Vienna

dozzina (double sestina)

Photo by Dan V on Unsplash

I went there in my youth to train my body
In martial arts at Hanshi’s dojo, hidden
From sight unless you knew the way to look
Down Lerchenfelder Straße, deep within
The building, fairly small and somewhat humble;
A room or two and a little courtyard lawn
Where Isao and Nobuo led their students
In kata, stretching, partner training, talk
Of bodhisattvas, angels, astral travel,
The auras and the energies of light
Emitted from the punches and the kicks,
The blocks and throws and self-defensive tricks—

Vienna’s sleeves so full of vintage tricks.
And then I went to college for its body
Of knowledge, reading other books for kicks
When I was shirking my assignments, hidden
In Penrose’ winding stacks, tracing light,
Enrolled in German, hoping for a look
Abroad, a stint of study and of travel,
To be among the bells again within
The churches and the sounds of foreign talk.
I thought the plan was set but then the humble
Occasions of money trouble faced by students
Afflicted me as I crossed the college lawn.

My year abroad was spent mowing the lawn
And working swing-shift jobs and turning tricks
Like buying motorcycles and selling them to students
Or taking them for rides: the student body
Adores that sort of thing and I was humble
Enough to start their motors with my kicks.
Vienna faded in my mumbled talk
Drowned out by conversations hidden
Between the pages of the books within
My basement bedroom, its dim light
Still burning paths away that I might travel
If only I could open up my eyes to look.

For forty years I didn’t think to look
Towards Vienna, I just mowed the lawn
Again and shelved that thought’s forgotten travel,
Instead pursuing other travel tricks
And breaking things I couldn’t fix, like light
Bulbs and marriages, graduate students’
Neurotic obfuscations blanked within
Opinionated ghost without a body,
Confirmation in the church of hidden
Unbroken lineages of strange and humble
Monastic silence cluttered up with talk
Of parenting and children, playground kicks

Resulting in the goads against which kicks
One’s soul so as to take a second look.
Vienna fell back into view with talk
Of taking the March break on Schönbrunn’s lawn,
To follow on the heels of Paris, humble 
Vienna’s Wienerschnitzel and Schnapps, to travel
There and to converge in Mozart’s hidden
Kaleidoscope of operatic tricks;
To feel, after separation, meine Liebhaberin’s body
And wake in jet-lag stupor late in light
Relying on the coffee’s fix within 
My brain to wake me up like students

Astride their Lipizzaner stallions, students
Who have to stay alert, avoiding kicks
When walking through the horses’ stables within
The Hofburg palace where onlookers look
At cutlery and dishes glinting light
Behind the glass in corridors of talk.
The average tourist with aching body,
Constricting muscles for hours, locates a lawn
And there reclines—and other travelers’ tricks,
Like finding an off-the-beaten-track and humble
Taverne with some Bier und Brot hidden
Away on a side street off the road more travel.

And back in time like Freud the travelers travel
To see a monument defaced by students
Of history: Lueger’s Schande no longer hidden,
Graffiti-painted metaphoric kicks
To the antisemite’s groin (despite the humble
Ignaz Mandl’s mentorship within
The district where handsome Karl learned the tricks
Of local politics). They liked his look,
The ladies did, and watched him on the lawn
Or in the ballroom filled with crystal light
Waltzing like a man with godlike body,
Infusing Jewish Questions in his talk.

The mayor inspired Hitler with his talk—
Who lived there at the time but would travel
To Germany and there assemble a body
Of zealous psychopaths and brainwashed students—
Resulting in the murder of the light
By Nazis and by “countless Austrians” hidden
Behind respectable statues on the lawn
Where deportation, theft, and torturers’ kicks
Have now become a wall of names to look
Up loved ones lost in the Shoah, humble
Children, women, and men whose lives by tricks
Of evil vanished, darkness growing within.

Vienna has that ugly stain within
And no amount of optimistic talk
Erases blood, no clever magic tricks
Can make it disappear, but we can travel
Around the giant ferris wheel’s humble,
Slow, circuitous transit and feel our body
Recover from those times and sneak a look.
We all can learn to be like woken students,
Or like a football player when she kicks
A ball at seemingly the speed of light
Across a cosmic democratic lawn
To where the truth has always been hidden.

A side street where Shakespeare & Company is hidden—
Not equal to the Paris one, but within
Are ladders and books to the ceiling; outside, no lawn,
Just pavement and stairs descending like the talk
Germanic tongues produce describing light,
The way the light and shadows can play tricks
On bloodshot eyes when everyone who kicks
Some habit, like the constant urge to travel,
Begins to settle down like a room full of students
In the Albertina studying the ardent humble
Chagall perhaps or finding something to look
At like Hoffer’s Girl with Record, her body

Revealed in part and not unlike the body
Of some neo-classical subject hidden
Behind a modern vinyl record. Look
At how the war has worn her down within.
Outside, the weather is typical of March—humble
Pigeons perch in bunches above the lawn
Surrounding a monument to Goethe, students
From a kindergarten laugh and talk,
It’s warm when the sun shines but when clouds travel
Over and breezes blow, inadequate light
And cold air unite, the wind chill kicks
Its heels up till the sun does one of its tricks,

Revealing itself above medieval tricks
Of massive engineering like the body
Of Stephansdom laid out with a boot that kicks
The sky, the south tower rarely hidden
From view when wandering in and out of light
And shadow, rounding curving streets to look
At wonders of history brought forward by time travel,
Stumbling on Beethoven, Strauss, and Mozart within
The music of a polyphony of talk
Pervading the rustling almost springtime humble
Return of birdsong and buds and tired students
On break from their exams, resting on a lawn.

My aging body feels the future hidden
When I look down Lerchenfelder Straße and within
My past, my humble tries and unmowed lawn,
Recalling fellow students’ cheerful talk
About Klimt’s kiss and how to travel light,
How love and time are full of kicks and tricks.