Maatstaf. Jaargang 23

[p. 28]

Raphael Rudnik Two poems

Amsterdam Street-Scene, 1972

The cupid-faced hooligan standing on tip-
Toe with his tin cup comes down

On the beat of the roar on the floor of glitter-
Ing cement while turning the white wheel

Of his music-truck, clapping coins in the cup
(A gull banks invisible to the eye to avoid a wall.)

And with strange, charming deadness
Puppets moved by wires drawn through their foreheads

Move around a frail keyboard of bones, surrounded by
Emblems and treasures, impaled on spikes (a great beast branded by

A Scarlet Woman, candlesticks, whips, wands, skulls, chalices,
A fox with a bird on a billhook, the lid of a tomb

Flying off) all done in fond, dreamy pastels.
(Light drifting down like a bright brass puff,

Lands on the rim of the cup like a halo) but no one gives.
People huddle by in ones and twos, smiling.

And as (no one hears it, now) the music runs down,
The wheel stops with a glad, eager grunt, -

Locking the puppets into the very dumbness
Of each gesture - he smiles once fast at them,

Eyes as clear grey as the invisible eyes of glass
He gets behind, driving off - into the city's secret heart.

[p. 29]

The Window Cleaner

The window cleaner is on the wide, dirty ledge
again, laughingly
asking my wife to give him a hand -
pull him in, or pull her out?
It's like a question in a dream.

He swaggered up that frightening ladder,
smiling at the sky like a handsome barracuda...
as if he would be feeling even better
walking on heaven's ceiling -
hardmouthed, stupid, cruel, and unnecessary.

At the sight of a pretty woman,
he has those permanently wounded eyes
which are more troubling than one can see or say.
He starts to work, I get a severed-head effect, wobbling
and blurring as he washes the worsening atmosphere away. Then,

the tensed, hurdling muscle of his whole body leans backward,
from the ladder; hands holding pail and blade, the arms go out
like a balcony, embracing air; feet, balancing, step down;
and, out of his face -
pours the brightness which is vigor which is beauty in a man.