deputized to

Take her place. How carefully

I stroked to build your trust and

Spare us both the pain of wayward thrusts

 

Only later did I learn you

Viewed shaving as a test

That Life was a series of threats and

Existence hung by a fragile thread

 

Gerald Harris

December 25, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

IN A UNIVERSE

 

 

In a universe disconnected every sphere

spins in an orbit of its own.

Warmth requires touch, is lost

in the unfeeling pull of gravity’s force.

 

Every pairing an essential bond,

every action a reaction.

To every thrust a bend, coupling

is not a lone pursuit.

 

Something shared is not diminished,

its mass, instead, enhanced.

The last felt joy is stored

in  perception’s quivering cells.

 

If storied novas fail

and Earth stays in its place

cycles may fall short

the Big Bang may lose pace.

 

Still, there is something of me in her

and that makes all the difference.

 

 

Gerald Harris

 

October 15, 2008

 

 

 

 

HOME RUN

Teetering between triumph and disaster

the pitcher, in brief supplication,

swings up his arms

then propels, with hope and hate,

his challenge to the crouching batsman.

As, with unseeable speed, a cobra

strikes its fangs into helpless prey,

the batter's arms uncoil and

the bat, in arching descent,

flashes across the plate,

arrests in mid-flight the twirling orb

and stuns it with venomous fury.

Then, like a fatally stung rabbit,

the ball streaks away in blurred flight

until it loses breath

and drops among the multitude of cupped hands

which, like the mouths of imploring eaglets,

open to be fed.

Its charge spent, the bat is tossed away

and skims across the grass

as the batter, fist raised and

with an exultant grin,

moves at the pace of suppressed joy

around the bases

and trots haughtily home.

SUDDEN SQUALL AT CHURCH AND CHAMBERS STREET



The wind-whipped rain is
no respecter of
freshly dry-cleaned suits
nor buttons loosely sewn

Gusting across the square it
spirals yesterday’s news to
unaccustomed heights,
overmatches the frenzied swipes of
windshield wipers turned on high

Tossing the trash that
overflows the bins, it
floods the sucking sewers
‘til they gurgle in defeat

It parts a hat from head and
sails it down the dirty,
draining streams running beside the
curb. It strips the last remains
of dignity from the red-faced,
fat-rolled pursuer running with
umbrella turned slightly inside out.

OUT OF ORDER

Waiting my turn is chafing yet okay

so long as everyone else plays by the rules.

But when the mindless second clerk

sets up and announces loudly "next",

so that all order breaks down and the

Johnny-Come-Lately at the back of the

line rushes to be first at the second

register, I really get pissed and,

unlike my father, who made no fuss

and took the bad with the good,

I start to bitch and now

I'm the bad guy.