Dick Bentley

Lines Composed Upon
the Brooklyn Bridge
After an All-Nighter

Wind peels waves off the river
and heaps them against the pilings.
Gulls cry and dip low,
then shoot straight up again.
We wonder, why don’t doormen
ever go to sea? Why don’t nuns
pray before the great stone Buddha
up in the Bronx?

“Deliver us from the heavenly
beauty of the sunrise over Queens,”

Our hearts are armored
with booze and grass,
and we ask the prayerful nuns
to intercede,
“Spare them the knowledge
of where they are going
when the bridge they cross
disappears in a thick rain.”

New Child

From the teeming sky he falls
Sizzling past the spacemen.
This infant is a house on fire,
Burning into our spirits.

We close our eyes and hear the blaze rage,
Catch the rooftop’s crackle.
Soon he’ll lift his empty spoon
To catch the embers.

He came from far away, trillions of light years,
Before he came hurtling into our kitchen like a comet.
Eternity is endless even in a universe as young
As our newborn.

Until you are healed.

Next Poem