-The old movie-

When Myrna Loy
Sat upon the porch-swing
Beneath a clear, star-filled sky

Conversing tentatively with Cary Grant
In the old movie: “The Bachelor

And the Bobbysoxer,” 
Each syllable of every word
Dancing from her liquid mouth

Was pronounced with a delicacy
And fragrance which moved
The English language

Far from its Germanic stiffness
Into the fluid, romance of the French.

I’d like Myrna Loy to read my poems
To the Academy wearing the dress
She wore on the porch that night.

With her eyes wide-set across her face,

The observer travels slowly
Eye to eye, planet to planet

Where dancing syllables pour
From her mouth like a rare wine,—

The slow grapes drawing, the finish
Of earth's minerals exhaling as it speaks.
There, the staid academicians
Sit in black evening tails of fine material,

The dress of the porch that summer night
Draping around her form like a sixth epidermis.

She warms the old men up:

"Gentlemen,— "The old movie":

"When I sat upon the porch-swing

Beneath a clear, star-filled sky..."

                                      

-at 1480-

I see the faceplate of the Moon

At the bark of the oak

Just left of the gravel laid down

To make a driveway of the earth.

Then at the heads of the hedges

Expands the rest of evening;

Slow-moving in blue and dropping

Greys.

The natural property lines in back

Are not clearly delineated

With fences or walls or rows of neat annuals,—

But nebulous,— but not drifting to blend like Renoir,—

But more like the fuzzy edges of Ruben’s muscles.

There’s some sort of perceived strength here;

Different than the tough-edged street-scapes,—

Like moving from Hanson to Babbitt.

One realizes the strength of one, can’t quite comprehend
The strength of the other;—

Both counting for something.

We need milk and toilet paper.

Same as those living within the other landscapes.

                                     Swansea / Fall River

                                     5/25/12

    

-Donna and the Brain-

I’ve a close friend and the young women

Want to fuck is brain.

I’d like to put one of those

Groucho-esqe nose, horn-rimmed,

Bushy eye-browed masks on the thing

Just to see how it plays.

I think they’d still like to fuck his brain.

The fact that his body is attached everywhere else

Is a plus for my good friend.

He’s not ugly. But I’m prettier. But I’m slow

And dim-witted.

Donna was mysterious.

Donna wanted to fuck his brain and told him so.

Donna was great looking and from my friend’s

Timely answer to the burning question in the gallery

Of Art History class, about why Persian rugs

Are intentionally woven with an obvious mistake,

She set her sights on his brain.

Donna said to the brain: “I don’t care about

The outer slime of the cerebrum, the weight of the water;

I don’t care about the flesh of man or the god-damn

Left side, right-side that channel the arithmetic
Or the feet to tap-dance.

I want to fuck your Brain.”

And the brain of my good friend told his mouth

To smile

And his flesh went along for the ride.

And Donna went to her mouth to get to the brain.

And this is a true story.

                                                New Bedford, c.1963

-the earthworm, the bird, and the porter at the riverbank-

then there’s the story of the red-breasted robin perched

upon the housing of a decorative, freestanding

lamp in the front yard approaching the road.

the lamp works, but is useless in the world of illumination,

and there's a slow-twisting earthworm in the bird's beak.

the succulent earthworm moves as if agonizing its circumstance,

as the bird jabs its head in sharp defensive angles, but

otherwise appears disinterested in the captured nightcrawler.

my mind is half-awake which means I'm half-asleep, but

it may not be, that the worm is writhing in agony, or that

the robin redbreast is disinterested. maybe they're in love.

maybe the bird is carrying the worm to the other side

of the property for its safety, like when old-man Reprobus carried

the snot-nosed juvenile, Emmanuel to the other side of the river.

but this is all conjecture, and relative only to the immediacy

of the current situation,–– whereas old man Reprobus

just hung around the riverbank waiting for slackers who wanted

a free lift to get to the other side. what a schmuck,

deserving of his stripped-down position among the better saints.

and besides, the bird ate the earthworm, anyway.

Swansea

-fourth Swansea-

incidentals placed on an end-table

are placed on something else

before being placed on an end-table.

that’s rule number one inside the tenement

across the street from the Esso Station.

my sister’s slow-developing cancer

wouldn’t have recognized her.

she wasn’t required to consider the large intestine

winding its slushy way through her young body

and cancer was busy plotting its theater against our father, anyway.

now for a fresh approach to notate the screeching

screen door of the kitchen leading to the smelly entry which led

to the backyard and why it was hung there in the first place.

but the egg-man looked through it before he knocked

and the flies seemed to like it.

so I listen attentively against the pleasantries of this place,—

the calmness of nature here as it moves on tiptoes from the ground,

outward toward the river;— to the crazy woodpecker beating

a rattling time to the bark of the maple behind where I sit;—

to the days before cancer and unpaid balances;—

to the hours of the constant movement of aromas

simmering;— to the television set serving

as station of calm in the living room after the day’s racket

and a family’s mid-evening order;—  to where the knick-knacks


rested on doilies, on saucers,

on the lids of jarred products of every description,

and it’s all like simply tuning to the daily music I listen to.

                                                         5/16/12

-third Swansea-

the guy who lives across the street

in the big two-story single family with natural shingles

has a wife, two very young daughters and a tractor lawnmower.

the front-yard grass slopes downward to the neat

thigh-high shale-stone wall at the road’s edge,

visually troublesome in its purchased-like attitude.

mid-May and the birds voices are pleasant in early morning

this end of Gardners Neck Road where the green lawns

lie mowed to the soles of the feet, and it’s woody here, and careful.

he has a small dog which looks like a puppy but it's grown.

his wife’s a knockout.

this morning she’s putting the trash

on the side of the road for the town’s weekly pick-up;—

not the heavy stuff, the guy puts the heavy stuff out,

but last minute incidentals like the small top-knotted

plastic bag screened "Stop and Shop."
she makes adjustments to position the bag neatly

placing it next to the recycling bin.
I haven't been here long enough to call it a ritual,

but I'm looking forward to her meticulous procedure next week;—

the early morning posture of a young woman

caught between coffee and tending to herself in the master bath,
with one eye tuned inward for herself and one
tuned outward toward the neighboring trash.

It’s another window to an element not far from the one

I know a planet removed.

yesterday, Harold Higgins informed me of a recent attack
on this end of the Road in which a coyote snared in its jaws
and carried away another small dog who's by now
digesting in the belly of the coyote.

but the chirping birds are nice enough

and across the street, the guy's daughters play quietly
on the front lawn close to the house.

the dog seems old and bone-weary and I haven't heard it yapping

or seen it running like a lunatic, or even shitting on the lawn.

I don’t look forward to the motor of his lawnmower
at daybreak.

her dressing-gown opens and closes the way the poets
have told me it would at the hem in a slight breeze.

the planted annuals along the shale-stone wall act the same way.

from the backyard, the river adds its western edge.

I can see it between the trees to the east where across it, upon the slow-

rising, densely populated hill, the real house used to be.

                                                                            5/15/12

-From Claggart's tongue-

1.

It's a long night before the next night's 

Funeral prologue;— "I am an old man.."

And I’ve had my belly full of it.

Everything hangs by the short

Rope's end of this day's reading. Soon,

We look to witness the hanging death

Of Billy Budd as I’ve heard them sing of it.

I realize, due to intentional reading's that
The music builds to fold upon itself layer on layer. But

This time,— it returns salutations.

This time,— the terrible beauties display themselves
In the personhood of flesh and bone.

Ship's company's full-throated on ship's deck,

Displayed in scenes by the movement of its planes

Like an orchestrated waterwheel, tortured by its turning.

Soon they’ll hang Billy Budd for not, but the heart's

Farewell to the Rights o' Man,— Then 

For the strike of his fist to silence Claggart's tongue.

We participate, as ship's hands bear witness

To the tense procedure, from the balcony's row above them.

The Grand House has split the ship 

As in the split of bones from Billy’s neck;

Taut and fatal rope held-fast by the hands of hands.

2.

With the Bellipotent dead then curtain drawn

We'll haul-out taking to dry land.

                                      With Leonard Dufresne / 

                                      The Metropolitan Opera / 5/10/12

                                      New York, New York

-Any town through-

The train from Boston to New York

And points south to the Carolinas is frantic

With activity when it stops for passengers

In New Haven.

Eastern Connecticut is densely populated,

Its morning commuters filling the seats

And the deeper into Connecticut we travel,

It inserts itself more aggressively

Into the coaches of Amtrak —

A swarming populous moving in two directions,
Forward on the aisles, yet backward as the train runs forward
In a practical proof of the laws of motion,

Its timeworn briefcases, impossible earphones,

Its satchels and laptops glowing once-bitten

Apples at their lids.

Some are dressed, prepped for their cubicles,

Others seem transported from the heavy-handed, stone-

Grey coaches of Daumier.

The middle-aged woman sweats heavily.

She pants through her open mouth,

Struggles with her heavy suitcase perched

At a right angle to her wide girth,

Looking for an invitation to invade a space.

I try not to present an open opportunity

But she moves onward anyway

Over the narrow aisle now packed like the fatal

Chute in the bowels of slaughtering Chicago.

Connecticut assigns itself to the coaches.

From the seat in front of me, a young woman is sleeping.

Her head rests on a traveling pillow

Tucked at the window

Facing the depot's crowded platform.

Her auburn hair is shimmering in the sunlight

And it falls through the narrow space

Between the window and the seat-back.

She was sleeping when I boarded in Providence

And a glance at the open seat next to her

Revealed a transparent dry cleaner's bag protecting

What seems to be a black, cocktail-type dress

And next to it, a bloated tote, silkscreened

With a logo indicating

She’s a student at Brandeis University.

Maybe she lives in Connecticut and commutes

From Boston on the long weekends. 

Maybe she lives in New York

And travels home from Boston less frequently.

But the train goes down to the Carolinas.

I don’t see luggage packed for a long stay.

It could be she lives in North Carolina.

But it’s Thursday and she should be attending classes.
Maybe the last quarter before summer break has ended.
But nothing around her appears to be permanent.

A blade of moving sunlight sharpens her hair

As the train pulls out of Stamford

With a forward jolt which wakes her up.

She drinks water from a bottle.
She searches through her tote for something
But I can't see what it is she's looking for.

The train is running fast and true.
My seat-back is adjusted, positioned for rest.
I return to the dress, the black dress
Laid-out on the seat beside her,

The only garment drawing my attention

As I boarded the coach and took the seat

Behind her as she sat sleeping.
I think this is the dress she's chosen to wear.

I think that someone loved has died.

I think she’s on a fast track to a solemn event.

But as it is, in a way, so am I.

                                    On the rails to "Billy Budd",

                                    The Metropolitan Opera, 5/10/12

-a moving space-

the closet’s filled with emptiness.

It’s hung clothing removed.

the closet was empty to begin with.

matters become it by being empty. then

the clothing's unhinged, unhooked, lifted from a pole

running wall to wall and even relieved
of its belongings the pole sags in the middle.

things are draped on the couch, packed into satchels,

layered on the backseat like an abstract atrocity

readied for transport.

matters of coats, sweaters, fleeces of blue

and of grey,—

slacks, jeans and shirts on wire hangers

build high to collapse from the top of their heap
to the floor of the waiting transporter.

matters slip to collective comatose inside an equal

but separate emptiness in a closet a full bridge away;—

exhumed from one, resurrected to another
whose dark occupation is to have its own weight

and occupy its own space;——

matters in need of an arm or a foot

or a leg or a head,—

or a back fraught with cold,

a working zipper;—

a set of tired shoulders, or a neck, or decision.

                                Fall River / Swansea / 5/8/12

-Change of address-

Moving day and everything I can fit in my hands,

Things unused or not even considered for years,

Are pondered like the bust of Homer;
Each item seems to be beginning.

Instruction pamphlet

On how to operate a toaster:
Do not place metal objects
Into toast slots. 

Assortment of ballpoints to test
Across the back of an envelope.
Cufflinks.
Incidentals gathered in my hands

And I'm walking the rooms

Like a weary old man incapable of realizing

The time of departure;—what to treasure,
What to be disposed of.

Twist-ties and the necessary coffee can filled with them.

Empty any drawer in the house of its silverware or socks;—

There, the broken fragments of metals and plastics

Rest like the dead, the bottom-dwellers of the dusty dressers.

I remember these things from the torrid decisions
Of the last act of moving;—

Putting them in cans, in the jars and boxes;
Into the bed of the drawers just in case.

This time it’ll be different.

This time I think I’m going to need that stuff someday.

There sits my 96 year old mother.

She remembers little of anything.

There sits the early years recalled when the household

Needed everything of her.

Now this day of moving and she’s in need

Of everything from me.

This snow-globe evaporating.

This falling ornament.

                                        May 4, 2012