Frederick Seidel

A man sits counting the floor tiles of the bathroom floor, Counts silently left to right, then right to left, while pressure mounts, And while, in urgently increasing amounts, His sphincter speaks up like a kazoo and starts to snore.

Six miles later, working at his desk, the man Nears Antarctica and the palm-tree beach, And reaches for a hand to hold, a harbour he can’t reach. The man...

Mr X, a bureaucrat at the UN Secretariat, who, with his wife and child, Lived in a collapsing Gatsby mansion in Oyster Bay My wife and I rented half of for that summer, depended for everything On Shantilal, the sweet houseboy with a shy moustache Who did everything with a smile:

Plumbing, painting, roof repair, keeping immaculate the long white gravel drive, Electrician, cook, butler,...

Cars travelling the other way On the other side of the double yellow dividing line Carry people you don’t know and never will. The woman on the other side of the bed reading a book Is likewise going somewhere else.

You are and you aren’t yours. It’s like you’re on the other side of the road From yourself in your car. You’re on the...

The speckled pigeon standing on the ledge Outside the window is Jack Kennedy – Standing on one leg and looking jerkily around And staring straight into the room at me.

Ask not what your country can do for you – Ask what you can do for your country. Here’s how. That wouldn’t be the way I’d do it.

I’m afraid you leave me no choice now. The...

In the coloured section of St Louis, back When life was white and black, I’m skimming the modest rooftops in a stolen black Cadillac, Which happens to be my father’s, and I fly too high, And wake up in my bed this morning wondering why I’m an old white man in bed in 2012 in Manhattan Not next to a lovely redhead whose skin is satin. Pardon me if I grab the remote before I...