Crying Out*

—When the renowned linguist was run down
   by a car he cried out for help in forty-seven languages

Ayúdeme—I’m not familiar with this
part of town, and neighborhoods change;

a good guess, but maybe this one
hasn’t changed at all, maybe it is old ethnic—

aiutilo—or ezra, is that right? I remember
reading somewhere that Pound’s first name

meant help in Hebrew. Helfen Sie mir—
that could work, something left over

from Fr. Kelly’s German class, a desperate cry
when my turn was coming but I’d been

daydreaming about Marie’s breasts,
which is how I spent most of my classes,

if truth be told, but now is not the time or place—
Aidez-moi, but it isn’t likely that many French

settled here—besides, they would say m'aidez,
what the sailors slurred to May Day, maybe

someone was in the navy—May Day, May Day—
au secours. My grandmother, from Galway,

taught me a prayer: St. Brigid, go gcuidímid—
this is all I’ve got, the best I can do on short notice,

so, sweet Jesus, I guess it’s up to you.

Empathy*

For months I’ve been staring at a large print of the “Guernica” pinned
     to the wall over my desk.
I’ve been trying to write a poem about 9/11—something I don’t feel
     comfortable about,
but think needs to be done. When politics enters my writing, it is usually
     like a dog’s nose
poking in from the margin, or some sneaky Kilroy peeking out from behind
     a wall;
whatever I am doing doesn’t seem to interest them, and they move along.
The empty space in lower Manhattan, the emptiness in a million hearts,
this is what Picasso was showing us. Nazis
bombed the shit out of a small Basque village in 1937 while Franco
     just stood by.
It wasn’t a very good time for the artist, either. I look at those poor creatures—
the tortured imagery—the woman with arms outstretched, an anguished mother
     and child,
a man trampled underfoot, an agonized horse, a bull seemingly befuddled—
     I don’t know
what to say about the events in New York City, I don’t know how to remember
the people who lost their lives.

Recently, I have had my heart broken. Hardly a comparable situation.
But sometimes I look at the Picasso on the wall and I see the pain in
     those faces—
pained faces that may closely reflect those who suffered in the
     World Trade Center.
But what I know is the smaller but horrendous pain I have been feeling.
I see the anguish, the shock and terror in those faces, and I know that
     last night,
at the age of fifty-one, I cried, and not very quietly.
I know that empathy and sympathy can only go so far—that pain is pain, though;
and if my pain is lesser, less nobly earned, then so be it. It hurts nonetheless;
these people I saw once on the wall at MOMA hurt, and for a moment I identified
     the pain.
That sad expanse of black and white, and a bad situation with a woman—
a silly piece of Art, and a petty, selfish moment—
this is how we come to elegy, and for a moment I am embarrassed,
but not because of the tears growing fat in my eyes.

*These Poems First Appeared in New Zoo Poetry Review

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