Joe Dolce: Three Poems

The Daughter That Still Loves Me

 

 

One out of two isn’t bad.

I haven’t spoken to her brother for thirty years.

She and I don’t see each other that often—on all

the major family-love days: birthdays, Christmas,

Father’s Day. (Sometimes

she forgets, but,

under the circumstances, that’s OK—the split

with her mother was ugly.)

 

But I think she has forgiven me

for abandoning her, or however kids

view separation, when one parent has to go.

 

My daughter loves me and I love her.

We never got divorced.

Joe Dolce

Noh Means Noh

Coffee is a girl who never tells a boy Noh.

Never take Noh for an answer.

Sometimes Noh is the kindest word.

There’s Noh place like home.

Noh pain, Noh gain.

Noh harm, Noh foul.

Noh way, José.

Where there is Noh vision, the people perish.

See Noh evil, hear Noh evil, speak Noh evil.

Noh Vacancy.

Noh Standing.

Noh child left behind.

Noh worries.

Noh man’s land.

Noh annual fee.

The Pub With Noh Beer.

Initially … Noh.

Noh BS.

Long time Noh see.

Noh is a complete sentence.

Noh.

(What part of Noh, don’t you understand?)

Joe Dolce

Sandmen

The quartet of saffron-robed

monks huddle the ring

like back alley dice-players,

throwing for reincarnation stakes.

Tiny tin funnels siphon coloured grains

along pre-chalked template of mandala.

With painstaking patience, over days,

the dazzling pattern emerges until

it is finally complete.

                                    Without hesitation,

a firm broom sweep disperses it back

to formlessness, symbolizing

the fragility and impermanence of matter,

(or transitory nature of the works of man,

                                            for that matter),

but not before dozens of tourists’ cameras

take a stab at digital immortality.

Ceremony over, the Tibetan men retire

to cigarettes, while novices shovel

discarded blue, rose, green, white and black

still-quite-permanent sand

into tin buckets, and toss

it into bins, where it settles down

amongst organic scraps and coffee grounds.

Meanwhile, on the Nile,

under unforgiving heat,

the Great Sphinx of Giza,

The Terrifying One,

also sifted into shape,

from similar mettle,

by equally focused sand-blown men,

(poor Buddhists, no doubt, but perhaps

better craftsmen),

growls its low five thousand year Om.

Joe Dolce