I’m thinking

about the stars

changing their shapes with time

not about the war or

children starving

in central Africa or

the rash spreading

across my ass or

what’s for supper, but..

about the “Big Dipper”

one hundred thousand years from now.

I’m thinking:

will they change its name?

they’re gonna have to.

it’ll be bent out of shape.

it’ll look arthritic.

it'll be useless for

delivering tomato sauce

to the al dente linguine.

this has been on my

mind all day

and it's not even noon.

no Big Dipper?

what’ll the kids say

when the Big Dipper

no longer can hold its goods

and even my ash

is blown free of the Earth?

 

current status

outside a little

inside a lot.

living not dead yet.

coffee.

thinking about

everything

all the time

at the same time

and it’s

driving me nuts.

this rash on my arm.

the pain

of splashing water.

cat-less.

a preference

for higher sitting toilets.

cold this morning

on May 13th.

I wonder:

is it melancholia

to remember past

loves fondly?

this rash on my arm.

oh. have I already

said that?

 

                    Joe D’Elia was my father’s younger brother

a nighthawk barroom hopper.

fast walker. smooth talker. had his big toe

in the murky pool of Fall River politics at the entry level,

practitioner in hunting down street-wise women

who’d hunt him down right back.

had a steady girl. red-haired Rosie, cocktail waitress.

had a sleek automobile.

Cadillac de Ville which allowed him a roam-around attitude.

smoked Viceroy king size filter-tipped cigarettes

three packs a day.

let's remember Roseanne Marcucci.

well,–– Joe D'Elia was the guy who gave us a ride

to her junior prom in his Cadillac and never came back.

the place closed down after “good night sweetheart”.

a downpour. I was soaked through my tux.

Roseanne's skin was glazed like a strand of limp linguini

dipped in extra virgin olive oil.

the Route 6 motel was lit-up and flashing red across the highway.

  

 

the sighting

the virgin Mary

was under my bed formed by a clump of dust bunnies.

she looked younger than when seen tucked into

the half bathtub sunk into the soil in the backyard

near the grapevine’s succulent concords, purple and plump

on the vines overhead near the fence to the junkyard.

1954 was a good year for car wrecks.

the surviving chrome-plated hood ornaments of scantily clad women

winging their way forward from the hood's nub were a sacred find.

but the junkyard dog was a very cranky animal.

a good junkyard dog is always barking and growling like a lunatic.

another day and the dust bunnies under the bed changed their shape

to resemble auntie Alma, older sister to my father.

Alma, thick-legged with nylon stockings and spun-blonde

beehive hairdo, spray-fixed and perfumed like RAID crawling insect spray.

I'd daydream of Alma and under the late night sheets 

bypassing the virtues of the 14 year old "Mother of God".

I know. I know. I'm going to Hell in a hand-basket.

work on the ending!! (but the perceived value of certain imagery is measured on

a day-by-day basis. wouldn't you agree?)

                    made from lemons

"when God gives you lemons…"

that’s precisely how it should read.

check-out the children’s wing.

cancer as lemons:

wake-up and smell the lemons.

listen,.. deodorant with aluminum

works better than sissy deodorants.

about the environment:

I once walked across a field

hand-in-hand asking my early young love:

“what is this? is that mud”?

"no" she replied:

"it’s cow dung”.

how romantic is that?

the sorrow and the pity:

her name was Claudette

straight from the incubators

of Dominican Academy,

as french as they come and real pretty, too.

"lemon-headed":

sometimes I feel as though I am.

so I write poems to deflect my hidebound inclinations

and yes, she said: “cow dung”.

a love poem

                   vignette 101

I’ve been thinking about sleep.

strolling the floor toward the toilet

in the morning I think about sleep.

refreshed at breakfast, sleep shows-up

at the table like a friend, nodding

and smiling and intoxicating.

in my mind sleep takes me to the place

where nothing motivates, nothing adjudicates

and there’s no disposition, no boss, no antagonist,

no time clock, no deodorant with aluminum,

no yearning to be someplace else, no yelling

and no pressure to get the machine fixed

whatever the machine might be and where

I'm young and pretty.

ahh.. sleep.

                    goings on in the neighborhood

holy Mary mother of god,

known by her nickname: blessed virgin Mary,

was seen flying her kite

near the left field fence yesterday.

she seemed to be really good at it

tugging the main-string, pulling

her kite southward toward Marzilli’s bakery

then northward toward the billboards.

the kite’s tail looked to be a raccoon's tail

plucked from her only son’s Davy Crockett hat.

(I had one, too. tail attached)

she gets away with murder, that one.

nothing’s happening today, except

Joe the cop forgot his service revolver

and had to skedaddle home to fetch it before

some busybody noticed and squealed.

well, I noticed. but I learned through certain

innocent bystander situations on how to keep my mouth shut.

phase one: how I came to be a poem-writer.