Len Krisak

Five Burros Not of New York

 IN OLD ARIZONA

As mule and donkey clops

Bounce off the canyon walls,

The echo never stops.

Dumb creatures far from stalls

Make sounds like movie Foley,

Reaching rock-bottom . . . slowly.

Notes metronome away,

Gift of Ferde Grofé.

*

ON HYDRA

Here, they say “Eethruh”—island Greeks

Who climb its steep stone-terraced streets

Not much more than slate walkways.

Somewhere five “blocks” up: the door

To Leonard Cohen’s once. Who seeks

That ghost finds just gray paint that greets

Him with dull modesty. Un-fazed,

The constant donkeys truck their store

Of goods and garbage up, then down.

The town lives off them; they, the town.

*

THE WAY TO MOAB

In all The Book

We are the only beasts

Who undertook

To speak:

The snake

(That serpent in the grass,

Present at Eve and Adam’s feasts)

And me. I’m Balaam’s ass.

Why couldn’t Balaam see

The Angel with the sword,

The Angel of the Lord?

Why only me?

He beat me and I crushed his foot,

That mulish mage.

Now, judge his stubborn rage

And tell me which one was the brute?

*

AT JERUSALEM

The people pave the way with palms.

Hosanna (“Save us!”) leads their psalms.

I bear Him like a king who soon

Will bear His cross until it’s noon.

*

1966

French New Wave star:

The Cahiers donkey, Balthazar.

More bloody-beaten

Than a boy at Eaton,

This helpless, braying ass

Dies in a mountain pass.

Above the gouts of blood

The Pyrénéan nimbi scud,

And where his carcass lies,

He breeds a hymn of flies.

Here, Robert Bresson

Teaches us a lesson.

Len Krisak's latest books are a complete verse translation of The Aeneid  (Hackett) and Say What You Will (original verse), winner of the Able Muse Poetry Book Award. With work in the Hudson, Sewanee, Antioch, Southwest, and PN Reviews, he is the recipient of the Richard Wilbur and Robert Frost Prizes and a four-time champion on Jeopardy! He plays 3.6 pickleball and hopes to die a 4.0.