In The News

In The News

Arthur Mortensen

Acknowledgements

“Front Page” originally eppeared in Cumberland Review
“A Psychic Spy’s Report to the Station Chief, 1977” originally appeared in Relics of the Cold War, 1997, Musings Press, and was part of a performance of Relics of the Cold War by The Medicine Show theatre troupe in Manhattan
“A Reign in Spain” appeared in The Lyric and in the chapbook Venetian Spring, 1996, Musings Press
“Starburst” appeared in Edge City Review
“Stalking Madame Mina” appeared in Sparrow and in the chapbook Venetian Spring, 1996, Musings Press
“Frankie’s Lament to Johnny” appeared in Venetian Spring, 1996, Musings Press
“Cave Painting” appeared in Desire, 1994, Somers Rocks Press
“Oppenheimer’s Error” appeared in Edge City Review
“Why Hamlet Waited So Long” appeared in Edge City Review

Title Page Art: “At Swim,” photograph by the author (2006)

Copyright © 2006 by Arthur Mortensen


Published by The New Formalist Press


XHTML & CSS design by Leo Yankevich

Front Page

A tunnel’s marked with blood; a ritual ends.
The paper of her icon starts to brown,
but we can rest; it’s sure to be restored,
to haunt the pages of new rags and books,
and rouse the thought that a conspiracy
had stolen golden moments from a dream.

Whose sympathy is lacking for such losses
rebuke the photographs of paparrazzi.
They find the news no shock, nor worth the deep
investment of a sorrow born in envy.
They mock the mourners and they crush the page
where some familiar face stares crushed and bleeding.

The ceremony takes its noble pose,
the horses in a row, the riders black.
And millions who have found their faith in mourning
now stand as acolytes along the road,
throwing bouquets, shouting out hosannah!
as the caisson bears the body toward the grave

Reporters like to think they’ve found the facts:
She died; and everyone will follow her.
And misfortune has a way of finding us—
crushed in a torn up car or sick to death
of those quotidien joys the headlines miss
in search of some fantastic riddle’s answer.

But let the sound of muffled drums drop down
below the songs of children and of sparrows;
and send the weeping crowds to watch a game
or some new Hamlet in his dress rehearsal;
let royal reds burn black, and leave the hearse
that waits for us parked in its dark garage.

A Psychic Spy's Report to the Station Chief, 1977

I think I felt I saw a man inside,
And know he thought he felt he saw me near.
Though out of uniform, he had his rank,
And wore it as a soldier does—by ear,
Without a second thought, without a doubt,
His posture straight, his step a stride beyond
The mincing hesitation of civilians.

I’m sure I felt I saw a man inside
And know he hesitated when he knew.
He whistled within the missile silo's tube,
And held some matches up, as if to light
An imaginary fuse. I cannot say
Whether or not he wanted war or peace,
But, of his sense of play, it was intact.

I know he thought he felt he saw my eyes
And when he sensed I was too near, he smiled
And struck a match that neither one of us
Could see. And yet I know I think I felt
The heat of this incendiary, whose flame
He held against the solid rocket's casing,
Not caring that the silo's hatch was closed.

And, as I watched the man I thought I saw,
He raised a mask to cover up his face,
A bloody devil’s eyes, a snarling mouth.
He held that pose no more than thirty seconds.
We shared a distant silent laugh, and then,
He turned and vanished from my sight. I knew
At once that peace would hold another night.

Ghost

Pasty, wrinkled, spotted, worn and pale,
His dear love’s face had found in time a crime
Against her skin. She took to wearing veils
And mystery the way a yard wears thyme
To cover up its weeds. In this sublime
And dotty affectation she became
The neighborhood’s own goddess, more divine
Than any television star. Too lame
Of years for anyone to ask her name
Should the occasion merit her unmasking,
She let suggestion’s foggy presence shame
Her audience, and so they were ever asking
If future winds were causing her distress,
And not the hurricane of long duress.

Frankie’s Lament to Johnny

Though I’d forgotten how you stroke an urge
Until you soothe it as one might a pet,
Where even dying dogs won’t let a vet
Release their ears to hear an ending dirge,
Your hand could make a boulder feel a surge
And make a desert long since dry turn wet.
And when you join with lips, there’s no regret
To match when you are gone and I emerge.
Then why on your return do I feel rage
And want to slap you till your skin is red
And every thought I hold is to escape
From your embrace? Why pleasure seems a cage
I cannot guess, nor why I want you dead,
Your perfect body covered with a drape.

A Reign in Spain

Aloof as any queen can be in rain,
Beside the iron gate a woman stands,
And wound about her face in sodden strands
Her hair glows red, on pallid skin a stain
She can’t rub out. A passerby won’t deign
To ask the time from one whose shaking hands
Refrain from waving, a fatal sign that brands
Her guilty, a suspect on display, and vain.
But she has time; its torrents wash her skin
Until it prunes, its surface wrinkled line
To link her to a passing age, where glee
Was bound to sorrow, rage to love, and sin
Was held as proof that one had lived, its fine
Incision close to bone, as we to she.

Rembrandt Contemplates the Busts at St. Tropez

Was Venus on an oyster shell as raw
As one of these now stretched upon the beach,
An appetizer flush to fill the jaws
Of hungry sharks? The goddess ought to teach
Effects of sunlight on a ripened peach,
And that these redder samples from the Earth
Should wear more cloth than they received at birth.

Although the light reflected here is mellow,
With ochres, pinks and browns that make me faint
With pleasure (my skin is of a tone so sallow
That my supplier has yet to find a paint
To match, so sickly, Dutch, and frankly, quaint
Is my visage), I cannot draw a line
Where beauty now on fire is my design.

So soon, ces belles tétons will turn to ashes,
Deformed by spots and keratotic lumps.
For light with all its beauty carries lashes
Sharper than any lover’s tongue or frump’s
Intent to curse the beauty to the dumps,
Reminding her with echoes none too brave
That perfect skin won’t keep her from the grave.

A better hope for all, I would suggest,
Would be retreat within my studio’s walls,
To spend the day as model and my guest.
And then at night we’d saunter down the halls,
Go out and bathe beneath a waterfall
Before returning to my humble shed
To spend the early morning hours in bed.

Morris, Dick

Republicans have struck again. A whore
With strings attached to scandal sheets they own
Has come, accusing Democrats once more
Of sleaziness. Their glass-eyed writers stone
The President with words. The half-lies drone
And weary voters drift away to snore
While Clinton finds another aide has flown
From fear that he’ll be smeared. But what a bore
These scandals are, slashing what we adore
To ribbons, politicians with their sluts,
The wincing secretaries keeping score,
And even the shocking lust of White House mutts,
All sent to Purgatory, to give their speeches
Of re-found faith on clothing-optional beaches.

Detective Ireland Goes to the Opera

During an intermission at the Met
The writer saw a fine, familiar face,
A polished member of the uniformed set,
A tourist from Chicago, bright as lace.
Emerging from the orchestra, her pace
Suggesting nature’s need was rather grave,
She halted so that she might give a rave.

“You know I like to play my own piano;
I have a special fondness for the keys.
But jeez, I surely like this new soprano.
Not only can she hit those higher C’s,
She nearly put Giovanni on his knees!
As cop, I love to see the victims win,
And watch all villains punished for their sins.

“Don Giovanni’s case? Open and shut.
You say he’s got some doubters of his guilt,
But look at him and ask—was he a slut?
He always wonders how a woman’s built,
Not if she has a brain; he’s to-the-hilt
In love with her before he knows her name,
And, lacking all discretion, has no shame!

“I think Hell’s fire was proper punishment
For one whose only skill was to seduce.
Those Brooklyn girls would put him in cement
If he had forced their sisters to be loose.
So what’s the problem? What’s there to deduce?
They put him down Hell’s chimney up onstage;
In my precinct we’d lock him in a cage!”

Starburst

When Eta Carinae* exploded to fill
Its sky with swiftly growing polar lobes
Of plasma and dust, it swept the system clean
With great red bulbs a light year or more across.
And yet a glowing center still remained,
Like love after a midnight argument.

But what was there but memory confined
To a shrinking neutron core, while clouds of gas,
Fiery balloons, had fled lost unity
To swallow nearby stars? And what are we,
Witness to daily celestial apocalypse,
To do confronted by a love’s small space?

Should we consume the heliosphere we share,
Drawn in so close that fusion’s flare is all
We can produce? And when that heat is fading,
Like a possession carelessly ejected
The day when we forgot that nothing’s owned,
How long till cooling leaves us in the dark?

Stalking Madame Mina

I hunt for you, and follow tracks and scents
Through forest depths of tangled brush and trees;
And when my urge to bring you down relents
(As happens when I’m head to toe in bees)
I wonder what I’ve found in you that frees
My urge to calm myself and take a seat
Along some quiet beach, my tender knees
Unburdened, bent by gravity, not beat
By running hard in search of living meat
That I can neither kill nor cook, a meal
Instead for loving teeth to nip your feet
In hopes that you’ll unveil yourself, reveal
The hunter’s prey for me to gently take
With what some days you’d call a wooden stake.

Cave Painting

Daylight vanishes; moonlight comes to bend
Our thoughts to caves, their dank and dripping walls
Reflecting fire that keeps a lion at bay.
I nestle, read a book, while you begin to daub
A fresh and white canvas with pigments dark
As leaves and grass in rain. An infant cries;
A neighbor rushes by to rescue her
Before another tear can fall to earth.
You find a shape in blue and mix in oils
Until a face appears, a somber mask
That stares across the chamber’s depths to me.
I try to turn a page but fumble now,
My captured eyes unable to decode,
Not words, nor numbered page, and so I stand
And set my book aside to watch you work.

Your brush continues on, revealing ears
Which seem to hear me sharply draw my breath,
And then a mouth, which speaks a silent phrase.
Now, line and color bring up cheeks and brow
Until the figure looms, a giant caged
By paint and frame. You stop to look, and rest,
Yet unperturbed by what I see you’ve brought.
I try to find a place where it can’t watch,
Twisting about, ducking beneath an eave
Of solid rock, but, moving closer till, that gaze
Now seems to strip my skin, revealing thoughts
I’ve tried to hide from you, of how the night
Has closed its starry door on even dreams
While idle theories remain by day,
When minute hours restrain my sympathies
For plans beyond the second hand’s advance.
But you seem unconcerned, and once again,
With bold intent, you lift your painter’s brush
To mark your signature, the month and year,
Then turn to me. I nod my cool assent
But something in my smile has made you frown.
“The eyes?” you ask, but I do not reply.

Oppenheimer’s Error

He’d tried for years for some recovery of
the joy he’d found in his discovery of
the means to burn a city to the ground.
He knew some part of thinking had been sound,
his skills as theorist and engineer,
but what about the joy he’d felt as seer?

Striding about under a floppy hat,
smoking his pipe, answering this and that
query about the means to kill a city,
and feeling not the slightest twinge of pity,
he played the part from lines he wrote himself,
and where he lacked a word, from off the shelf.

How can a man describe himself as wise
when for his work mass death will fill his eyes?
The wisdom born in Hiroshima’s cloud
was death of innocence; he was not proud,
and tried to stop the consequence of thought,
but once in acts, it could not be untaught.

Love at First Sight

A smoke-filled bar with thundering rock ‘n roll
were brighter memories than whom she’d picked
to spend the night; she couldn’t remember a word,
had only heard a shouted phrase or two
before, believing her mission was complete,
she’d taken some strong arm in hers and walked
to streets so noisy that she couldn’t hear
some proclamation that he’d made—what matter,
she’d thought, concentrating on his suit,
the careful manicure of fingernails,
the hair as set as any movie star’s,
and what this box might hold to warm her skin
to fill a space left empty for too long.
His suntan fading orange, his watch a fake,
was he the man who stretched across the bed,
and breathed so quietly she thought him dead?

Seeing Is Believing

She couldn’t tell one author from the next.
They all had similar complaints in texts
they claimed were fictive: Sarah abandoned at ten;
Louise and Harold who couldn’t stand their men;
Jonathan, who couldn’t win a seat,
and Jacqueline who couldn’t walk the beat
because the precinct said she was too fat.
“What readers of ours will give a damn about that?”

Her secretary moaned; the editor
who’d brought the manuscripts in glared at her.
Her secretary, Lewis, loved the books:
“besides, who cares about those cranky kooks
who want to hear about a world that’s different?”
She’d never found him to be deferent.
And while he munched a roll and typed a letter,
she really didn’t know which book was better
and didn’t want opinions from her boss.
A money man, he’d start to get quite cross
if she interrogated him on choice.
“We want somebody new, a genuine voice.
Find someone like him, another winner.”
She knew she’d choke on that while eating dinner.
But what to do? Trade fiction was losing money,
no matter if projections were still sunny,
and she knew well that forty-five was not
an age for her to write another plot
to guide her life. Her son was going to college;
her late husband was pushing up new foliage;
collection notices had grown to piles—
she had no reason to resign for style.

“Lewis, come in here, please.” He dropped his roll.
“Send these out to readers; we’ll take a poll.”

The Reluctant Penitent

“You will be saved, but hear this warning: no...”
He felt the wooden kneeler’s edges skin
his ankles. Trying to confess a sin,
he sensed that he had nothing left to show,
no reason for the sense of guilt that so
informed the shadowed, silent man within,
who waited there, expecting to begin
a rite which seemed to lack all reason: “Go.”
Wordless, he stood, opened the creaking door
and slipped into the nave. Above the pews
the heads of scarved and ancient women bowed
in supplication. Looking at them, he swore,
wondering if their prayers had been so loud
before their lives were clippings from the news.

Why Hamlet Waited So Long

The monkeys had been typing hard for years.
A million strong, without complaint or fear,
they worked in triple shifts through day and night.
A scientist remarked: “You know, despite
their efforts, work so far lacks the specifics
that we expected—based on the statistics.
Not one of them has typed ‘to be’ or ‘not,’
and one of them keeps wiping gobs of snot
across his screen. To call this creativity
seems far more strange to me than the Nativity.
At least the former didn’t ask for proof
nor do believers calculate aloof
and keep the actors waiting there offstage.
They can’t detail a speech for Hamlet’s rage;
they haven’t got a clue about the Queen
and as for bloody revenge, it’s far too mean
for monkeys, loving as they do to shriek,
to bend the ears of enemies till, meek
and deaf, they climb out on an empty limb.
Can we expect from them poetic hymns?
What happens if they try to change the story,
proclaiming that no monkey likes such gory
and vicious acts as those we human beings
require to be amused? You’re not agreeing.
Then let me finish with my fit of rage:
We have descended pell-mell to an age
where none can act from what they think is true.
When contract time is up, I won’t renew.”

Perhaps the scientist required a beer,
or careful contemplation of career.
The monkey paradox would not confute her
if she would find the proof with her computer.

About the author