Two poems from the New Yorker 2/6/12

The Chameleon by David Orr


Alone among the superheroes,
He failed to keep his life in balance. 
Power Man, The Human Shark--they knew 
To hold their days and nights in counterpoise, 
Their twin selves divided together, 
As a coin bears with ease its two faces. 


Not so The Chameleon. He was 
Too many things to count, and was counted on 
To be too many things. When he came to grief, 
As was perhaps inevitable, 
His body was overlooked for hours, 
Having been pressed by force of habit 


Into the likenesss of what had killed him.

The Westerns by Philip Schultz


Once again, 
Randolph Scott is thinking out loud on TV 
about the end of freedom, 
God, mercy, why
barbed-wire fences no longer hold back 
old or new grudges, rabid squatters, 
the wagonloads 
of gruelling pilgrim faith 
in an ever-westward-expanding destiny, 

while once again 
I'm up late remembering 
the lacquered sunsets 
on the Paramount's patched screen 
Saturday mornings, me 
and ten to fifteen other hoodlum sons 
ofimmigrant dreamers aloft 
in the filthy froth of the balcony, 
surrounded by the ear-popping
fall-to-your-knees-
and-say-hallelujah serendipity 
of the swooning music. 
Westerns 
were what we wanted, couldn't get enough of, 
all those standoffs between 
postwar rectitude vs. existential greed 
feeding our burgeoning hunger 
to be part of 
the great American rhapsody. 
Everyone mumbling, believing only in gullibility, 
Technicolor, 
eradicating evil, 
owning everything--is this why 
every ten minutes the plot questioned 
everyone's manhood for no reason whatsoever, 
the town drunk drank, 
the hero sought revenge from a flashback 
(that'd murdered his entire family in slow motion), 
why everyone believed in 
the rewards of futility, 
the solace of violence, 
the dignity of misfortune, 
waited endlessly for the always late, 
just around the bend, 
steeped in appetite, 
in irresistible grief,
beaten to a pulp
utterly insulted point to arrive, 
hoping 
it'd tie everything together, finally, maybe, 
why 
all these peculiar curlicues 
are whirling through my sleepy brain, 
because nothing has changed, 
and my tiny moment is also quickly passing 
while the end is taking me somewhere 
the beginning never wanted me to be? 


Two poems from The New Yorker 2/6/12