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.

                    It seems you might go first because

you’re sick and my checkup last week

went okay for all the vital things but

that doesn’t mean you’ll go first because there’s a big

fat bus weaving along the road approaching the stop where

I stand irreversibly exposed and waiting...

                   epitaph 

he is the 5-

fingered glove in the field

the ghost of his father

the lost

child of Lucca

3 times removed.

he is the erstwhile

deliverer of wine

the blood of God ––

and of water

the blood of Man.

he is the wafer of the Eucharist

the body of Christ

dissolved upon his early

tongue.

he is that he is

in that he is living

until he is forgotten

from ash to ash

to ash itself undone

and so, so long he will be

he was.

                   catalog of the exhibition

It's glossy and good looking with information

about what I’ve already seen up close and personal,

like the refrigerator’s post-it note still in place

long after the shopping spree.

but if the catalog of the exhibition is shown to the grandkids

as a demonstration of: “I was there”–– to them it would

amount to an intrusion into their already crowded activities. but

that Edward Hopper retrospective

at the Whitney was something.

while observing the painting of a construction site

I overheard a woman say to the other woman:

“is it con-struction or de-struction”?

a startling line I would come to remember and use

in a poem written some sixty years after the event.

(the poem is titled "smart ass" a sort-of snapshot having to do with

the workings of my brain and nothing to do with Edward Hopper)

but the line, "is it con-struction or de-struction" as memorable as it was,

was not reproduced in the Edward Hopper “Catalog of the Exhibition”.

 

                   how to make a friend and influence somebody

you know more about Generals than war does.

you know more about finances than money does.

you know more about medicine than diseases do.

you know more about women than their bodies do.

you know more about the universe than the vastness

of itself does, and all this before lunch.

  

                  November 6, 2024

my next door neighbor, a Vietnam War Navy nurse

serving aboard the USS Coral Sea on the Gulf of Tonkin,

now 75 and living a peaceful, singular life in apartment 501

with an expansive view of the Taunton River’s northern beginnings,

was curious as to what was going to happen to “people like us”

and I said: “well, we’re going to have to wait to see how

this will affect "people like us”,–– but I should’ve said:

“we’re screwed and thank you for your service”.

                   me, too

I, too, would like to be asked

to write a poem to be placed

inside a rocket rocketing into space.

a space poem, a rocket poem.

a poem written from far, far away.

a poem for Jupiter.

a poem for little green men;

little green men with big fat heads

and antennae sticking out, same as

the old earthbound television sets,

save they would see us before we'd see them.

a poem for nothing of nothing.

a poem better suited for the blindness

of an endless dark, matter-less, senseless,

the senselessness of emptiness.

a poem of ever seeming but never being.

my poem'll be a slow poem taking its time

hitching a ride in a fast machine.

that’ll be my poem. it'll be a love poem.

 

                   long in the tooth

there are certain idiosyncrasies

to the daily goings on of old people

which I consciously try to avoid.

nonetheless, when applied to my routine

they're accomplished with the best of intensions.

––I leave notes to myself everywhere

for just about anything.

“see doctor Mangioni, six months

from today, which is

Wednesday, November 13th, 2024"––

and if my head didn’t weigh

as much as a tenpin bowling ball,

I’d have a better chance at staying awake

when company calls. which is never.

but that’s ok with me.

besides, it's probably ok with whoever

the company would've been.

yesterday I strung the keys to the doorknob

so I wouldn't leave without them.

but leave to go where?... I don’t know.

1.

the roadmap is shrinking fast at the borderlines.

2.

the neighborhood kids stand on my lawn

simply for the pleasure of hearing me yelling.

3.

It's true. the one cardigan is enough.

4.

although the lapse in sensory perception was temporary,

I couldn't smell myself earlier this morning.