A couple of days ago I returned from Izmir where I went to decide about a job offer and in my mailbox was an envelop from my old, dear friend Ren Weschler with a sales receipt from my old bookstore, Intellectuals & Liars, for books he purchased for $11.73 (including tax) dated 3/8/80 (just 2 months before I lost the store to the recession that year and a greedy new landlord who more than doubled my rent from 75 cents a square foot to $1.60) and a postcard with the picture of a hot dog (my professed all-time favorite food) with red, white, & blue toothpaste as a condiment. And the message contained the Yiddish word verklempt, which, of course, was what I felt, shared with Ren, even now as I write this post.

LA. A foreign country, much like New York and San Francisco, in what is America, though…

One should describe you starting from your mouth
Youngster, your mouth is silk from China, conflagrations, a jet-black amber

Your mouth, a spring of ice-cold water, a general strike
A foolish sea throwing itself from one place to another

Your mouth is that kid who sells dark blue-winged birds in the Grand Bazaar
It’s a periodical titled Cornfield

These small, unpretentious rivers of ours are what your mouth is
Coming downhill a narrow street every day into a little square

Your mouth is “Time in Bursa City,” shyly roofed flea markets
Night as written in old Arabic

Kids, birds, summer times are all your that mouth is
Your mouth is a silken touch in my mind

translted by Önder Otçu

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly
Singing about her head, as she rode by.

I’ve been sleeping
lately
looking for a dream
the place
familiar
my dog there
and my father
though neither knew
the other
both having lived
decades apart
my mother is cooking
I can smell her sauce
simmering
my grandmother
is kneading dough
for her cavatelli
Johnny and I
both get a piece
to roll
in our hands
before eating
my father stands
holding the dog’s leash
and before their walk
he pats my mother
on the ass
and says
that’s why
I married her
she giggles
like she always does
at that joke
and though it should be
Charlie
taking the dog out
it is my father
his white shirt sleeves
rolled up
my grandmother sings
some Neapolitan song
Harry is there
laughing
George Robert
my sister Theresa
is coming
later
with the kids
a holiday
maybe
or just Sunday dinner
at two o’clock
Uncle Mike
from New Jersey
is…