Oh Max
for Max Finstein
1.
Dumba** clunk plane "American
Airlines" (well-named) waits at gate
for hours while friend in Nevada's
burned to ash. The rabbi
won't be back till Sunday.
Business lumbers on
in cheapsh** world of
fake commerce, buy and sell,
what today, what
tomorrow. Friend's dead
out of it, won't be back
to pay phoney dues. The best
conman in country's
gone and you're left in
plane's metal tube squeezed out
of people's pockets, pennies
it's made of, big bucks,
nickels, dimes all the same.
You won't understand it's forever
one time, just one time
you get to play,
go for broke, forever, like
oldtime musicians,
Thelonious, Bud Powell, Bird's
horn with the chewed-through reed,
Jamaica Plain in the 40s
Izzy Ort's, The Savoy. Hi Hat's
now gas station. It goes fast,
Scramble it, make an omelet
out of it, for the hell of it. Eat
these sad pieces. Say it's
paper you wrote the world on
and guy's got gun to your head
go on, he says, eat it...
You can't take it back.
It's gone. Max's dead.
2.
What's memory's
agency- why so much
matter. Better remember
all one can forever
never, never forget.
We met in Boston,
1947, he was out of jail
and just married, lived
in a sort of hotel-like
room off Washington Street,
all the lights on,
a lot of them. I never
got to know her well,
Ina, but his daughter
Rachel I can think of
now, when she was 8,
stayed with us, Placitas, wanted bicycle,
big open-faced kid, loved
Max, her father, who,
in his own fragile way,
was good to her.
In and out
of time, first Boston,
New York later then
he showed up in N.M.,
as I was leaving, 1956
had the rent still paid
for three weeks on
"The Rose Covered Cottage" in Ranchos
(where sheep ambled o'er bridge)
so we stayed,
worked the street, like they say,
lived on nothing.
Fast flashes the women
who love him, Rena, Joyce,
Max, the mensch, makes
poverty almost fun,
hangs on edge, keeps traveling.
Israel they catch him,
he told me, lifting
a bottle of scotch at the airport,
tch, tch, let him stay
(I now think) 'cause
he wants to.
Lives on kibbutz.
So back to New Mexico,
goyims' Israel sans the plan
save Max's ("Kansas City," "Terre Haute")
New Buffalo (friend told me
he yesterday saw that on bus placard
and though, that's it! Max's place).
People and people and people.
Buddy, Wuzza, Si
Perkoff, and Sascha,
Big John C., and Elaine,
the kids. Joel and Gil,
LeRoi, Cubby, back and back
to the curious end
where it bends away into
nowhere or Christmas he's
in the army, has come home,
and father, in old South Station,
turns him in as deserter, ashamed,
ashamed of his son. Or the man
Max then kid with his papers
met nightly at Summer Street
subway entrances on Xmas
he give him a dime for a tip...
No, old man, your son
was not wrong. "America"
just a vagueness, another place,
works for nothing, gets along.
3
In air
there's nowhere
enough not
here, nothing
left to speak
to but you'll
know as plane
begins its
descent, like
they say, it
was the place
where you were,
Santa Fe
(holy fire) with
mountains
of blood.
4
Can't leave, never could,
without more, just
one more
for the road.
Time to go makes
me stay-
Max, be happy,
be good, broken
brother, my man, useless
words
now
forever.