Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

i.
‘What’s to explain?’ he asks.
He’s a closet meditator. Rosicrucian in the basement.
In my father’s eyes: dream.
‘There are two worlds,’ he says,
liquid-filled crystal flask
                            and yellow glass egg
on the altar.
He’s the ‘professional man’ -
         so she calls him, my stepmother.
That, and ‘the Doctor’:
‘The Doctor will see you now,’ she says,
         working as his receptionist.
He’s a podiatrist - foot surgery a specialty -
         on Chicago’s North Side.
Russian-born Orthodox Jew
         with zaftig Polish wife, posh silvery white starlet
         Hilton Hotel hostess.

ii.
This is his secret.
This is where he goes when he’s not making money.
The way to the other world is into the basement
and he can’t live without this other world.
‘If he has to, he has to,’ she shrugs.
Keeps door locked when he’s not down there.
Keeps the door locked when he is.
‘Two nuts in the mini-bar,’ she mutters, banging pots
         in the kitchen upstairs.
Anyway, she needs to protect the family.
‘Jew overboard,’ she yells, banging dishes.
‘Peasant!’ he yells back.

iii.
‘There are two worlds,’ he says lighting incense, ‘the seen
and the unseen, and she doesn’t understand.
This is my treasure,’ he says,
                 lead cooking in an iron pan,
liquid darkness and some gold.
‘Son, there are three souls: one, the Supernal;
         two, the concealed
                                          female soul, soul like glue...
holds it all together...’
‘And the third?’ I ask.
‘I can’t recall,’ he says. We stand there:
He begins to chant and wave incense.
No tallis, no yarmulke,
just knotty pine walls and mini-bar
         size of a ouija board,
a little schnapps and shot glasses
on the lower shelf,
and I’m no help.
Just back from seven thousand dollar trip,
four weeks with Swami Muktananda,
                                                           thinking
Now there’s someone who knew how to convert
the soul’s longing into gold.
Father, my father: he has this emerald tablet
         with a single word written on it
and an arrow pointing.