Last lunch with Leonard Dufresne

Historically memorable are 8 with the works to travel

at “Moby's Coney Island" from the steamy counterman's hands;

4 for me and 4 for Dufresne, in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Art students. We knew how far our stomaches could run.

Most recently, the first stop on his "farewell tour"

was the “Cove Restaurant” in the city of our births set along

the running Taunton below the hill of Fall River, Massachusetts

in the shadows of sweltering textile mills, and the lingering

death echos of Sarah and Andrew Borden when on August of 1829:

               “Lizzie Borden took an axe

               and gave her mother 40 whacks

               and when she saw what she had done

               she gave her father 41”.

At the “Cove” I ordered fish and chips;–– haddock,

the sweet, flakey catch-of-the-day gathered

from the nets of the stern-fishers out of New Bedford.

––Leonard ordered cherrystone clams followed by

oysters on the half-shell; slimy little delicacies

which made Dufresne moan with the pleasure of a man in love.

––The best way to say “goodby” is don’t.

  

                   good morning and welcome to the show.

today’s question comes from Angelica Paparazza

who lives in Westport, Massachusetts.

dear William,

I've been informed that the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies

will collide in the distant future. this is causing great anxiety

among members of the ladies auxiliary.

do you think we will be killed?  I’m frightened.

no, no, Angelica! don’t be afraid. you see,

the distance between stars is so vast that

they will pass one another without incident.

however, the gravity of each star within both galaxies

will cause the galaxies to pinwheel around each other

in a slow and wondrous celestial dance.

will you dance with me, Angelica?

 

                   the final poem

who will come to greet it?

what message

will it send to my living son,

and my unborn daughter

never conceived, but––

somehow conceived, anyway?

will it mourn the strike-

three call at my knees

as it works its way into

baseball lore,

the closing stanza

where it belongs

with the treasures

women have laid in my arms

behind the wonderland of chromium

hood ornaments?

will it mourn cats?

will it mourn the great unknown?

will it pontificate on the celestial

virtues of the X-tra Mart, glistening

beneath its silvery florescence,

smeared in the scents

of clinging body odors,

processed sugars and complicated

carbohydrates?

will my last poem read

like a vagabond confessional,

finding me seeking water

as did my father in the fading

atmosphere of intensive care?

what will come into being,

but to be doomed

at my withered hand from whence 

will come the final poem?

         smile.

I was mesmerized in 2004 by a photograph snapped

by the Cassini Probe which spotted the pinprick of Earth

through the rings of Saturn.

The more I concentrated on the image the more enchanted I became.

––What was I doing when Cassini flashed its picture for all to see?

––Was I asleep dreaming of another event or sitting on the loo,

due to an unusual midnight run?

––Was it the night of Bernadette hissing in the secret closet through

her vinyl flesh because the bicycle patch had failed us both?

––How am I to understand what to me must now be regarded as truth?

In a time gone by, Fred Stillskin, my high school science teacher refused to admit

that our Sun was a “mere star” pontificating on the "personal" importance

of the Sun, whereas other stars were puny and simply hung with no responsibilities.

The years have marched-on in their crazed assault, and Fred is long dead.

Peer review of the “Stillskin Treatise” has yet to be considered due to a universal

lack of interest.

-obsession-

late last night I thought of something.

something remarkable.

somehow it fell asleep and drifted

into a space of its own.

now I can’t recall it.

I’ve searched the house

and the undersides of its belongings.

I found nothing but misery.

tufts of dust that could only be

remnant afterthoughts of my great

grandfather who they say walked

from his home in the old country

and never returned.

I found nothing but misery.

damp things.

the scent of old iron.

the cries of rust.

a dark, useless coin-of-the-realm.

a Canadian Penny.

I found nothing but misery.

I cursed the memory

of my sainted mother who

deep-cleaned before and after company,

my treasures sucked-up by a bloated

Electrolux who never learned the lesson to exhale.

on the hunt, common necessities

became extinct.

food, water, and clothing became obsolete.

I was blinded during the stillness of dusk

and in the cool of the early evening,

readied myself for the mechanical

rattlings of the second shift.

  

                   a love poem in 6 lines and 2 wheels with special guest Barbara DiNucci 

driving my Hornet cherry red my young 

love draping the top-tube at the chrome-plated handlebars !

O, ye bicycle ! –– how you made her torso to lean-in head-strong

willing my strength for the uphill climb and her hair to flutter

jet-stone black at my face on the downhill run, the unmistakable

scent of Ivory soap perfuming the backdraft.

                  let’s eat some candy

                  1951

let’s eat some candy.

let’s eat more than our skinny

bodies have a tolerance for.

let’s eat by the mouths-full

sucking the juices in.

let’s go to Chasidor Leo’s Variety store

across from the backstop where

the candies are loaded into bins

under glass at the counter, each bin a globular

cluster of stars!

hard and soft, red, yellow, and green,

sprinkled with sugar.

we’ll eat to our hearts content.

"fill the bags, Mr. Leo!

fill ‘em up so that they meet the rims.

ten of the green. ten of the yellow, and

ten of the red"!

the chewy ones will fill our early mouths,

bleeding the succulent juices ‘till

they dribble out across our cheeks.

friends, let’s count our money.

the more we have the more we can buy

and the more we’ll eat!

let’s pool our loot because we’ve learned

that sharing is a good thing,–– and then

each of us will build our stash of goods to our liking 

searching our pockets for what we know is never there,––

and let's ask Mr. Leo "which ones might be free".

 

                   It's unlikely that some sort of retribution awaits

I quivered at the early sound

of the voice of God, spoken

through the mouth of Priest.

It was heavy, a thick, menacing

sound which pointed its slimy

tongue directly into my face.

so I killed him.

I killed God, re-inventing it as

a genuine wholly ghost.

Priest said I was made in "His" image

and I didn’t like it.

I wanted to be taller.

but I liked "Bunny" DiCorpo

who lived on the second floor 

of a three-tenement house on Bedford

across from Marzilli's Bakery, and I liked

the little “Nite Owl” diner on the corner

of Pleasant and Eastern Avenue, where

I received mouth-watering kisses from the former,

and delicious hot cheddar cheese sandwiches

served on steamy hamburger buns from the latter.

"all poetry is all truth all the time."

I said that. 

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