Two Poems by Eleanor Lerman
That Sure is My Little Dog
Yes, indeed, that is my house that I am carrying around
on my back like a bullet-proof shell and yes, that sure is
my little dog walking a hard road in hard boots. And
just wait until you see my girl, chomping on the chains
of fate with her mouth full of jagged steel. She’s damn
ready and so am I. What else did you expect from the
brainiacs of my generation? The survivors, the nonbelievers,
the oddball-outs with the Cuban Missile Crisis still
sizzling in our blood? Don’t tell me that you bought
our act, just because our worried parents (and believe me,
we’re nothing like them) taught us how to dress for work
and to speak as if we cared about our education. And
I guess the music fooled you: you thought we’d keep
the party going even to the edge of the abyss. Well,
too bad. It’s all yours now. Good luck on the ramparts.
What you want to watch for is when the sky shakes
itself free of kites and flies away. Have a nice day.
Leonard Cohen’s Guitar
Yes, comrades, the future is upon us
Your tickets will soon be in the mail
for the kind of concert where you are
nailed to your seat, and then the aliens
arrive to announce the end of the world
But you seem like the kind of overlooked attraction
who might be able to make it out the back
When you slip into the cosmos, save one of
the little dogs and Leonard Cohen’s guitar,
which, having composed the hallelujah,
and undergone the transformation from tree
to plank to instrument, is changing still
Now it makes the kind of music that walks the roads
with a handsome mongrel, charming its way into
the record books and vowing never to give in
Eleanor Lerman lives in New York and is the author of a number of award-winning collections of poetry and fiction. Her new novel, Radiomen, was published this year by The Permanent Press. She is a recipient of both NEA and Guggenheim fellowships.