Purities

By Harvey Shapiro

What was ceremonially impure, he knew
Was his life. The laws were not followed.
The god was unhonored.
Anxiety sat on every road.
To change his life, he invented a job
That promised regularity and order.
He invented love that promised joy.
In summer he sat among green trees.
The family laughed in water.
Now let the ceremony begin, he said,
In the heart of summer,
In the pure green,
And the pure blue.
Let the god walk his mountain.
He can come down.

New York Notes

By Harvey Shapiro

1. Caught on a side street in heavy traffic, I said to the cabbie, I should have walked. He replied, I should have been a doctor. 2. When can I get on the 11:33 I ask the guy in the information booth at the Atlantic Avenue Station. When they open the doors, he says. I am home among my people.

Lower East Side

By Harvey Shapiro

On Houston street, walking west,
the moon coming up over Katz's Delicatessen,
we pass a synagogue ancient as Tiberias.
You don't have to be touched
by the hand of God
to pick up on these New York cliches.
We get finished walking the dog
and climb to your Catholic-kitsch apartment
where your Mother of God helps me out of my clothes
and history and the ruined smell of these lives.

City Ethic

By Harvey Shapiro

In New York
at the end of the day
if you are pleased with yourself
and the human condition
and feel no survivor’s guilt
you have added to the darkness.

Questions

By Harvey Shapiro

The idiot sound of someone's stereo
in the apartment below. The bass thudding
like something caught in a trap.
People live in that racket the way I live
with my questions, the things I don't know.
For example, an image of the successful life,
or what is the good, or how can I get
from here to where I want to be, and where is that.

Another Story

By Harvey Shapiro

The whole drift of the world disturbs her:
technology out of hand, pride of work
lost. She tells him this, and keeps
telling him this, and what she is telling him is
that she doesn't see what she loves is before her.