SUICIDE WATCH
                                                           I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was  useless...”     “Araby”



I watched my friends check
           out the scene, check
                     out their options, check
                                out their futures, check
                                           out of the market of the world

The ghosts of my companions
           haunt the Crum woods
                     the bell tower, the windy
                                gallery, the reddened rooms
                                          of learning to wait

What else has life got 
           to offer the living? Nothing 
                      is gained by remembering 
                                the oranges of that time, 
                                           the sapphire mystery 

And the dark dogs of dreaming— 
           where do they figure in the absence? 
                     One part of a hand is missing, 
                               missing from the dark 
                                           face of a lost watch 

All the great artists thought about insects,
           but thinking about insects does not
                      make one a great artist. No.
                                 Thinking about insects makes one 
                                            an insect. We are what we think. 

What does the future hold?
           Hands. The hands of a watch. 
                      My father gave me a watch
                                 but I misplaced it. My mother 
                                            searched for it her whole life. 

What is a whole life? An insect
           limping back to the nest. All his
                     insect friends are there: Brian the bee
                               without a wing. Sam the ant sans
                                          antenna. Betsy Beetle, carapace cracked. 

It’s good to be home. 
           It’s good to be home. 
                      It’s very good to be home 
                                  where we can linger
                                             before the useless stalls.

PAR DELICATESSE



I.

Rimbaud said,
“Par delicatesse
j’ai perdu ma vie.”
In the delicatessen,
I have lost my life.

I know what he meant.
I also have wandered among the smoked
fish, lean pastrami, marble rye, have
stood by the wicked pickle barrel, have
stared longingly at the crumbly halvah.

II.

Dante said one day he found himself
in a delicatessen ("selva obscura")
not knowing which aisle to walk down,
not knowing which meat to choose.
He too felt that he had lost his life.

I know what he meant.
I too have suffered paralysis
in a plethora of possibility:
belly or Nova, herring or tongue, chubs or sable,
kreplach or kishke, kugel or blueberry blintz...


III.

Fitzgerald: "In the real dark night
of the soul, it is always three
o'clock in the delicatessen."
O lost! O lost! He lost his
compass in the schmaltz.

I know what he meant.
I've been in the 3 A.M. cream cheese.
I've known the hole in the bagel.
The potato knish is doughy. My life?
A shmear in someone else's appetite.


Bill Yarrow’s poems have appeared in Central Park, Confrontation, Berkeley Poets Cooperative, The Literary Review, Mantis, Cabaret Voltage Online, The Orange Room Review, blossombones, Angelic Dynamo and other literary magazines. His chapbook Wrench is available from erbacce Press, HERE.