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.

                     the fight

the fight’s on television.

It’s pay to view, but I shelled-

out the funds in order to take a look.

a bout of welterweights

is on the card before the main event;

two heavyweights are vying

for the title left vacant by an

ousted rule-breaker.

heavyweight’s usually hit

then clutch then hit then clutch

the clutches pulled apart

by the aggravated bow-tied referee,

but welterweights swing away

and these two combatants do not disappoint.  

but through the ropes a young woman

sits ringside with a man twice her age, maybe more.

she cuts a delicate cloth in the midst

of the dance of violence.

I spot her periodically when the boxers

brawl at a point in the ring where the camera

makes her visible.

her face is wide-eyed and she

cringes when a direct hit is scored.

in the 5th of a scheduled 10,

she’s seen bouncing from her seat, screaming

between horror and ecstasy as one fighter lands

a right cross to the jaw then a left

hook to the chin of the dazed opponent

who unceremoniously crumbles the canvas,

and through the ropes, through the cadence

of the deliberate 10 count I can see her,

motionless, wide-eyed and watching.

                    at the drugstore

a small group has gathered waiting to be called

in order to pick up prescriptions.

I was distracted by a middle-aged, pot-bellied man

dressed in baggy chino slacks and a blue teeshirt reading: 

”I’m with Stupid” with an arrow pointing toward his left.

he was alone, so I surmised that the person

with the corresponding teeshirt reading: “I’m Stupid”

sans the necessity of an arrow, was somewhere else,

tidying up, or frying some eggs, or looking through the catalog

of frightening drugstore doodads.

I glanced to his left, curious as to what else he might

consider to be stupid;–– shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste,

tweezers in blister packs, and so on.

he was also wearing new-looking cheap knock-off

boat shoes, the kind that’ll never look appropriate for

any deck apart from the one in his backyard.

with time on my hands I reasoned that along with my 90 day supply

of 20 MG Simvastatin tablets, I should nab one of those snazzy blister-

packed sets of silvery tweezers to yank that annoying nose hair which

has been tickling may facial senses for the past few days, when from

behind the florescent-smeared counter, my last name is shouted

with the authority and mispronunciation it righteously deserves.

                    post it

I should straighten up the house

feather dust the knick-knacks

empty the hamper into the basement sink,

suds it up and wash them out.

I don’t want my biographers

to draw negative conclusions

relative to my tidiness.

I should cull the field of poems

to a manicured lot;

have them work for me for a change,

have them write my story.

they'd be gods! they'd be almighty!

so they'd lie a little here and there.

in the meantime let’s have another cup,

shall we?––

 

                   the way forward

the year is 2235. it’s raining.

it’s a dirty rain. it’s hot in December.

rodents are everywhere. they eat their own kind

and still their numbers increase.

you’d think by this time we’d have things figured out.

we haven't. 

unearthed imagery advanced by the “Jetsons” was misleading.

flying cars zooming between buildings was a terrible idea.

we tried them. It was carnage out there, what with all the

smashing and crashing and cars falling down like air conditioners

out of high floor windows in Manhattan back in the day.

nobody wants to see people smushed like so many ants

under the bouncing feet of children at recess.

unfortunately, the women are cold; cold to their men.

from the women's perspective their coldness is attributed

to their distain for the common man who blames

his faults on everything but himself; his inability to perform,

his wrongdoings, his lackluster attitude toward failure.

men are still very much like that guy at the traveling carnival who claims

the hole is smaller than the ball and the duck is bolted to its tracks.

the year is 2235, and society has spiraled downward, and yet

we remain as we always have, glorious in our eyes.