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Baba remembers and other poems

John Horváth Jr.

A Hot January

First publication: September 1999

http://badosa.com/p047

BABA REMEMBERS

whatever tomorrows yesterdays promised

have passed away with the passing of days

overlong and too brief nights

They wash their feet

they do their dance

so beautiful their dancing feet

their lovely feet they seem to rise to dance on clouds

through night such lovely feet so beautiful their dance

their footprints and the music of the dance become the stars

They wash their feet

they do their dance

that both supports and quakes the earth

their lovely dance it seems to raise them up beyond the clouds

and into night such lovely feet so beautiful their dance

its dust, their dust, the music of the dance become the stars

they do their dance

so beautiful their dancing feet

They wash their feet

all of one mind, each dedicated to the dance

they do their dance so very beautiful their dancing feet

their lovely feet they rise and travel above clouds

through night their lovely feet whirl above the clouds

They wash their feet

The morning dew

They wash their feet

My children dance;

my children dance;

Dance, Children, dance.

They wash their feet

and make the dew

the morning dew

a vintage crushed by dancing feet

When I am gone when God I meet

He may award me with eternal dancing feet

BABA PETRA’S PASSAGE

When I stopped weighing my great dead stone

hope against flat mortise comfort of home

then I fell under sway of the rib—

firm and sure the keel that pebbled me

from the shore Westwardly wantonly

bouncing the crests, the brief caress,

the wet between moments of rest.

Had I been notched like mill grinding-stone

the sea might have worn edges to sand

and I’d have become soft to the touch

but there are tides even the dead stone

must abide, tides that rock the world,

swell the sea, calm the harsh ribs, wash

pebbles, polish them to a gleam.

There comes always that youngster,

bucket in hand, who mistakes

the cold common for a gem

the shell for something alive.

No, child, not your Baba, only

cargo in the ship’s hold

ores to build new bridges.

HOOSIERTOWN PORTRAITS

I have grown fat living off hands that feed me pennies

For oilpaintings of sons or wives, lovers or mistresses

Who inbred look too much like one another. I’ve land-

Scapes hung in my basement and abstractions clutter

My attic. Portraits of people I’ve known, grown to hate

During exile, are meats to keep me thriving; I eat souls.

They love the smoothing of their wrinkles, that burial

Of hairy moles, and the grace I give their canvas flesh.

The mayor’s ugly whore, his wife’s lover hidden

In the background are beautiful to knowing eyes.

They do not see demons hid in trees, lurking behind

Curtains, shadows within shadows; their souls

Laid bare with strokes that flow like years

From point to point making the paints

Blend ever so slightly. Grown old and fat

These peasants under glass —and I with them—

Who do not know their true faces before their eyes.

They look upon themselves so framed and say that this is art.

The knowledge of true art is in their seeing art in my artifice.

I find no peace in oils nor in canvas that I learn to dread;

I find no peace in the frames rubbed and gilded that hold

Their precious likeness; I too will hang with them one day

Along a wall on the coast looking inward at Middleamerica

And at themselves, a curiosity. And my skin will be rough

As skies, my hair as parched as prairies, and my dark eyes

Will burn like Bessemer furnaces. This is Gary; this, Hammond;

This is East Chicago; Whiting; the Southside of Chicagoland;

Some may say these folk came fleeing

Blindly to America; they came to crown

Her with their crown of thorns. Say, no.

These are souls of the dead and crushed

Whose vital juices have been drawn

From their hearts and homelands.

And every one, though born here,

Now is likewise from a foreign place.

Sugar slaves, cotton slaves, steel slaves—

Slaves are slaves in their minds.