How the empty-head works

Moving on from feeling well

I took ill last night

and slipped into the doldrums.

A tickling sensation from

the back of my throat

was the start of it all and I lit out

to the medicine cabinet

to swallow a few aspirin

before going to bed.

In the morning, the Sun

was in the process of exploding

some six billion years before expectation.

Even so, I felt a sense of relief.

I was no longer alone in my misery.

My fever spiked to nearly

ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit,

causing me to wait for the Kelvin report

which I understood as being somewhat cooler.

And in the end, I was right.  It is.

                   Meet the candidates

1.

Bonnie n’ Clyde

on the lam

for shooting the proprietor

and taking-off with the loot.

2.

Bill n’ Annie

for snatching a loaf of "Tip Top" bread

and slipping out the backdoor 

slicker than a couple of pistons.

Vote now! But vote early!

 

                    leisurely on my way while officially sponsored 

onward to stranger lands walking across a small-stoned coast,

I came upon a boat whose bow was barely on land and whose

hull to the stern lay in the water, one could say: "up to her ankles".

a heavy-looking smack, all 9 feet of her, a workaholic, exhausted

through her history, a true toiler of the sea.

the coast was unspoiled by man’s empty-headed beautification

and as for the water, it was an estuary to a larger body of water, sitting

at the southern end of a small village nestled to the hillside, dotting

structures like random jewels, dreamy from a distance, but poor enough

to be defined as something else up close.

walking the waterline, the overpowering scent of fish, living and dead,

of quahogs, of moss, surround me and if rope had a distinctive scent

it would be here, and if the interior of your home smelled this way

you’d rush downtown to purchase "Febreze: Linen Fresh Odor Eliminator"

the clear choice among the many products available, and by this time

you'd have certainly opened the windows to air the house, flies or no flies.

but at the water’s edge, the atmosphere seems appropriate.

the estuary's calling is the Wampanoag name meaning: “I am here”.

("Febreze" is available locally and is distributed by

the "Procter & Gamble" Company)

 

                   Lone wolf at the beach 

Each wave is as drenched as the other.

One wave is never drier than the preceding wave,

nor wetter.

This wave is taller than the next which is high enough.

Each wave dies the same death as the wave before it.

I almost drowned, once.

Some people play games with waves.

They ride them like bucking broncos toward the shore,

hanging all ten toes over the forward board.

I understand there’s a technical phrase for this procedure.

Then they zig and zag like Karl Wallenda in a gust of wind.

Sometimes the wave curls over them like an igloo

as if protecting them from dryness.

I’m usually dry.

I’m a dry person.

It’s my intention to remain as dry as possible throughout the day

and especially through the night, but most especially at the beach.

                   final examination

                  Studebaker v. Huffy

a baseball game is in progress and just beyond the left field fence

and a gradual upward grade to the facade of the church,

Alfonso Gasperini driving his ’57 “Sudebaker Golden Hawk”

bumped Angela DeCorpo riding her “Huffy" radio bicycle.

It seems the right front of Gasperini’s sleek machine,

tapped Angela’s Huffy on the back fender, causing

her to lose control and Angela, with her Huffy went

tumbling down the slow-rolling grade of the park

coming to rest in the middle of it, half way between

the left field fence and the church where both Angela

and Gasperini attended mass on Sunday mornings.

40 years would pass before funeral services were held at the church

for Gasperini, and some 15 years from the moment of contact

leading to Angela DeCorpo’s wedding to Antoine "Mitts" Rondello.

construct an argument cobbling elements of the case

presenting a dissenting opinion.

                   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.