Popular Mechanics

there’s “Whitey”

at the Esso station

and then

there’s “Theo”

at the Gulf station.

for a time my old man drove

a 1950 pea-green flat-head

Ford two-door coupe which

Chuck Berry himself immortalized

in his song: "you can't catch me" 

("here come a flat top he come movin' up with me..")

but when it broke down permanently

it was stationed in the backyard

at 1017 Bedford.

In the winter I’d sit behind the wheel

shifting through the gears.

there were three forward

gears and one reverse gear.

the only gears I’d run through

from the back of my throat

were 1st, 2nd and 3rd

activated from the column.

the clutch was drying out

of its necessary lubricant

and shifting became hard to do.

winter made matters worse.

the vapor from my mouth seemed to be

a prelude to smoking cigarettes.

the engine couldn’t start

but the little button

protruding from the dashboard

allowed the mechanism to turn

the engine's crankshaft, agonizing

its impossible mission–– and then,

well, soon enough, that failed, too.

to those who arrive at the door

they knock

as though they mean it

as though they want "in"

as though they have

the one true gizmo to make

your busy life a lot easier

something for the mantlepiece

a knick-knack present

sometimes to pay their belated condolences, or

to return a scarf long forgotten by time

some come carrying volumes of knowledge

inside their cases which grow out of date

from the moment of purchase

to present themselves at the door

polished and clean

knotted at the adam's apple

draped in dresses seen before

at anniversary celebrations

at the funeral parlors 

maybe a bloodline's there

a relation believing you'll like

that the've come to the door

as if the door from the dread of the inside

is the door to paradise on the outside

and when it’s opened they smile.

 

                   from the folder to be determined / 1962 to 2026

I dreamed of Elaine last night

sent to me from Hillside Manor

the brick and mortar

housing project

down by the river

delivered there from

Sao Miguel

surrounded by water.

                     vignette

from the balcony, there in the distance,

city houses are set upon the hillside

through winter tree-heads after snowfall

sometime after sunrise above the rooftops

without a hint of what lives beneath them.

in the silence, this could be a world.

when Pablo Neruda asked:

"what is water like in the stars?"

I thought: "maybe the great poet's on tilt this morning."

a question so uniquely strange that I didn’t bother to be curious.

I just went on my way living life between

someone's microscope and someone's telescope,

between diners and priests, between girls and women,

sometimes learning on the march.

there are forms of water in and circling the stars.

this is water not nearly as rare as the liquid running

from our kitchen faucets.

this is water in its cosmological enterprise.

but Neruda asked the question during the time

when few, if any in the know thought it reasonable.

water in the stars?

the question is found in Neruda’s: “Through a closed mouth the flies enter"

pages 249 to 251 in the volume: “Extravagaria”.

Google the title and save money.

also of interest is the question: “When did the lemons learn 

the same laws as the sun?"

there are rare confections between the pages of 249 and 251.

or one could say, a world.

 

death is not an option.

It follows me from room to room

close enough to be detected.

hints of a breeze

where there should be no breeze.

doilies flutter on the armrests.

the temperature drops.

I’m sneezing more often.

dead friends enter my dreams

announcing themselves as couriers

of the afterlife.

one guy from high school admonished

me for cheating on a test because

he was smatter than me.

so I cheated. why come at me now?

I feel like I don’t belong.

I feel like the toilet in the Kramden’s cold-water

flat on Chauncey street which is never seen.

I mean, it’s got to be in there.

I mean, so many episodes and not one audible flush?

jesus christ! what the fuck! 

so I’m erasing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation 

from the form which dictates my preferences.

who knows who’ll do it? I don’t. fuck that.

a brief autobiographical extract posted before it's too late

I have a son.

an only child.

he wasn't atomized into existence

or born of a virgin mother.

he hasn’t suffered the cruelties of life. but--

that is–– not that I've noticed.

what else...oh, yes.

he looks like me during the time

when I was pretty.

he's childless, and as far as I'm told

he wants it that way.

I don't question his reasoning.

his girlfriend is as beautiful as mine

during the time when we were pretty.

that would be his mother.

this brief autobiographical extract is posted before it's too late.