The Rime of the Dead Science-Man

 b   

The Son

The Rime of the Dead Science-Man

In my youth, I wanted nothing than

To be a famous Science-man,

And I'd flown fairly close to the flame.

I was endowed with logic

And had some success with my craft,

But nothing that would carry on my name.

I'd become a geneticist,

A regular Gregor Mendel,
Though I was notable,

Not a one could tell.

Where to go? What to do?

A place to set my science-sights.

Less it be too late, to see

My name in science-lights.

My mindset was this

As I walked the streets

Beneath a starlit sky.

Deep in thought

Wracking my brain, was I.

But the quiet was broken

By a clattering of noises-

These grew louder

Into laughing voices.

Then the ringing of bells

The singing of song.

First one, then two,

Then a glittering throng.

I tried to make out their faces, but alas!

These were belied by animal masks.

Whiskers and fur, bunny ears and snouts,

Braying and barking along with their shouts.

The sight was enthralling!

So many were they

Like a renegade runaway zoo.

There were giraffes and penguins, and bears and sharks-

a goose and a kangaroo!

While the reveling menagerie passed,

I hid behind a wall of stone.

But I knew I had some company

When I heard a whimpering groan.

There lay a man-dog and his lady-cat lover-

Getting it on in grove of clover.

They lifted their lids and caught my eye

While they were rolling over.

Cast as a voyeur, I fled the scene.

The whole thing seemed just like a dream.

From the sour mash of this witch's brew,

The idea that I wanted

Came straight through.

Now I knew just what to do!

I will breed a dog and a cat!

It will be my swan song-

What in the world

Could possibly go wrong?

Inventing a creature-

That's a slippery slope.

But such concerns

Would not wither my scope.

A feline-canine mix-

How unbelievably clever.

The Felcan will be

The cutest pet ever!

The poise of a sphinx,
The devotion of a spaniel,
An impossible combination
Will put me in the annals.

I deployed my lab staff post haste

To fetch a queen and a sire-

To coerce them into mating

We determinedly conspired.

They shared a cage; the dog barked for days,

While she clung to the ceiling.

It proved terribly tricky, indeed,

To create amorous feelings.

Petals were sprinkled-

The lights threw a glow,

They played some

Barry Manilow.

But in time they both came round-

The queen submitted to the tenacious hound.

Gone was the coyness

The both knew their places,

And once they began,

They were off to the races.

Her eggs were tough

but his swimmers swam-

A microscopic

Battering ram.

All of this

Under strict supervision,

And then, Eureka!

Cell division!

The staff was invigorated

and ramped up their testing.

No concern whatsoever,

For the time they're investing.

There were sonograms, and x-rays
Cat scans, of course.
Sedation with tranquilizers
Meant for a horse.

Then one day, amid the fatigue and commotion,

There erupted a violent explosion.

As if I didn't have enough strife,

It was that day, that I lost my life.

But all was not lost

For that same day came,

The offspring we all awaited.

Despite the details of my death,

All were quite elated.

The glee was soon replaced by a fright

They could see that something wasn't right.

Had it all been for naught?

“Oh my God-What hath you wrought?”

This creature wasn't cute or cuddly

But mottled, misshapen, and the color of puddy.

Deaf and mute, comatose and bald-

This thing wasn't cute at all!

The dejected lab staff soon disbanded.

The aborted project was abandoned.

The creature was left to my only son.

With a message saying, “your Felcan”.

“O.K.” He said. “Thats all I get?

My father knew I did not want pets.”

So the felcan waddled underneath the couch

Idling in the cold

Surviving on couch mites

That lived in the velveteen folds.

Now my son never cared when I was there,

But now, I was a ghost.

In life it was true,

but in death more so-

My son was a terrible host!

He typed all day

Working on God know what,

oblivious to me

And the curious mutt.

So blank and unblinking

Was its one good eye

I had to wonder why I tried-

It didn't react

Even when goaded

I could have swore

With poppies t'was loaded!

Did it bleed? Did it fight?

Did it want more from life

Than the couch and those mites?

Did it play?

Did it sit?

I'd never even seen it

Take a shit.

My hope for fame had all but faded.

I hovered before the Felcan

defeated and jaded.

My legacy will be better off

If this beast did not exist-

This I would remedy;

By my hand, it will desist!

I planned to do it at night-

T'will be like it never was.

My dead heart felt the beat,

Of an adrenaline buzz.

A kitchen knife

Raised up high

It stared at me

With its one good eye.

With force my blade on it descended-

Now its life had surely ended.

The beastly head fell to the floor,

Away from its trunk it rolled,

But the blood clotted quickly

And turned right to flesh

And soon a new head replaced the old.

Eureka! Eureka!

The head grew back!

You can say what you want,

But I am not a quack!

I'll fade not,

Into oblivion,

Through the marvel of the Felcan

I'll live again. (And again!)

Now how to spread the word,

This was still a problem.

It would not occur through my distracted son,

Who stepped right over the severed noggin.

Repeated experiments with my knife

Proved the beast could not be snuffed.

I soon learned of another trait,

As if this was not enough.

I had nothing to do with all my hours

Than the Felcan to scrutinize.

During my incessant vigil,

It vanished before my eyes!

It was gone

Didn't leave a trace

As if it had

Just been erased-

At the empty spot,

I incredulously peered

When there beneath the couch,

It reappeared.

Again, beside myself was I,

As it stared at me with its one good eye.

What a perfectly glorious creature!

I say, this is a most salable feature!

In my state of being deceased

My post-life powers soon increased-

I was soon able to share its vision.

I could see now that space, not time

Was the thing that restrained its missions.

I traveling through its optic nerve,

This is where I observed

Wars and famines, death and birth-

I saw the animal parade that came first.

Forwards and backwards in time it traveled

Like Buck Rogers without the swagger.

To think I'd once fancied its death

By the sharp blade of my dagger!

What of that one good eye?

That seemed like half a set-

This is quite a yarn I've spun

The Felcan can see better yet.

So I rested in peace

Such a worthy tribute,

Despite my lack of means

To this ware distribute.

This story is at an impasse,

For now with this I close,

I got what I got

Which was not what I sought,

La-di-da! And so it goes...

Man on the Train

                                               

People on the Train, 2009
Oil and pencil on Stonehenge paper

    Two days ago, I waited for the train at Fulton Street on my way home from the city.  I took a seat on the platform bench beside an older black man.  Although he was clean cut and well-dressed, his suit showed the rumples of cheap polyesther, and he fidgeted with a black plastic bag.  As I sat next to him, I fell into a semi-paralytic state of  thought regarding this man and particularly about his suit.  I held an unopened Snickers bar and fought the curious urge to offer it to the man in the rumpled suit, but thought better of this, less the offer be taken in the wrong spirit. Yet an unremitting urge to interact with him persisted.  We communed in silence as he fidgeted and I blankly stared at the Snickers bar.

    When the train roared into the station, the man stood with an effort and walked toward the open doors.  Although there were plenty of seats available, I followed a gut instinct, and sat down next to him just as we'd been on the bench.  In front of us, a young black man lay passed out across four train seats.  We could only see the back of him, but he was missing a shoe and his clothes were stained.

    "Nice view" the man said to me.

    "Excuse me?" I asked, taken off guard by the New York City rarity of a stranger initiating a conversation.

    "Nice view," he said again, motioning toward the youth in front of us.

    "It happens, I guess," I said clumsily.  I immediately began to think in terms of how to navigate a conversation with a black man about the state of this other black man, who  sadly, is somewhat emblematic of the state of many young black men I see on the train.  Predictably, early morning and late night trains are punctuated by young sleeping black men just like the one in front of us.  Recent experience has conditioned me to believe that it is not my place to say anything about the black condition, as how can I possibly know what I am talking about?  But the thoughts accumulate and fester, and I like the problems I long to solve in my art, I speculate endlessly about how to solve the problem of the young black men sleeping on the train.  Conversations with strangers are rare, but honest conversations about race with a non-white person are rarer still.

    "What does it make you think of?" I asked.

    "It makes me wonder what the difference is between me and him."

    With these words, I was a little suprised to hear the waspy inflections in the man's voice.

    "What do you think the difference is?"

    "Well, I grew up in the south, and my mother was kind and loving, and my father...he did not say much, but when he said it, he did not repeat himself.  But thats the way all fathers were then.  Things were much much different then.   I am older.  I'm 72..."  and this he trailed off a little and gave him the perfunctory nod of respect.

    "Forgive me for saying this, but doesn't that mean that his chances are better than yours?"  I asked referring to our place in time.

    The man inhaled thoughtfully.  "There are more opportunities now, but less discipline."  He said a few more things about his childhood, but I noticed that he did not speak of this generally, and not specific to his race.

    The train stopped at Essex, and people filled the train.  A Chinese lady sat between us, and we tried to carry on our conversation, but it fizzled for straining of our necks.

    I opened my Snickers bar and ate it.  At Marcy, he stood up, and wished me goodnight, and I wished that we could continue our conversation, but was grateful for the few words we'd exchanged, and the man's willingness to give me his perspective.