Poems by Peggy Landsman

WATCHING TARZAN’S SECRET TREASURE

(Tarzan’s Secret Treasure: Johnny Weissmuller & Maureen O’Sullivan; Richard Thorpe, dir., 1941)

Some people are autumn people
and I am one
When leaves change their colors
I want to write an honest poem

Tarzan and Jane are my ideal couple
When Tarzan says “Jane happy, Tarzan happy”
I want to swing from one October maple to another
but I have only color

I have no vine

High above the escarpment
an orchid moon
shines its petals down

Jane happy, Tarzan happy because
beauty is its own excuse for being
and death is always

Ungawa, Ungawa

just around the corner.

 

SNOW WHITE REDUX

Look at him there, all grizzled and jowly,
his bellicose belly laying siege to his lap.
He thinks that I’m sleeping,
but I see him clearly.
I’m awake inside my glass case.

From time to time, I like to stretch out here.
It’s still a great place for a nap.

After I bit that apple and all thought me dead;
behind my closed eyes, the pale snow of my brow,
I prayed for a prince to awaken me…

I should have been more specific.
But to be specific is to be realistic,
and my life’s a fairy tale.

(The seven dwarfs are all long gone.
You know how it is.
They had to go where the work was.)

Suddenly, he’s standing over me.
I widen my eyes, look at him with a look
that is as practiced as it is vacant.
“Oh,” I say, “I must’ve drifted off.”

“Well, we’ve got to hurry or we’ll be late.
Dinner, my dear, in ten minutes.”

Now he’s bending, now he’s pressing
his eager apple-red lips to mine.
He doesn’t withdraw them until he gets the response
he, like all princes, has come to expect.

When he turns toward the closet to collect our two coats,
he whistles as he walks.

 

SUPERMAN’S GLASSES

I’m lying alone on our bed,
Naked
Except for my reading glasses.

They make a great disguise.
Don’t laugh.

Glasses work wonders for Superman.
The fact that he isn’t real
Doesn’t change anything.

Superman’s glasses help him pass
As a mild-mannered reporter.

What will my glasses do for me?

I hear my husband’s footsteps approaching.
He is the only one in the entire universe
Who knows my true identity.

“Hey, Wonder Woman,” he says,
Suddenly filling the doorway,
“You look great in those glasses!”

 

THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CAT

(for Ed, aka Dr. Elwin H. Powell)

Sorokin, the Soc. professor’s cat, hasn’t chased a mouse in ages—
Not since he discovered that his human’s pair of perfect hands could open tiny metal cans.
Sorokin dines on tunafish, tasty bits of chicken hearts mixed in with chicken livers.

Like any self-respecting cat, Sorokin claims his territory, claws his way to the top.
He sleeps long hours in the upstairs study where he curls around the base of the bust of Marx
That works full time as a paperweight on the professor’s king-size desk.

Every so often, Sorokin opens, slowly, his one good eye, sizes up his situation.
He takes his time considering if the time has come for him to alter his position.

He might stretch, he might paw the mound of this term’s student papers;
Then close his single eye again, no need to rumple fur.
But when a set of well-known fingers dangling from a well-trained hand
Descends upon his back, Sorokin offers no resistance, rolls from side to side.

Soon enough the hand withdraws.
The professor must attend to whatever other matters called him up the stairs.
He retrieves some dog-eared volume, sits down in his large swivel chair.

Sorokin’s quick to seize the moment.
Pouncing on something only he can see, he leaps into the professor’s lap,
Circles once and settles down, his fur a soft surrender under the hands of this man
Who never works for himself alone, but always for the joy
Of making life a little cozier for the cat in his employ.