(Note: The two narrative poems are linked through a common character, Mr. Carter)
Poem-1
Kip’s Diner
1. Morning
here, where the universe coalesces
into concrete songs and plate-glass rhapsodies
in an old building with ornate cornices
and a frieze furred with dust; just here,
where the traffic rumbles past, but rarely stops
and the windows have not been wiped yet
and never will be; amid
the pigeon droppings and the dust–old Mr. Park,
once of Korea, now of the corner
of Tenth and Spring, unlocks the door
of his tiny diner, slouching with the key
while the dawn sun casts his shadow on the lock
old Mr. Park now owns Kip’s Diner
though he never met the namesake
he slips into the room, not opening the door too far
in case of hooligans, locks it behind him, fires up
the shining battered stove, and waits
his helper arrives at 5:15 on the dot, he is precise
and timid, a distant cousin’s good son, sent
to this place that calls itself America
to make good and carry forth his name
together they cook strange foods: burgers, fries,
long, almost tasteless pickles from a jar
and pour the thin bitter coffee required here
they work hard and await prosperity
and wonder at the lives their clients lead:
old men, mostly, some younger ones with shaggy hair
who order without ever looking up
and stare at their plates while they eat
there’s only one whose name they know
old Mr. Carter, retired button merchant, who greets them
with a cheery Hello and how the hell are you
which was confusing at first but which they now accept
he orders ham and eggs each morning, grunts, This stuff
will kill me, then eats silently and tips them well
Mr. Carter’s lain awake in a room three floors up
since 4 a.m., but has never told them he lives there
in the same building, he is ashamed that this is all
that’s left of his life of work, which he does not
regret: everyone needs buttons, someone
has to sell them. Mr. Carter greets old Mr. Park
and his young assistant and begins his day
a moment of grace amid tired faces
then goes to his room to stare out of the window
he never developed a taste for television
and his wife left him ages back, when both were strong
on this corner, where the universe
coalesces into concrete and plate glass
the day begins again, a whirl
of gravity, endurance, and confusion
how did it all start? not even
the stones themselves can tell
2. Central Library
the library’s ornate tower gleams: at its peak
a gilded stone arm holds a torch, the symbol
of enlightenment; and when the sunrise sneaks
a beam of gold between the tall glass towers
that crowd the hill beside the old repository
it shines, the lonely stone arm with a torch
and its tired promises of comprehension
inside, guards slouch by the morning door
to let the staff in: clerks bunched at the portal, docile,
a concurrence of bright clothes amid
the drab gray rags that populate the benches
in the park with its weary trees. there is a fountain
decorated with wise sayings from every culture, the sayings are new
but the low splash of water never stops, has never stopped
since the 1930s when the doors first opened,
has never stopped since time began, was waiting
in potentiality for this ledge, this basin to be built
so water could perform its decorative tumbles
in the eyes of bright young clerks and weary indigents
the water recalls eternal nothingness
when hydrogen and oxygen were not linked,
were not even yet themselves:
just random matter crushed into a solid flame
the staff shuffles in the entryway, calm, self-restrained;
the guards vet each ID card, wave the ones
whose faces they retain with half a glance; at ten o’clock
the doors will open to the world at large, the benches
empty, the halls fill with busy students, moms, kids, scholars
the lonely and the lost as well, now found
to pleasure in ten hours of dusty peace
a gift of bureaucratic kindnesses amid
long racks of books, of wall art, of computers
eyes seeking words that have waited since time first burst
to be spoken, coded, read, and turned to joy
at 10:15, old Mr. Carter, who has left his room
walks in, wearing his better suit, nods at the guard
whose name he has asked and memorized, and climbs
the ornate stairway to his favorite table, where he reads
books he’s sure that no one carries home
he never checks them out himself, commits himself
to fulfilling them right there, becoming
the purpose the old tomes have waited for
there at the table by the grimy window
that looks out on a flat roof gray with dust
he smiles: the books need him, and he is there
3. Lunch Break
Millie and Ricardo, two slim clerks, are
neither old nor young, are fast friends
only for the hours they spend together
among the books and seated shadows;
when their schedules coincide, they lunch together
climbing the stairs of Bunker Hill to a tall building
with a decent soup café at plaza level
he orders lentil soup, puréed; she favors
minestrone, their orders never vary
and they sit together in the shadow
of glass towers lurching towards the sky
sometimes Mary Ann, a colleague
who works in Literature nearby
encounters them by chance there, and they sit
to talk of nothing of great import
Mary Ann thinks to herself, “This is a marriage,” though
the two have never so much as touched hands in public
still she wonders, but she will not ask. the soup
steams in the shadowed air, and office workers
strut about in noisy shoes while the three chat
it is true that Mary Ann does not like soup, that she prefers
Kip’s Diner, which reminds her of her home
in a forgotten suburb of St. Louis, where
the future long since crumbled into dust
she escaped in stages, went to school, moved to the coast
to see the ocean and to work downtown
but sometimes she runs short of time
for the longer walk, and eats nearby
the three talk of Mr. Carter for a while
and then a phone chimes, and their time is up
they trudge down the long outdoor stairway
said to be modeled on the one in Rome
their shadows follow them, bent
on the concrete edges of the steps,
while each retreats into a whirl of worries
about friends, family, work, and maybe Mr. Carter
who doesn’t think about them as he
sits at his favorite table, curating
a diet of forgotten books
4. Mary Ann
on Fridays Mary Ann will walk to Kip’s
striding the dusty sidewalk with an air
of performative self-confidence
which she believes will keep her from being bothered
for cadged donations of money, heart, or sex
when Millie asked her once why she favored Kip’s,
to which she’d led her, Mary Ann
could find no words to answer her
the little room ensconced no charm and likely
never had; the vinyl seats had long since split
and profit margins wouldn’t cover the replacement,
and the plate glass picture windows were not clean—
which Millie loudly claimed was in any case a benefit,
the view being dreary. Mary Ann concurred
in voice but not in thought; the corner
with its lounging drunks and dirty gutters
held yet a form of passion for persistence
and Mr. Park could cook meat well
Mary Ann will always order the same dish
the bulgogi burger, with its mix of tastes
pickled cabbage where in any other diner
sad lettuce leaves would droop, a sting of pepper,
burn of garlic, yes, this was alive, her tongue
reveled in the mashup of traditions—
but Millie was appalled, she couldn’t finish
and fidgeted upon the creaking seat, dipping her finger
into a vinyl split to make it worse
without the slightest thought of what she did
they were late back to the library, but Millie still
rushed to the restroom there to brush her teeth, she kept
a toothbrush in her bag, she was that way
Mary Ann went up to Literature and took her place
serene behind the dark oak panels, waiting
for the question that would wake the questioner
to the coalescing order of existence
in lines of print in some lost book she knew
there were so many words, in so many languages, even on this one small planet
but on the pages old lives lived again, though every atom
of the writer’s brain had spun apart
into the comfort of the grave. old Mr. Carter
favored her, he always asked good questions, she was ready
5. Tenth and Spring
once a prestigious address, Tenth and Spring
now gathers dust and lost souls equally
the bus bench on the corner is a bed
the gutter a receptacle for bottles, needles, trash
the fastfood coffins in bright styrofoam
and sometimes an old shoe, too worn
to be retrieved even down here, where
poverty is more than words in a report
old Mr. Carter loves his simple room three floors above
Kip’s Diner, loves the view
of the ornate friezes he can see across the street
loves even the smells of diesel fumes and kitchen grease
that enter past the dry rot of the sill
the inside paint is faded, sometimes flaked
and he confesses silently that there are bugs
but not too many, all things considered now;
he has lived there fifteen years, since he retired
from the button business, left his office
which was two rooms in a building not far off
he once rented also a grand flat, when he was married
but the wife has left him long ago
taking their daughter when the girl was twelve
A girl can’t grow up straight, not living here
the wife had said, the life here
bends you out of shape, and anyway
what do we have? three shitty rooms—
that was long ago; the girl came back
when she had entered college, worked for him
for extra cash, learned all about
the button trade, they smoked harsh cigarettes together
in those whitewashed rooms, she made the calls
to sales reps, managed inventory, kept the books
but two weeks after graduating went and married
and moved to Arizona with her man
old Mr. Carter worked alone for ten more years
then moved into the room at Tenth and Spring
with only a phone and radio clock for company
and the hidden worlds of the library nearby
he knows the corner drunks by name, he fears
the strange stares of the drugged, but still he stays
balancing between the library and Kip’s Diner
a wheezing atom in the Milky Way
a carrier of gravity in service of space-time
in his worn gray suit, his tired but shiny shoes
and underneath the faded cloth, a heart
full of undirected love
6. Afternoon
at three o’clock Kip’s Diner closes
but Mr. Park and his assistant stay
the young man wiping counters, mopping floors
while Mr. Park waits for delivery
of what his larder needs; a distant cousin
owns a wholesale food supply, a dreary room
next to the concrete river and its railroad tracks
three times a week he drives his old Ford van
across two freeways to the cluttered alley
behind Kip’s Diner; Mr. Park
opens the back door and they work together
loading vegetables, cans, wrapped meats, and bags of chips
onto a scraped and dented dolly; wordlessly
they pile the bins and boxes up,
endure the dank rot smell of dumpsters, roll them in
on wobbling wheels, and then the cousin
without word or gesture, drives away
old Mr. Park brings out the trash, the scraps of cellophane,
the spoiling food, and throws it in the dumpster as is his right
while back inside, the assistant finishes the last plates
and awaits permission to go home, which Mr. Park
grants with a nod. the young man leaves
by the back door, shuts it firmly, waits once more
until he hears the clacking of the bolt; at last
aware that Mr. Park is safe, he hurries off
walking with his head down to the subway stop
while Mr. Park at last lights his first cigarette
to savor in the empty graying air
of the shuttered diner. he’ll smoke three,
one after the other, then turn off
all the lights but one in the very back
of the tiny kitchen, all day he dreams
of his ration of tobacco, and at last he smiles
he hunches as he double-locks the door
and walks to where he stations his old car
in the basement of a Deco building
that is older than he is. on the way
he passes old Mr. Carter, whom he knows
but does not see, they do not see each other
see only the street and sidewalk and façades
the slouching drunks, the hurrying office mates
the pigeons with their sometimes thundering wings,
and a sky above them grayer than their hearts
Epilogue: Mr. Carter
old Mr. Carter cooks a meal
on a hot plate in his tiny kitchen
spaghetti from a can, which makes him smile
at the state he’s fallen to, though he recalls
that he never ate what some might call “cuisine”
in his life as button merchant; his runaway wife
did not cook well, neither had his mother, nor does he
it is a history of sorts: a life of cans and cartons
of cooling burgers handed in the door
by weary drivers, of bad pizzas eaten
out of cardboard boxes: yet still he lives
the doctor claims that Mr. Carter
is somehow not dead yet. so Mr. Carter
smiles, chops at some lettuce and a hard tomato
which he dresses with plain salt and vinegar
in deference to some pleasure in being this:
this mashup of lost atoms that is himself
at night old Mr. Carter lies in bed, his glasses
still on his face for half an hour or so
the streetlamps, which are just below his room,
cast panels of dull yellow crossed like swords
upon the ceiling, or so he fancies it;
the headlights of the passing traffic also
slice across the cracked plaster overhead
as cars and buses rumble past: his entertainment
and he takes pleasure in it without irony,
a trick he learned from an old drunk he knew
a man he’d take to lunch with him sometimes, dead now,
dissolved but not forgotten. when the red glow
of electric lettering marks ten p.m., old Mr. Carter
removes his glasses, folds them, lays them down
with gentle care beside the radio clock
and falls asleep. come morning, he will not recall his dreams,
though certainly he dreams; it is the law
of consciousness; but he awakes
eventually he smells the perfume of fried eggs that drifts upstairs
from the kitchen of Kip’s Diner, and he knows
it is time to move his bones out of the bed
to animate this mass of molecules that can’t keep still
he reaches for his glasses, puts them on, and marvels every time
at the sudden clarity they give. his day begins
in half an hour he’s downstairs in the gray light
of Tenth and Spring, pretending to be hungry, but not feigning
to love the shabby world around him
which he does
with a graceless heart that shames the gods
Poem-2
Apertures
here’s Mr. Carter’s window, which admits
all the clash and clatter of his street, both
traffic noise, and human voices raised
in supplication, or instruction, or despair
or simple gossiping: the cellphone shouters
in competition with the strange and lost
the wandering tourists, cops, streetcorner singers
day and night, a polyphonic turmoil
overtops the baritone grunts of cars
trucks buses motorcycles, overhead
the whining jets that dip towards LAX, the helicopters
of watchful officers: even at night
cacophony continues, it’s downtown
where Mr. Carter worked for forty years
in button sales, a modest man, a modest job—
all this outside his simple pane of glass
and Mr. Carter loves his window, loves the noise
against which he provides a counterpoint
of modest silence while he warms his soup
on the hot plate that he calls his kitchen
or while he lies in bed to watch the light play on his fractured ceiling
he doesn’t get out much: just once a day
to the grand library nearby, where he reads
books he deems to have been forgotten, dull-backed tomes
stuck in odd corners of the shelves, he seeks them out
sometimes asking the librarian, who knows his name
though he does not know hers: There must be a book
on Queen Victoria’s foreign policy
I’d like to know, he says, what the old gal
saw in all her wars in distant lands
and how word came to her, who lied, who told the truth
and next it might be the life of a forgotten senator
who died before Mr. Carter’s grandfather was born
this and breakfast taken just downstairs
below his window, at Kip’s Diner, where he eats
his best meal of the day, made on a stove–
which is now a luxury to him, the buttons
having failed to make him rich
he won’t complain: he is alive, he has the books
he has the window by his bed, a grace he treasures
Mr. Carter has a radio, a clock radio
settled on the table by his bed, its soft red numbers
counting the last minutes of his days
he lets it play sometimes, the classics station
and sits in his chair at the little table
snugged up to the window by the bed
from there he looks across to dour gray walls
decorated with a dusty abstract frieze
or he’ll raise himself a little and look down
upon the sidewalks and the street: the grunting traffic
the crowds of walkers seen from three floors up
drunks, punks, cops, and office workers mingling
in the artificial hurry of our time
he takes especial notice of the pigeons, gray and fat
who strut the pavement among hurrying feet
he feels a certain admiration for them
and their stupid innocence; sometimes they perch
upon his windowsill, and he feeds them
little crusts of bread, at least in summer
when he keeps the window wide to the dusty air
one day a bolder bird stepped into his room
strutted on the table, stared at him
with its dull and tiny eye, deposited a turd
and then fluttered back outside—old Mr. Carter
laughed and cleaned it up, and kept the story
in case he made a friend again, all of his
have long since died or moved away, and his one daughter
who telephones him twice a month
also lives far now, and of course
her life is different in her desert suburb
she would not understand his modest joy
in the bird’s incursion. so he keeps
his pleasure to himself, and shuts the window
the people in their self-inflicted hurry
pass by day and night below; old Mr. Carter
joins them once a day, but walks with calm
and calculated lassitude on his way
to the library with its millions of quiet books
each one an aperture to different worlds
Mr. Carter folds his spectacles at night
and splays them on his face with morning’s light
the sudden change from vagueness always startles him
but in a good way, and he smiles with quiet joy
they are his personal windows to the world
more marvelous to him than radios or airplanes
simple bits of metal and bent glass
that render elemental forces born of stars
tame to human frailty. at the window
by his wobbly table, where he sits
to watch the world go by, he marvels at
the significance of glass to him: his spectacles
the window glass itself, both barrier and gate
the twisted glow of neon in its tubes: all glass, all made
as Mr. Carter knows from reading books
of sand and heat: sand dredged
from riverbeds in distant valleys, heat
made from coal torn from some distant hill
or maybe nuclear reactors with their mysteries
or sometimes now from solar cells, themselves
embedded in that selfsame glass
he mouths the pleasing word, “photovoltaics”
decides to find a book about it in the library
and also about lenses, everything is there
and stories of great quests and private turmoils
though precious few, he is sure, about the button trade
which makes him laugh: to be anonymous
gives him a freedom to move through crowds
like any other atom in the boiling sun
and add his glow to the universal dark
he steps out of his room, down to the street
and into the flowing crowd, where he observes
the different kinds of buttons on the shirts
he knows them all, perhaps he brokered some
and no one knows that, modestly
he is the guardian of their modesty
should any wonder why this gray old man
in his gray suit and polished shoes
smiles to himself behind his spectacles
they will walk on ignorant of his grace
that holds their clothes together
it is his little joke to himself: old Mr. Carter
as the keeper of sartorial order
prevents the city’s shirts from flapping open
which would reveal our bestial selves to one another
and perhaps unleash our bestial souls
Mr. Carter laughs to himself as he treads the grimy sidewalks
and climbs back to his third-floor room
where he shuts the door behind him, hangs up his coat
and slides the window open by his table
he sits down, spies upon the world he has just left
the roofs of cars and trucks, the hurrying heads
some mussed, some highly-styled, some bald
that flow in currents of unseen intention
swirling around each other as they seek
doorways to profit, pleasure, or plain warmth
Mr. Carter is not dissatisfied
with his old age, he has been useful
if never in a noticeable way
all his life, and now his life
is useful to himself: he has his room
his library, his bed, his favorite cheap diner
and the window that converts the world he walks
into a realm he surveys like a king
a tiny king in a concrete universe
whose heart becomes a portal of elation
that pours over the streets
a silent nourishing rain of shining love
that no one notices but that all drink in
and so he leans towards the window, eager to seek
the music in that silent calculus
that keeps a hurried crowd from bashing
into itself in angry chaos, and he smiles and smiles
till night falls and the streetlamps have flared up
then Mr. Carter puts himself to bed
folds his spectacles, and goes to sleep
and while the hurrying world tramples on
outside his dusty window, dreams in peace
About the Author
Richard Risemberg was born to a mixed and mixed-up family in Argentina, and dragged to LA as a child to escape the fascist regime. He’s spent the next few decades exploring the darker corners of the America Dream and writing stories, poems, and essays based on his experiences. He has published widely in the last few years, as can been seen at http://crowtreebooks.com/richard-
