The poem on page 1  DRAFT! work the second stanza !!

In 1917, an early year,

William Carlos Williams

Wrote "January Morning."

He died in Rutherford, New Jersey

In 1963, the year I entered Art School
In New Bedford, Massachusetts.

At the opening Suite of "January Morning, 

The image of himself is introduced

And runs in American plainsong

through Weehawken.

So through the portal of "January Morning,"

I’m reminded of procedures in defining

Whatever this place is;

Whatever it proposes to be;

Of whenever I come to walk through it,

Glancing its temperament,— or populate it

Attempting to articulate its proportions

Gathering the elements of its complexities

With myself involved in them,

To remain within reach;— one’s own reach
Readied for the Suite.

                                        Quequechan / Fall River

-sister's in front-

“Your sister needs all those things.”

This, my younger brother and I

Were often told by our parents

To temper our justifications

Of acquiring more stuff.

Her room looked like a bright

Amusement park

Filled with things I couldn't understand;—

Bottles

In liquid jade and amber,
Rare patterns in textiles,

Colorful curtains, multiple hairbrushes,

And a circular mirror on its own stand, which
When rotated magnifies the face,

All atop the over-populated dressers.

It looked like a garden.

It smelled like the perfume counter

At Cherry & Web on Main Street.

Our room was “upside down”

And smelled like laundry in waiting.

Earlier, as my sister tapped and spun,

Unafraid and dauntless

In performances for the parlor company,

My brother and I would watch at the arch
Of the hallway from the kitchen. 

Sometimes, between sets
As she changed for a ballet number

I’d do magic tricks at my own insistence 

As interlude to the articulate theater of my sister.

Three little wooden balls

Are placed at the webbing of my open fingers.

I’d present them to the company,

Plucking them out with deliberate
Fingers of the other hand.

Nothing up my sleeves.

When I returned them between my fingers,

“Abracadabra”—

There are only two little wooden balls.
Nothing up my sleeves.

The company smiles stiffly.

Her room was like an orchard.

In her mid-teen years when her girlfriends

Walked into the first-floor tenement

Passing through the kitchen like a meteor shower,

The borders of her room were tightened;

My parents acting as sentries.

My brother was too young
To realize the beauty.

But from the wrong side of the door
I’d position myself as close as allowed.

Stars dropped in my house.

Splash of red polishes water their toes.

Drops of Wind Song dab the skin at their throats.
The sleeves of the 45s are written by name.


Behind the door, above the curious whispers,
The sounds of Fats Domino at the piano
Seem curiously muted.
My sister needed all those things.
In the beginning, so did I.

                                Quequechan

  

-observation 1/3/12-

East Side of town

Where the action is.

Sometimes

The action happens late

In the evening.

It’s a cold,

Clear night in January.

I’m traveling through a challenging distance.

The Moon is three-quarter filled overhead,

More of west than of north.

Just to the right, slightly dropped is Jupiter.

It’s cold in the yard. A slow

Wind from the northwest stiffens

The flesh. The neck

Cracks like ice.

People have eaten dinner by 5:30

And the Televisions are cranked-up.

Drop southwest to Uranus.

Drop to icy Neptune.

Drop to acid Venus.

Drops of Universe.

The yapper in the yard across the street

Where the little plastic wading pool sparks

My interest in June, is in for the night, save

For a quick ten o'clock a piss

Glazing selected pickets of a neighbor's fence.

Drop through the Earth to the Sun.

I’m falling

Through Earth to burning

Mercury.

Am I seeing clearly?

I freeze, then boil in the blink of a lid,
Split like the halves of Mercury.

This is how one catches cold my grandmother warned.

Saturn's exposition's buried deep

Through the far side of the Earth.

I can't get there from here.

Reporting from Spiral 1098.

I'll be back as the pinwheel comes 'round.

Maybe then I'll be spinning more than falling.

                                       City

-hypothesis-

I’ve been granted an audience

And appreciate those who listen intently;

Those who recognize the items presented.
I'm aware of the necessary foundations.

I hear them building in the morning.

I know of someone reciting
Through the rooms of his house.
But it’s me that has to open his mouth to begin with.

The swift passersby are not displaying a curiosity.

I can’t catch my breath when I try to follow them.

Look.

I know enough to know that they know what they want.

No one has forced me to regard their presentations.

But the invitations to do so are everywhere.

There’s no requirement to respond.

But a rapidly narrowing time allotment defines itself.

I can quickly be evicted from where it is I am.

History goes a long way although not on its own.

But in the here and now I’ve been granted an audience.

-1017 verse 1: and his sister's girlfriends came to pass-

the house was frantic

like the parade's crescendo
behind the waving flags

when the heroes
rolled by behind the horses.

nighttime drifted
to the inside from the outside,

the lamps were turned on

and from this side of the television

the evening was always
better than anticipated.

someone once wrote, I think it was me,

that they entered through the kitchen

floating an inch above the linoleum

and even the biblical celebrity could manage

but one quick walk upon the still waters.

but if you lived with them ignoring you
as they did me when passing before your eyes

your mission would have been to report it.

I’m not the only one to witness events
such as these.

I’m simply one of the few men surviving
to tell of them now.

                                                Quequechan

-when one has a chance-

Ferlinghetti wired Ginsberg

after the San Francisco
reading of HOWL

cut short from exhaustion;
(Ginsberg's lungs

not ready for Rockland

as much as Ferlinghetti’s ears)

"Send manuscript to City Lights." Stop.

an invitation accepted upon receipt
in time for Ginsberg to catch Howl's breath.

then onward toward the wire

strung through the aether waiting for all of them.

-Rockland Étude- 

It was HOWL last night

Last night for the last time again. Its Footnote

Mantra claiming by fifteen times its singular worth.   

Avatar to the exiled mind of poor, 

Poor Solomon keyed therein. Young-  

Timers passing time spinning time.
Committed exalters, chain-breaking the type-    

Writer latitudes— hyped

At the snort of india-fume— Then HOWL's blood-

Testament.

The nightmare drowned poor Solomon in its ink;      

Two souls 

Keyed-in and peeling  

Back the architecture of the corneas of the other.   

                                                      Fall River / 2010

-Once William and Anne-

Approaching the corner

He’ll jump from the tailgate

Of the ice-man’s truck.

Watching him from the corner

She’ll wait for his approach

And with their friends will decide

Which beach to go to.

Sunshine, hot and humid today.

Yolanda’s parents have a summer cottage

On Reeds Road Lake in Westport,

A fresh-water lake

Whose standing water is red-tinctured
With algae bloom.

There’s a scare of tuberculosis.

Ray has a car.

So does Charlie.

Two cars, six kids in each

And with their friends

From the corner at the park and the gas station,

The corner bequeathed to me,

They set-out for fun at Yolanda's cottage
On Reeds Road Lake.

There’s a high probability that it happened this way,
Long before their teenage kids and their friends
Would themselves drive to the beach,— Musical Beach,
Reeds Road Beach, whose water's red-colored
With algae bloom.

Across the lake where Yolanda’s
Summer cottage stood,— a space now populated
In the overgrowth of tangled briers, wild-rooted shrubs
And stiff-backed weeds, can be seen against the lip
Of standing water.