'World’s Fair' by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

   

April 17, 1990, while listening to Ray Bradbury

              They were

                 architecture,

            they were cities of the

                     future and

                I was

                   dedicated

                       to building

               them and from

                    the lessons I

                     learned

            I tell

                this old story,

               I’ve told

                   it hundreds of times,

           Never

              tear up the future again,

                   Never listen to fools.

            The love pays back.

          If you love King Kong above

                 all the apes in the world

                         you’ll be hired,

                    just look at me

                                I am an

                             amalgam of loves.

(published in Grand Street 45, 1993)

'Collage: Murder Mystery' by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

    
    
                                        An eight year old boy.

                           Exclusive photos:  two brothers:

           How do you plan an accident?

                              One went to Harvard,

     he possesses an intelligence

Dr. Owens said, the other went to hell:

           he’s adapting....it is difficult to

 believe, he was tried three times.  After dozens of

         witnesses, Arthur doesn’t drink booze

  or gamble         he remains wary of men.

             For weeks no one would have thought

                   of a huge prehistoric mammoth, all we found

were clumps of gray animal fur.  Santiago couldn’t keep

       his big mouth shut, so no one would believe him, he was

           convicted of second degree murder, a few footprints

                   in Northern Mississippi, our perseverance

       nearly wasn’t enough:

               Arthur was in his final year of law school, it

      paid off, he took a job so he could help his brother,

           he found a tooth,

                       and it seems it would allow him

   to get the conviction overturned, to let his brother

                 be conscious of his mistakes,

                                  his three daughters, his own

         existence.  He seems

to be reasonably intelligent, sincere in wanting

               the things we learn, to get his

                     life in order and save himself.

  He says I think these things belong

       to all mankind.  Arthur Stratton Jr. said

                 he would donate the rare fossil

                            to a natural history museum.

(published in Grand Street 45, 1993)

'Coastline' by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

    

    

                               how we can be made out of stone

         or resemble an ancient coastline...

in the blink of the brightness,

              look at the land around us, how the sky

    gets to us, height and distance —

                           there’s so much to be desired,

it’s like drowning:

                                           the regret of drowning

                                   is the loss

                          of a narrow escape,

                  as men can do,

        lying out in the sun

                      when they’ve been drinking

                               and the light on the current

 is a line between us and the unreachable:

                                   when we sleep on the beach,

                      we do so out of faith,

    in our dreams we believe

                  in the chance to escape,

                                         to be pushed off into

                           nothing like a bird, a flying fish

              gulping, an undertow around

                                each ankle, an angel,

                        a welder on a bridge

    we float under

                    waving.

(published in Grand Street 54, Fall 1995)