The Poetry Of.
Richard Fein................................................
COMPARING CAMERAS
Unlike a film camera, the digital permits no double exposure,
for the memory card is precise in its framing.
In a digital camera no first shot haunts the second as a translucent specter,
unless Photoshop trickery is invoked.
Unlike film, the trickery of double exposure is standard
in the camera that is both the human brain and eyes.
I see my son playing basketball in the park.
But some inner retina resurrects a long ago image
of a four-year-old riding his trike in this same park,
and who is now weaving in and out of my teenaged son's way.
And over there is the same park bench
where his mother and I once embraced as lovers.
But the bench is now empty.
My son plays basketball; the bench is empty.
My son rides his trike; lovers embrace on that bench.
My son plays basketball; lovers embrace on that bench..
My son rides his trike; the bench is empty.
The brain focuses on past as well as present light,
so the mind views a messy album of snapshots,
a slapped together collage of every permutation and combination.
Sharpness of vision is an illusion of current optics and long ago happenings,
for the brain is a blender of both,
a master at morphing our jumbled memories..
But unlike the other two cameras, the brain sees beyond the flat image
by adding a third then a fourth dimension.
For the word camera implies a chamber
and camera obscura implies a dark chamber,
a dark room where my mind develops what my eyes see
by adding depth to the length and breadth of the received vision
and double exposing each present image with a past moment
and perhaps a future yearning.
FORTY-EIGHT DIVIDES INTO SIX EIGHT-YEAR-OLDS
When I was eight I always wanted to be the bad guy,
for I thought I looked good in a black hat
and very fierce when spitting on the sidewalk.
I'd bushwhack the Lone Ranger a dozen times a day
and lead Tonto on a scalp-taking warpath.
I'd rescue my partner, Jesse James, from the posse,
and stare down Billy the Kid when we were just about to draw
over who is big enough for this town.
And when I'd look up to the sky,
I'd become the favorite general of Emperor Ming the merciless
and blast Flash Gordon out of the universe.
But now, at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Avenue T at 3 a.m.,
my rap sheet of misdeeds of derring-do that were never done
conjure up all my childhood heroic villains,
and they taunt me, egg me on,
for I am paralyzed before a red light.
I case the joint and find no cop car waiting in ambush,
no cars at all, no witnesses, a clean getaway,
but I wait, wait, wait,
though my foot hovers over the accelerator.
Oh, how I want to sally forth on my black horse wearing my bad-guy Stetson
or pilot merciless Ming's death rocket to wreak havoc on the cosmos..
If only the light would turn green already.
A TASTE OF TIGER, A TASTE OF TRUTH
We find stirring words to egg David on,
but we secretly gawk at Goliath's rippling muscles.
We sing Sunday morning psalms to the lamb,
but feast on Sunday dinner mutton.
Tiger flesh is too tough to eat,
though we'd be easy meat for that uncaged beast.
Our words for this cat are savage beauty.
We're part cannibal
when we wave our fingers before his fangs
pretending to be brave from behind zoo bars.
We've got this recurring hunger to be devoured.
