Four Poems by George Franklin

Read More: A brief Q&A with George Franklin

The Ape in the Garden

Mahler complained to Freud how the vulgar
Intrudes on the sublime, the organ grinder’s jangle
On choking grief, the ape in the garden, wild
Gesticulations in moonlight.  He imagined
Alma in bed with Gropius, convulsions of
Her abdomen and pelvis, and worst of all,
That he was old and no longer mattered.
Even Earth is not immortal.  That first morning
In Dublin, I heard horses’ hooves in the street.
Outside, a wagon delivering milk. The landlady’s
Husband read Yeats to his children.  America
Was somewhere far away, a landscape painting
Of wilderness and sunlight, the occasional
Indigenous settlement, no hint of political violence.
Garfield was shot by a campaign worker in dirty clothes,
Who’d wanted a job in Paris.  In Vienna, there
Were swastikas chalked on the sidewalk outside
House No. 19, Berggasse.  Memory of the ratcatcher’s
Window, of stuffed rodents, feral cats.  The sky is
Always blue, the Earth secure.  Forever, forever.
In London, “the familiar siren-shrieks, the alerts,”
“The all-clear.”  Freud to HD: “The trouble is—
I am an old man—you do not think it worth
Your while to love me.”

 

“Such was the funeral of Hector, breaker of horses.”

Untouched by rot, Hector’s ransomed body
Burns through the night, and in the morning, wrapped

In cloth, his brothers place the bones still warm
Inside a tomb.  From the time Priam returns

To the wide gates, mourning takes only a page
Or two to recite.  Helen recalls how kind

He was when others weren’t.  A feast follows.
Grief is collapsed, abbreviated.  Homer

Says guards were posted.  Achilles couldn’t be trusted
To keep his word.  The inhabitants of Troy

All know their war has died with Hector.  Their
Homes and white bones will be just another layer

Of Turkish clay.  Tourists will stare down
Into the excavation.  Then air-conditioned

Buses will drive them back to their waiting ships.

 

Muscovy Ducks
Miami, Florida

At winter solstice, canals should be slow moving,
Not a brown surge of water clambering banks,
Rustling the noon-white sun in its reflection.
Muscovy ducks reconnoiter the parking lots,

Retreat beneath oaks and sea grape, leaning
Over to jab quickly at palmetto bugs
Or maybe bread I throw in their direction.
By now, they know me, look up as I arrive. […]

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Visitors

Shreveport, Louisiana, 1961

On Sundays, we’d visit my grandmother’s
Grave, bringing fresh flowers, pulling out
Weeds.  The headstone was pink marble

With blue veins visible under the dates and
Carved letters.  We swept oak leaves into
A brown pile for the trashcan, along with

Cigarette butts and crinkled cellophane.
Then, I’d go for a walk, looking for names I
Recognized: my grandmother’s brother who’d

Died of lung cancer when I was five, my
Grandfather’s sister who was a recent arrival—
We used to stop by her house two or three

Evenings a week.  My mother told me she’d
Had strokes, a vegetable, but my grandfather
Thought she understood him and would sit

By her bed reciting whatever pieces of news
Might interest her.  I never heard her reply, but
I didn’t wait long either.  I would go out front

To the square of lawn between house and
Sidewalk, lie flat on my back—dry, neatly
Cut grass rubbing my neck—and I’d look

At the moon rising over the line of houses
On Monrovia Street and the clusters of stars
That meant nothing to me, except they were far

Away and each night seemed to be different.

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