Bert Almon: Two Poems

During the First Gaza War

Köln, July 30, 2006

 

In the parking lot of Köln Cathedral,

I watched pro-Israeli demonstrators

waving blue and white flags.

The Landespolizei in brown trousers

and tan shirts stood between them and the Palestinians

with their green and black banners.

The demonstrations were disrupted by the bells

for the evening mass. I went into the dark

sanctuary of the Cathedral to listen.

The homily was shot through with the words

Krieg and Frieden, delivered from the high pulpit.

 

Behind an iron grate, the largest reliquary in the West

holds the crowned skulls of the Three Kings

in golden sarcophagi, stacked one over two.

The kings are refugees from Persia

via Constantinople and Milan

through a series of pious thefts. Across the aisle,

the Milanese Madonna and her baby

wear their own crowns, and she is besceptered:

no further gifts are required.

Her halo is a wire circle with twelve stars.

 

And where did I find my living Madonna?

As the demonstration was breaking up,

a policewoman with a blond ponytail

under her white visored cap exchanged friendly waves

with a boy about eight unattached to either side.

Bert Almon

 

 

The Stirrup Cup

1

The policeman stood at the door wanting

to discuss genealogy, the Southern pastime.

He left the cruiser running a good hour,

giving the neighbors talk for days.

He couldn’t come in because of the calls

on the radio, which he’d turned up loud.

My father shot the breeze with him on the porch,

and could see Joe and his wife at the window

across the street. Joe had taken more than one ride

cuffed in a cruiser, most recently for brawling

at his daughter’s First Communion party:

I remember drunken neighbors throwing punches

and little girls screaming in white dresses.

The cop was new in town and had found our name

in the phone book. Were we related? They searched

their memories of cousins and uncles—Tommy

was possible, a man in uniform too, a fireman,

but adopted. Some other cousin came from Hot Springs,

not Crystal Springs. Blood follows intricate routes.

At last my mother brought coffee to the porch

and the three of them stood drinking it:

a stirrup cup, the planters of the Old South

would have called it, had it been bourbon,

something to drink before riding away.

The cop drove away and never came back:

a failed attempt at finding kinship.

2

The oldest of my name was from Waynesville,

North Carolina, Blue Ridge Mountain country.

I haven’t seen his grave, but I have a snapshot.

A little typo by the stone carver left his given name

“Gidideon” till Judgment Day. His will consigns

his body to the dust and his “sole” to his maker,

who will amend the spellings. Gideon left

his wife, Margaret, a tract of land, “also the house

also one negro boy named Isaac also two beds

also two tables, a large one and a small one

also one beaurow & one patten clock

also one hundred dollars which is on hand.”

The clock ticked down eight years till the War ended,

and Isaac, negotiable property till that moment,

conveyed his free title in himself to himself,

had his last drink from the pump, and took

to the untraceable roads of the inland South.

Bert Almon