Some people confuse inspiration with lightning

not me I know it comes from the lungs and air

you breathe it in you breathe it out it circulates

it's the breath of my being the wind across the face

of the waters yes but it's also something that comes

at my command like a turkey club sandwich

with a cup of split pea soup or like tones

from Benny Goodman's clarinet my clarinet

the language that never fails to respond

some people think you need to be pure of heart

not true it comes to the pure and impure alike

the patient and impatient the lovers the onanists

and the virgins you just need to be able to listen

and talk at the same time and you'll hear it like

the long-delayed revelation at the end of the novel

which turns out to be something simple a traumatic

moment that fascinated us more when it was only

a fragment an old song a strange noise a mistake

of hearing a phone that wouldn't stop ringing

January 2

The old war is over the new one has begun

between drivers and pedestrians on a Friday

in New York light is the variable and structure

the content according to Rodrigo Moynihan's

self-portraits at the Robert Miller Gallery where

the painter is serially pictured holding a canvas,

painting his mirror image, shirtless in summer,

with a nude, etc., it's two o'clock and I'm walking

at top speed from the huddled tourists yearning to be

a mass to Les Halles on Park and 28th for a Salade

Niçoise I've just watchedThe Singing Detectiveall

six hours of it and can't get it out of my mind,

the scarecrow that turns into Hitler, the sad-eyed

father wearing a black arm-band, the yellow umbrellas

as Bing Crosby's voice comes out of Michael Gambon's

mouth, "you've got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive,

e-lim-inate the negative" advice as sound today

as in 1945 though it also remains true that

the only thing to do with good advice is pass it on

January 3

The shrink says, "Everything depends

on how many stuffed animals you had

as a boy," and my mother tells me my

father was left-handed and so is my son

and they're both named Joe whose favorite

stuffed animal was a bear called Sweetheart

while I, the sole constant in this dream,

am carrying a little girl who has a gun

in her hand as I climb a brick wall

on the other side is unknown territory

but it has to be better than this chase

down hilly streets where the angel disguised

as a man with red hair drives the wrong way

down a one-way street so he arrives late

at the library where his son is held hostage

he breaks in lifts the boy in his arms and tells

the one kind man he had met that he and

his brother would be saved but the others

who had mocked him would surely die

Copyright © 2000 by David Lehman

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Excerpted from The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry by David Lehman
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.