FREDERICK POLLACK - POEMS

FREDERICK POLLACK

The Economist
​

​He was divorced, or a widower;
no one asked. He saw her the first time
at Powell’s. He liked to walk there
after his seminar; often his brightest
kept up with his firm pace. That day, one –
underfunded, too pushy and imaginative –
was into Schmitt; asked how the distinction
between “enemies” (with whom peace is possible)
and “the foe” (with whom it isn’t)
applied to Takers. Another student
the professor preferred – good
family, already an internship
at Scaife – laughed. “Remember,
takers are also consumers
and, some of them, employees.
They have their uses.” The professor nodded:
“One must think tactically.” Neither followed him
into Powell’s; they had little time for old books.
 
And she was there. Blonde, under twenty,
good stock, with an uninterpretable look;
there with a plain friend
but quiet. They were browsing shelves
he never did. Later, outside – the weather
was one of Chicago’s annual two
nice days – he felt disoriented,
resentful of age. It would be easy enough
to track her down. He drank at the usual place.
It grew dark; he went home.
Never liked to be out late.
After years here, remained conscious
of the degenerate and useless,
endlessly greedy and crazy surrounding
campus; they could invade at any time.
As he walked he imagined
the State finally fulfilling its
one purpose: armed, visored men,
perhaps using buildings he knew as a base,
fanning out ... Twice that winter he saw her:
eating a salad, affixing a poster.
At which, though it was just some arts thing,
he frowned.
 
                        Then it was spring, and the virus
(of which on the whole he approved).
Out late, after the last live
department meeting, he crossed her path
on a deserted street. She was masked
but he recognized the hair, the walk,
the frightened eyes. At which I intervene.
“You know, if you were different,”
I say sadly, “this could have been interesting.
Like Dante with his nymphet,
Petrarch with Laura, Elytis and Maria Nephele,
Pagliarani and Carla – ” “But I’m not,”
he hissed, surprisingly willing
to go along with madness. “Not my field.
And anyway – she is the foe.”

 

Compunction
​

​In jail, Pastor Bonhoeffer wonders
what sense of the “supernatural,” if any,
obtains among his fellows. Most,
he finds, believe that a bomb
(American by day, British by night)
either “has one’s number” or doesn’t;
if not, you’re fine. Superstitions remain
from childhood. For the rest, they put their faith
in the solidity of a German roof
and the reluctance of state and Party
to let foreigners harm them. Often, in
his letters, Bonhoeffer advocates
respect rather than preaching;
concern, listening. Which, he implies,
do not preclude participation
in the overthrow of a tyrant. I, an atheist,
go along with him on this.
 
Isaias missed us. A trailerpark splintered
in North Carolina, two dead.
We eyed the leaning tree
in back. If it falls it will hit
the Mcmansion of that neighbor;
the one on the other side,
who shares the tree, won’t cooperate … Two
days rain, little wind. Then: three million
without power to the north, more homeless, docks
floating, already incapable hospitals
hit, a car someone was in,
under a tree, in Brooklyn … We
were skipped. There will be 20-30
storms this year, more next. That
convention of standing reporters
on beaches and empty streets; the wind tugs
at their slickers; they shout, grin,
an hour later they’re still out there – Why?
To demonstrate? Allow us to participate,
atone? Purge pity and fear?
 
In one of the iterations
of Batman, Bruce Wayne is preoccupied.
Probably with the mystical
Himalayan evil that has set its sights,
inscrutably, on one city.
He has just come in from outside.
As he passes toward the Batcave (from which,
properly accoutered, he will promptly, no doubt,
leave), Alfred addresses
the Wayne persona.
There are appeals from an orphanage,
an arts commission, environmentalists,
an urban preservation group and other charities.
To each the hurried answer is “Send them a check.”