Sherman Pearl

E-mail Sherman at meretile@aol.com

LIFE

Before dinosaurs, before fish wriggled ashore,
before fish
a spore was born in the swamp of time.
It clung to sheltering rock
nourished by the drop of water that in time
crystallized into a tomb.
Through eons
while the world endlessly died and revived
the spore lay trapped in its
splendid sarcophagus like a miniscule pharaoh.
And in time
science found it quite
by chance among billions of lifeless crystals,
identical except
for some microscopic shimmer
that betrayed the dormant half-life in that one
brilliant speck. It contained
the spirit of a god-king; it was made of the same
ageless stuff that I am.

ROSENBERGS REVISITED

We’re huddled around embers in the shadowy basement
counting our losses, warming ourselves with stories
of old revolutions when in they walk: Ethel and Julius,
martyred as the day they died. They sit hand in hand
behind us, hair still smoking, eyes dark with pain.
We toast our smoldering comrades with weak tea;
we ask them to say a few words that might guide us through
our own tragedies, to slip us a secret or two.
They stay silent except for some chocked-back sobs
and the clanging of death-row doors. We beg them
to redeem themselves, stand up in their proud prison drab,
set us free in this desperate hour.

O read us those letters that melted the bars,
lifted your cells out of solitude, high above injustice.

Surely their words would prove their innocence - and we too
would be found not guilty. But they make no plea,
confess only to being ordinary. Weakened and fading
they rise to leave. We nudge them back down,
beg them to proclaim our victory. We try to inspire them
with a thin-voiced rendition of The Internationale.
They won’t sing along, only hum each other love songs.
We hold them with us with soft leather straps and the bonds
of memory. They glow in their chairs
while the bulbs hanging over our heads flicker and dim.

ACCIDENT

After the skid, the screech, the crash
fingers of glass point both ways. The cars look
bewildered--headlights staring into space,
bumpers twisted into grimaces;
where paint has been scraped away
sullen grays of the undercoat start to spread.

			Still at their wheels
the drivers are stunned by the impact
of accidents past--how they’d hurt the next day,
the purple bruises that proved
they’d been wronged, the scabs they discovered
days later, from cuts they never saw bleed.

			One flashes back
on the collision that shattered her daydream,
broke the date that would have transformed her,
the other remembers the wreck
that made him grow cautious, made him grow old.

There will be justice this time; for once
in this world of broken white lines
and uncertain speeds, of stoplights always
on yellow, of blind witnesses and colliding alibis,
even in systems without
insurance or compensation right is still right;
the fault is clear as the skid marks.

			Each dent is an indictment,
every ache is a plea. The drivers search their lives
for evidence. Somebody has to pay.

“SPANISH IS THE LOVING TONGUE”

I speak enough just to greet the housekeeper,
she sweeps up the words. I know the curses the gardener
throws at the weeds
but not the name of his flowers.

I understand just enough to catch
the accented laughs of day-workers waiting for pick-ups.

I buy phrases off carts pushed by viejas in black serapes;
the salsa burns my tongue.
As I wander the avenidas
language shops lure me with offers of elegant idioms.

I am dark, with alien eyes; women in cantinas
think I was born with the lingo;
they speak through the yearning slicked over their lips.

I sing back to them;
I sing: softly when I’m all alone, mi amor, mi corazon.

HOW TO PLAY CHESS

When you retire, pack all the wiles you’ve learned
for outwitting bosses and death
into the velvet bag that holds your carved ivory pieces.

Carry them to the timeless park near the graveyard
where idlers play on immovable tables
while shadows of leaves kibbitz around their shoulders.

Seek out a gray man sitting bent by the board,
scratching his beard over empty squares.
Study his eyes till you’re sure they’re replaying the past.

Challenge him.
Set up the game as though for the first time--
men out of place standing lines, new game beginning.

Open with gambits that set the course, anticipate
tactics ahead--where the traps lie, what sacrifice gains.
Mirror his moves with your own.

Let the shapes play in your fingers,
the curves of the queen, the stoutness of pawns.
Each is a memory; pass it slowly over the squares

and when you capture one keep it safe in your pocket.
Let lifetimes pass between moves;
watch the old man wither a little more as he waits.

At end game, with all the extraneous gone,
play his wounded king into a corner; check and check
then let him escape, let him escape.