The Sad Sack

I woke up to a sort-of rumbling sound;

An unrecognizable sound, a nondescript roll

Of muted, haphazardly cobbled sounds as if God

Was clearing his lungs from a long night’s build-up of phlegm.

That’s it. Blame God. A reasonable start to the day’s events.

Event number one:

Piss. Check the color. No blood. That’s good.

Event number two:

Water the night’s dry flesh.

Event number three:

Perfume thyself.

Breakfast is prepared by strangers wearing transparent

Latex gloves, and delivered to my door by those who are stranger still.

The outcome is tepid and damp;

A scramble of something-or-other in yellow ochre.

Interlude:

A friend three blocks southward drives a fast car.

It’s snazzy. Onward!

I don’t drive anymore.

It’s estimated by the Bureau keeping such statistics

That between four and sixteen lives are saved yearly

Because I don’t drive anymore.

Heroic!

The Sad Sack

                  missive, anyone?

the poem I wrote last night

is 10 times worse

than the one I wrote the night before,

unless I’m thinking about

two completely different poems which I might’ve

written on two different nights altogether now.

that's funny.

I wasn’t thinking about the Beatles here.

maybe they crept into my atmosphere

when I wasn’t looking.

I’ve never hummed a song I didn’t know

but have hummed a song I didn’t like.

well, maybe I liked it a little and didn’t realize.

it’s possible an old flame sang it to me

after the bar closed and if so, I’ll love it until I croak.

(reflecting on my time at “Mr. Flood’s Party” Ann Arbor

back when it meant something larger than one’s self.

I'm referring to the saloon, not the E. A. Robinson poem.)

this entire experience hasn't been easy.

on the other hand, I think it has.

                   the poem-writer fully empowered

to Neruda it means one thing,

to me it means something else,

to the guy across the street who

mows half-an-inch of snow from his yard,

who is not a poem-writer, it’s meaningless.

so there you have it.

at this moment in time the world is populated by

the poems of Pablo Neruda, me, and the poetry

of the lunatic across the street.

must say, though,–– he’s got a nice little 

sheet of snow working for himself over there.

                    I thought I was an atheist and then

I went browsing through on-line wallpaper of cityscapes,

with a preference toward nighttime photos.

I like the way the incandescence shows-off the muscular attitude of skylines.

I wouldn’t normally see cities all lit-up and glossy from a distance because

who in their right mind would row a boat that far out simply to sneak a peek?

certainly not me.

there’s a perceived weight to a big city “rising” from the water

which makes it appear vulnerable to sinking.

the foundation at the city’s foot looks like a mirror reflecting the skyscrapers

spiking to a wondrous glaze; the full moon, the eyeball of God!

after the browsing, I prepared a breakfast of scrambled eggs, spears

of buttered asparagus and coffee as I thought of becoming an atheist again.

                   Adolf’s mustache

there it is

a spiny smear

cropped edge to edge

its message sent

faster than the send

key's pressed

then slowing to reach

its earthly space.

this mustache.

Adolf’s mustache.

the spiny smear above

the upper lip.

there’s a signpost ahead...

                    Tuesday, January 8, 2025

dear diary,

I spoke to my son last night over our snazzy iPhones,

mine in Fall River, Massachusetts, his in Los Angeles, California.

I was sitting at the table reflecting on the normality of the day

quietly receding into night.

these days, uneventful goings on are typical of my station in life.

this morning’s eggs looked like yesterday’s eggs,

neatly fried, sunny-side up, with slight charring

around the edges of imperfectly shaped disks, coffee,

Canadian white bread toast with butter, all nestled within

a healthy interior attitude.

the bad news comes with the reporting of certain events:

the investigation of a Piper Cup crash into a hillside

on the outskirts of Providence is on-going, the man

accused of randomly burning a woman to death

on an otherwise empty subway car in Brooklyn pleaded

“not guilty” in a court of law, two bodies found in the landing

gear compartment at a Fort Lauderdale airport, and the lingering

vulgarity of Donald Trump’s election increasing day-by-day 

like a stalker on a lonely street of a rainy night downtown.

tonight, harrowing reports of another fire in Los Angeles

piqued my interest, and although it’s usually my son

who calls me to say: “hello” or “how’re you doing”

tonight it was me initiating the call. 

   

 

the bright surface of an eventful situation

it’s the beauty which passes

who will never know you.

it’s the beauty which passes

you cannot reach and yet

you take it with you

like you would the cuffs

of your sleeves

like an afterthought

like a bag

of takeout Chinese, or

the dream anticipated

which evaporates before its end.

your span of life charts the cycles

of loves and departures

of planets and stars and recurring pets

which come and go from backyard funerals.

it’s the bright surface of the gleaming

fender in ’58 which reflects an annual

impression.

it’s that which is responsible for this poem.

 

                     wind

there’s something to be said this morning

about the stillness of the trees;

a windless morning, a breezeless morning which

speaks its language through a glance.

the trees are the chalkboard of the wind,

telling us what we need to know of where it’s going,

of what it’s up to; should we re-think our hats.

but last night...

last night the warning came over the smartphone:

expect gale-force winds with estimated gusts of 40 knots, and

under the darkness of cover, I considered glass, the morning coffee

set-up of the balcony, about tomato plants potted in fragile terracotta.

there's a sense of helplessness with a gale-force wind.

one can’t shovel it away to an unoccupied space; I thought of isolation,

of darkness, I dreamed of uncontrolled flight.

                   -proof of the illusive Octavio Pieroni-

Octavio was baptized Octavio Pieroni;

his bride, baptized Pauline Giambastino, became

Pauline Pieroni, in Lucca, Italy in the late 18 hundreds.

after traveling to the New Country, periodic anniversary gatherings

were held eventually leading to a time when most nuptial celebrations

seemed to be received as impositions pressed upon the aging principals;

this time with Octavio and Pauline posing stiffly for snapshots

under a grapevine's tangled canopy with a backyard view of bundled,

rusted automobiles, each hulk older than the one pressed above it,–– 

each, once the pride of the open road, now stacked like.. 

–– like what, were these jalopies stacked? like pancakes? like slabs of history?

like cons of Purgatory panting for a quick spot of God?  

it's I alone who can answer these questions.

so much of everything travels at my side only to die along with me.