-a theoretical world-

from a storefront doorway

the sign to passersby reads: "We're OPEN"

street-side, the plate-glass window

displays selections of its inventory. 

the street is busy with activity 

and gatherers of belongings are just getting started.

people greet one another

presenting kittens from their hands,

presenting images of accomplished work

and images of the accomplished work of others;
some who are living, others who are dead.

curbside, a jovial old man introduces

two small dogs in tutus dancing on their hind legs

to the music of an accordion amusing the children.

artists, poem-writers, bloggers, diarists

and sports fans; idle gossipers, digital self-

portrait aficionados and lonely hearts

fly through the arena's atmosphere like ping-pong balls 

sprung from a field of mousetraps.

the variety store carries news of the plaintiff's accusations,

of noteworthy adjudications, certain character indictments 

and exposés of the populated interiors;

it carries news of the evening's visible planets

masquerading light, advancing the proposition that false-

faces will often intrigue us.

on the local front, the latest report

tells of the 24 inch Schwinn's mid-morning

crack-up on the avenue near the cemetery.

it's assumed that this is the cherry-

red beauty that has weight and occupies space.

two old-timers are standing at the storefront's window;

one is inside looking outward, the other is outside

looking inward.

                                         

 The River

The river widens southward in its trek,

Greying as it runs from below the hill of the city

Driving as an arm to the sea
By things which are measured and
By things which can't be measured — then

Drops to the mouth of Narraganset Bay.

The water's color is perceived the way it is

From particle absorption, certain minerals,

And by reflections in the atmosphere, greying 

From sediment kicked-up from the bed's silt.

Testimonials are written above its banks

From the hill-clinging tenement houses where

My friends were living at my side, where

Everything was written in indelible text.

I came to know the river with them,

From the foot of the hillside where

Before our time, railroad tracks were laid
Running north to south from Boston to Providence.

We went to the river to smoke forbidden cigarettes,

And throw harmless stones into the running water.

We rode bikes, played ball, disobeyed or mothers and fathers, and

Maybe I'll go down there tomorrow to hold hands with their ghosts.

Could be I'm doing that now.

                                   

                                

-Quequechan Testament-

1.

shawled in mourning

black out there, —  two Portuguese

widows speak with reverence across the fence,

the subjects of God, of laundry and bread.

–– and from the sites of commerce

gulls glide panting above the restaurant spoils

as homeward, lovers untangle the knot of sleep

and cats awaken to the same curiosities.

such is the city's opening vocabulary.

2.

how then to interpret

the language of one's own salt.
I'm not the proverbial fish-out-of-water
I once in defiance pretended to be.

but as it is, if my residence is questioned

I'll be ready with the answers.

                                        

                                        

                                                        

-one of those moments-

you weren't getting
anywhere, my friend
and neither was I.

the songs from the record player
spun ballad to ballad
as we assumed the positions

of standing outside the music
with our hands in their pockets.

but hell, my friend. somehow,
from somewhere in the distance
I found her

and we crossed the crowded floor
slow-dancing at the Anawan Street hall
on that warm summer's night.

you remember the girl, my friend.

you elbowed me in the ribs to notice her.

she's the one leaning on the parallel bars at the wall,
distant and planetary —

the one whose hair was back, the jet-

stone of the riverside housing project who

unfolded her arms 

from the buttons of her blouse

as if to say yes.

I know, my friend.
that was then,
and then was a long time ago.

but hell,

she was the one
slow dancing in my arms, my friend
and that still counts.

-let it be written-

in the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth.

and the earth was void of life

and darkness fell
upon the face of the deep.

but the corner

of Bedford and Stinziano streets
was populated

by the boys and their girls who

activated its atmosphere
and in the process

God laid as warning
a number of venial sins
at the doorsteps of their souls;

sins dropped at the Drive-In
over the burning naugahyde

of the darkened Ponta Delgada;

sins dropped
at the Waterworks of the Narrows

overlooking the fresh-water
Watuppa Ponds of the sweeping
Wampanoag Reservation;

dropped at the Plaza Theater’s

crazy weekend commotions
and the Empire’s muffled
balcony explorations;

dropped at the last embrace
by the entrance to the ballpark's

musty dugouts at twilight and behind
the blinds of the peeling billboards;

dropped across the sea-salted 
sand dunes of the Spindrift where salt-
waters of ocean murmured

under evening skies

and growing weary of pin-

pricking so many stars, and influenced

by what it was the boys and their girls were up to

God said:  "Let there be Light"— 
and sure as Hell, there was light.

                                       Quequechan

-M45 in 1942

1.

welcome the Pleiades — the young

seven sisters
softly veiled by atmosphere

barely visible, north by northeast
above the slowly inhaling streetlight.

seeing them, the vandal's stone
was reconsidered and dropped from my hand.

2.

tucked-in for the night
the Pleiades, young and volatile

are swept in light nearing brushed aluminum.

from the living-quarters

the incandescent interior was glowing
amber set against the ice-glazed windows,
and beyond them, the seven sisters were dancing.

2/15/12

-from the dark-side of the planet /  dancing with Loretta-

Harold's alone, slow-dancing across the carpet

and nobody’s there to put a stop to it

and to make matters worse the radio's tuned-in

to the harpsichord of the wrong Bach.

one slipper's heel is torn like a slit throat,—

bathrobe’s opened to twilight, while a Camel

burns-out in the ashtray, its clinging

hornworm of ash leaving in its wake the wet,

yellow stain of an old duck's-ass, and the night is young.

Harold's got five and a half hours to go.

maybe he'll talk to Loretta again in the morning.

he knows what he looked like

the last time they played their parts in this awkward
on-line romance and it wasn't pretty.

Loretta seemed to be longing

for someone unconnected to the acid-throwers of her life.

Harold's slow-dancing across the carpet

and nobody’s there to put a stop to it.

Loretta's waiting at the desktop on the far-side of town

for someone to play a different kind of tune.

                               

                      

-hitting the "nigger pool"-

the neighborhood was woven tightly

in a tough, italian-guy rhetoric

in attitude and language where

the mouth spoke rapidly and hand-

gestures accentuated

points of importance dynamically,

fast and furiously deliberate,

like a ten-pronged army at your face.

here was the place

where Italian women did for their men,

did for the kids,— where parents

and grandparents lived an arm’s-

length apart, where in our house a hand’s-

width would do.

the gas stove flamed by sulphur-

headed matches

and anthracite coal was down-chuted

to bins which fed the bloated plaster-

cased furnace squatting in the cellar.

later, heating oils from contained vessels

fueled the space-heater, saturating

the tenement atmosphere

in the scent of petroleum,

the interior's scent of winter, shingled

in asbestos.

here was a sense of propriety where

one toilet served the crowded populous

and the solitary television standing

in the useable parlor was enough

to set the parameters of the extreme.

street-side, folding money was the lifeline

and the wise-guys took pride in dropping

their hard-earned wages into the hands

of the neighborhood bagman working the small-

time hood's weekly "nigger pool."

in this place, food was a fresh-baked

fundamental bread from the baker's ovens

a stone's-throw away;

it was sugar, salted meats, potatoes and peppers

and LaRosa spaghetti, cracked from the box— 

where tomato sauces were prepared

as Mother Earth prepared for sunlight,

as grapes were prepared on the vines

tangled beneath the durable

cloth of the working-class, air-drying

on lines of rope pulleyed window to pole

and pulleyed back.

street-side, the rain-puddles evaporated

with the scent of metal rising from them

and the ballpark was active with the scent

of gasoline running through it.

later in the week, a lucky corner-dweller

would collect his winnings in cash money

and his name resonated across the neighborhood,

lofting his commonness to an exalted position.

"Tony Ambriglio won the "nigger pool""!
$150.00 is what it's worth.

inside, the hand-kneaded, fork-pressed

dough of the ravioli were laid to stiffen

overnight on laundered sheets,

their backsides flour-

sprinkled like pampered, infant italians.

                                                       Quequechan

   

   

-when she knew she was rich-

the girl at her desk
in front of his own,
the girl he knew as a friend
didn’t know she was rich

but she'd know soon enough.

then her smile would be different.
It would move backward.

he'd thought to let it go,
to leave it behind,

but who could have known
how to do such a thing?

when he saw her house
and he saw his house
for the first time in the same
cold-frame in his brain

on the day that he pedaled
fast above the saddle to the Avenue
and stopped from a distance
to look from a distance to figure it out

and all he could see
was the stone of her house
three columns to the doors
at the face of her house
its wrought-iron gate

her friends walking through
no more than strangers
a short time ago
now greeted
with laughter and hugs
in a dress he'd not seen—
a dress white as chalk—
from the front of her house
from the stone of her house

on the day when happiness
fell through the hole
in the midst of his world
when she knew she was rich.



                         up the highlands,
                         quequechan








  

-salt of life-

1.

the seabed's dressed  

in silent emerald.

armor-clad, the seahorse
holds-fast

to its crazy biology.

the strange sea cucumber

readies itself at the table

and the armed anemone animates

hypnotically for its harvest.

2.

inside the city's tenement

no one questions the racket.

it runs blood-rich through the hallways

pulsating at the hands and from the mouths

of its occupants.

water is running

in two rooms reserved for running water.

kitchen aromas drape

the atmosphere fold on fold

and dishrags sweep across the oilcloths

sometimes to closure,
sometimes in preparation.

                                 

quequechan

                                                 

                 

the Baker's Requiem

-the Baker’s Requiem-

Albert Pieroni, a first cousin,

A baker of Vienna breads and Italian pastries

On the north-side of Providence,—

A large-ring, double Corona smoking tough guy

Who lived across the street from Raymond Patriaca,
Notorious Rhode Island Crime Boss, who greeted
Each other across the driveways of the morning

Warm-ups,—

One ready to mix the batter,

Knead the dough for bread and sprinkle

Confections in powdered sugars;

The other ready to order the whacking 

Of regional Stool-Pigeons;

Cousin Albert, married to Celia,— gorgeous

Young woman of Spanish-Italian heritage,

Olive-skinned and graceful,

Whose shimmering dress

And perfect attitude of attendance

Captivated the eight-year old boy

Clogged with dusty nostrils from the infield slides;

Albert Pieroni, husband to Celia, baker to the local
Mafioso, is dead.

Albert Pieroni, old, frail and wheelchair confined;

The large-ring Double Corona smoking wiseguy

Reduced to producing long drools of spit
From the stroke of his mouth, is dead.

Crime-boss Raymond Patriaca’s
Saturated heart of fats
Had convicted him for the last time long before
Albert’s final breath.

Now Celia’s old, in mourning for Albert;
Husband, Tough-guy, Baker, Large-ringer;
Celia, grown tired of the well-wishers

Crowding her at the restaurant after the service
Soon to return to her house, north-side of Providence
With an eight year old infield-dusted kid forever in tow.