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City BirdSelected Poems

(1991 - 2009)

by Millie Nissedited by Martha Deed

[books]

Buffalo, New York

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City Bird: Selected Poems (1991 - 2009)Copyright 2010 by Martha DeedPublished by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Martha DeedCover Photo Oxford Bicycles by Millie Niss

First EditionISBN: 978-1-60964-008-8Library of Congress Control Number 2010934402

BlazeVOX [books]303 Bedford Ave

Buffalo, NY 14216

Editor@blazevox.org

\

BlazeVOX [ books ]blazevox.org

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Outline of a Novel

by the Storyteller Laureate of Hazlahan

I can feel the axe on my neck as they read me my contract

before the fatal swing:

The Storyteller Laureate of Hazlahan must produce one major literary work a year

and a story or poem each monthor else face execution

I thought it was a great honor to be appointed to the position

I had written a book a year for six years

that no one had actually read

(small presses dont market very well, you know)

The Storyteller Laureate publishes under the Imperial seal of Hazlahan

and his works are read in all the Universities

and papers are assigned to schoolchildren about each and every minor little poem

and it is extremely rare to get rejected

because the Storyteller Laureate is the head rejecter of all of Hazlahanhe is the ultimate arbiter

if someone wants to ght a rejection slip

they can request an audience with the Storyteller Laureate

to have justice done

but if it is dreck

the Storyteller Laureate

can recommend execution of the author in severe cases

or a total ban on submissions and publications

if the offense to good taste is less egregious

it is a dangerous thing to appeal to the Storyteller Laureatebut the Storyteller Laureate rarely rejects himself

and as the Emperor of Hazlahan is illiterate

he does not often exercise his Imperial Veto power on the Storytellers publications

oh what a nice thing to be Storyteller Laureate

but I have violated my contract

it is the end of December and by January rst I must produce a major work

I am prohibited from working on any holidays and December 19th is the Emperors Birthday

traditionally the work is presented to him then

all bound and covered with positive blurbsfrom various Imperial ofcials

and ofcial literary lights

Its not that I dont feel a novel coming on

I can feel it coming out of me fully formed

jam-packed with action and pungency

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but every time I try to write it down it sneaks back inside

in out in out in out in out

it hurts to strain so much

it strikes me that if the novel could be made less solid

more uid, more stream of consciousness and ghostly in its narration

less intense

it might slide out of me more easily

the last Storyteller Laureate was blessed with the gift of logorrhea

he had only to sit down

and novels and plays and poetry collections

came shooting out of him

in a spray of mediocrity with tiny lumps of quality mixed in

when they appointed me they wanted somebody a bit more controlled

more regular

less diarrhoic in my prose

and for several years I t the bill nicelybut now I have constipation of the imagination

it could be because my last book was too visionary

and when I was interviewed about the wonderful symbolism in it

I said, what symbolism?

there really is a purple two-headed weasel living inside each and every person

feeding on intestinal content

and directing our souls.

My weasel talks to me all the time,

and so I know how to behave so as to be saved in the nal Apocalypse

the key to life is learning to hear the weasel withinseeing the weasel is yet another step towards salvation

if you are fully mindful

you will see the weasel whenever you look in the mirror

and summon it

your skin will become transparent

and you will see the outline of your intestines

with the two-headed weasel swimming inside

that is the goal of life

after thismy daily orange juice started tasting funny

and I was no longer certain about the existence of the weasel within

I spied around the palace one day and discovered

that the Court Physician had ordered a philtre of Haldol

to be added to my breakfast

each day

and I couldnt protest

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because disobeying the Court Physician

is grounds for execution

as is poking into the Physicians activities

he is allowed to operate totally without the patients knowledge

to avoid false cures caused by false hopes

or reactions of a sick mind against the Physic which will make it better

however I had heard

that Haldol slows down the movements

of the mind as of the intestine

killing the weasel

and my novel

in one fell swoop

it could be that this was deliberate

as I have heard rumors

that the Court Physician would like to become Storyteller Laureateand my execution would serve his nefarious purposes

so each morning

I poured my orange juice down the gullet of the Court Cat

and watched it get stiff and sluggish

as my novel wrote itself down

as quickly as I could type

saved. . .

and my intestines alsohave begun to produce

ne output

for the Imperial Compost Pile

for which I get paid extra

by the bushel basket

isnt life sweet!

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Minutes from the New Zealand Flat-Earth Society

Between the picture and the picturesque

There lies the real take for example sheep:

Theyre picturesque when grazing on the front

Of a pamphlet from the New Zealand Tourist Board,

But when you meet them on the mountainside,Theyre greasy, dirty, and not really white

And have an annoying tendency to stay put

When several thousand of them are blocking your way.

Of course if this is New Zealand, the situation is complicated

By the fact that you and the sheep are both upside-down,

Or so my illustrious uncle was convinced

Despite all attempts to teach him the contrary.

He was grateful to the end of his days

(Which ended very late at 92)

That he had the good fortune to be bornOn the unique spot New York where things

Are the right way up.

Perhaps it is we who are upside-down

That would explain why change keeps falling out

Of pockets into gutters and other oozy places

Where you wouldnt want to reach in to get it.

Being inverted may have an effect

Upon the intellect, excusing us

From all the stupid things we do and say.We will have to convene a committee of experts

To determine which way the earth should tilt

Meanwhile, donations from schoolchildren are amassing

For a campaign to twist the earth our way.

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Lapland

Someday Ill go to Lapland,

Said the father whenever he was miffed.

Ill commune with the seals.

Nancy inopportunely laughed, imagining

Her husband among the pinnipeds.How he would try to make them say, Thank you

Each time he threw them a sh.

Hed be home in a week, she knew

But somehow it never came to that.

There are Laplanders in Lapland,

Piped up 11-year old Sally

Because in Social Studies

They had done a three-week unit

On places colder than Buffalo.

They dress in furs and have sleds.I could avoid them, said the father.

Surely there arent that many.

And the father returned to his mashed potatoes

Clearly inhabiting a world consisting only of

Himself, his fork, and the potatoes.

For all the help he was to her,

He might as well have been in Lapland, thought Nancy.

Can I go to Lapland, too? said Billy

Trying to get out of clearing the table.

His fathers musings had convinced himThat in Lapland when you grill sh

Over an open re

There are no dishes to think about.

This seemed a big advantage.

We are in BUFFALO, NOT LAPLAND,

Intoned Nancy, and in Buffalo, people do chores.

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Chitchat at the Chancellors Tea

seventeen tarantulas

however?

Bicentennial bash

bordersheretofore

squeamishly,

Wouldnt you?

hereditary green

part-time arachnophobia

visits Sweden

chortling slowly

yesterday

I can kangaroo, too

slowly quoth he

charmingly,

in arpeggios.

logging circumscribed

chartreuse philosophically

in absentia

summarily squats

have another ghost

minces Marcella

although clam etiquette bursts,

I intuit instead potatoes,

purchase impresarios on the dole,

of course convincingly

underhanded among

byzantine grapes

blue leave-taking

with supposedly

cement

Wunderbar!

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The Carmelites

sell souvenirs

near the entrance

of Auschwitz slowly

or faster if they choose

an apple tree

creates a shadow

and the crosses

are like lenses

focusing the light

conveying immanence

losing consciousness

between sleep and waking

keeping silence

cinematically

not as in a Chinese garden

random apples

pose hard questions

about the light

long since dissolved

into space

the trees are a ceiling

holding silence

and the blossoms

hide memories

of distant cries

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The Roachs Tale

a very educated roach

on the Upper West Side

was crawling up a bus shelter

reading the signs advertising rooms to rent

because he had just been evictedthat happens to roaches a lot

and they dont even get 30 days notice

this roach was way too smart for Roach Motels

and he wouldnt go near any kind of bait

but the lady had sprayed his home

which was a cozy little place with his extended family

underneath the fridge

it had a homey vibration

and just the right temperature and humidity

and the roach never came out during the day to bother the womanhe minded his own business

and he even ate her garbage for her!

she should have been happy

but she was prejudiced, a real racist

and she went around claiming to be a liberal

she didnt give a damn about his personality

or their common interests

he even read her Village Voice after she was done with it!

and you cant imagine what a laborious task reading a newspaper is for an insect

that is only about the size of the word thebut anyway, this roach was homeless, and it was January

and he was looking for a new apartment

the Columbia students usually have good garbage

he was partial to Chinese food containers left on the oor for three days

that way they acquire a special tang that humans dont seem to like for some reason

so he was reading the signs on the bus stop at 116th street

and his little roachy heart stopped when he saw an announcement

for a weekly Roach Colloquium

in the Department of Entomology

he decided to goand it turned out to be full of the weirdest looking humans hed ever seen

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they gathered in the department lounge before the talk

and discussed the roaches they had seen in their travels

to the Amazon and the favelas of Brazil and the bayous of Louisiana

and some of them even carried

small containers which the roach soon realized were insect carrying cases

he smelled strange pheromones

they called to himhe had never been in love

though he had at last calculation 27,247,566 children

most of whom of course would not survive pupacy

when the presentation began he saw the source of the love vibes he had been sensing

they came from the star of the show, an enormous, bright yellow, Peruvian

stink-bug

at least 500 times his size

he wondered how to declare his love

would she be interested in a mere . . . roach

roaches in her native land were huge, majestic, reptilianscapable of shaking the earth with their footfalls

or so it seemed to a common New York City pinky-ngernail-sized housepest

he vowed to write her a sonnet declaring his suit

or perhaps a ghazal?

or maybe something modern in the style of Lorca or Neruda given her nationality

would she be into magical realism?

then the presentation started

it began with some obviously loving (on the part of the researcher) descriptions

of the stink bugs rarity and beauty

but then the lecturer saidof course it is among the dumbest animals known to man

according to some measures, for instance certain tests of harm avoidance

the single celled amoeba

is brighter

the roach blanched (at least metaphorically)

he wasnt interested in dating a bozo

even a very pretty one

sadly, he left his rare but stupid cousins and went off to nd a plain

but street smart New York cockroachmaiden

to marry and haveseveral million children with

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Its a Whitman Morning!

The homeless woman on the corner calls out in a language she alone speaks.

Her words bounce off the curb, fall into the Hudson, and penetrate the oceanic depths.

Their saltiness is my saltiness. . . the words that come ashore on the jagged rocks of Marazion

have the salt of my sweat in them.

You, too, are a part of the anthem Do you recognize your voice?

Whimsical, awkward, arrogant, coy. . . America tests its newly deepened voice:

The clack-boink of basketballs in the courtyard of my building is a part of it.

The tinkling of an ice-cream truck pulling the desires of youth through the city streets

like an unmatching thread used to mend the pocket of a beloved coat

The crash of a orists iron curtain sealing off dahlias and daylilies from the lustful night

The salsa music owing from the foot of Samuel Tildens statue

The creak of windows exhaling essence of bacon fat and coffee into the morning air

The boom of a door slamming on a former lover;

He will never shave here again.The whine of an ambulance carrying an expectant mother of twins

The braying of the Staten Island Ferry as it disgorges its load of commuters on a hot August

evening

All these are a part of the song but they are not the song.

No scholars glosses, no learned lexicons can amplify this melody.

I bathe in it and embrace the limpid swell.

I draw it close to me and with a lovers soothing words appease the waves.