Pandemonium

American Poetry Review, The, Jul/Aug 2002 by Revell, Donald

1.

Some natural tears they dropped,

Especially on the 900 block of Fairchild

Where a bicycle leans against a broken Aphrodite

On porch-steps.

Behind them it was a jumble

Coming into flower and brown fences

Breaking like waves at all angles

And rooftops at all angles.

A sustained applause, and heartfelt,

Began only when they had gone.

2.

A fond study of the public swingsets

Lags behind wild grasses

Growing to change them to pleasures

Of depths of fire.

I remember my son in tears

In the apple tree, ashamed

Because he could not climb it,

Not realizing he had already climbed it

And was being photographed in the blossoms

Eight feet above violets and dandelions.

3.

There was a postman told me

How to find mushrooms good for pickling

On the days after heavy rains

Wherever elms lay fallen.

There was another man, Reverend Fate,

Interim pastor of Main Street Congregational.

That's all I know about him, but his sermons

Are shirts for my pillow and my dream sermons.

If I unleaf what he has spoken,

it is all about constancy.

4.

The first disobedience is always best,

A kind of providence, okay,

And a lampshade upside down

On a polished table. Afterwards,

Everything is shiny poor repair.

Steps and letterboxes. Steps half in shade

And half in bright sunlight, wandering

Very deliberately but wandering

Among fallen trees and boys climbing.

Taking their leave, the parents join hands in a picture taken.