-The attendant-

Articles less personal

Than those held back, 
Belongings of her grandmother,
Are placed atop a field-stone wall
Facing the wooded area across the road.

Backward, the yard opens quietly

Sloping toward the river.

Items are neatly arranged by category 

In relationship to those placed near them.

TABLEWARE:— Linen. Silver. China. Glassware.
JEWELRY:— Rings. Necklaces. Bracelets. Broaches.

Within these categories individual items
Can seem to be as different in application
As plastics are to fragrances.
But common bonds between them are formed.
  
The planets act this way.

A strand of pearls ranging from

Large as a cat's-eye to rest below the neck

To the small-as-a-pebble found at the clasp

Is examined by a newcomer to the wall,
Running the strand through an open hand,

Questioning: "Is a pearl missing here?"

There's no necessity in tagging descriptions
Nor compulsion to address personal attachments 
As gatherers drizzle-in like a pinching of
Salt to an open wound.
Storm-clouds forming westward
Beyond the river go unheeded.
Conversation is kept to a minimum;
Take a buck here and there and
Maybe it will come to an end with the rain.


                              April yard sale, Dartmouth, Mass.

              

                                          

link

what's this corner

north by west

slab of asphalt

slab of playground

quick slip of green

metal of engine

stone of church

what’s this blood

what's this corner

my father’s corner

his friends

their girls

piston of blood-line

slab of asphalt

northwest corner
north by west

slip of green
slap of grey

pulse of my father's blood

his friends

their girls

machine of living 
neighborhood.

my young mother
her young laughter
her friends

her sisters

their cousins

boys at the roll of their narrow tees

tough pack of smokes,
bay breeze, river wind,—

paint of her mouth

a coal-fire red,
position of residence
sweep of her hair

sweep of the river,—

space of their earliness
northwest corner—
weatherly, weatherly,

helm's hard over

north by west.


 for Annie and Wig












       

-psalms 1, 2, and 3

1:    the shingle shall be tacked with its deadly

equation in asbestos lying in wait. 

2:    to travel north will become to travel down—

"down north" in their manner of speaking.

3:    it shall come to pass that in the shadow of its Cathedral,

the Church of Notre Dame de Lourdes will tend its flock

until the spit of the weld and its consequence of fire,

to descend thereupon to the ash of its own affirmation:
 
"for dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return."

  Burned by fire, 5/11/1982 / Fall River
   

-elegy for a third-bagger-

When they told me Frankie Texiera

Died from his heart attack

Reclined in his La-Z-Boy,— 

Belly curved like a watermelon

Cable-guide tucked

Between simulated leathers,
Remote at the ready,

Wife admonishing from the kitchen

“Jesus Christ Frankie! Lower the damn thing!”—

Kids on their own, lives of their own,

His open mouth too wide for sleep,

His eyelids dropped
Like lazy cracks at permanent rest

Cutting the light. Texiera at third

Fourth in the order

Clean-up in the order, pantomiming
The sweep of the tag, the art of the tag,

The backyard stands at capacity crowds
At the foot of the smokestacks of the Pepperell
Mills, near the park near the church,

Sweeping the tag through the dirt of the yard

To the edge of a lid, over and over.

Over and over..

                               Quequechan

-quequechan / the early years

I can see the house

where the inside of the world is;

plaster laid for its gaudy dresses, its wallpaper

unfurled, decorated like a prom on the cheap.

the core is hot with inhabitants who

allow the air to settle in the evening,

a reprieve from the daytime racket, but not as sweet.

in the morning, everyone gets-up at the same time

to begin their rites of passage through the day,

the parakeet, the cat, the parents and grandparents,

the kids, with the egg man knocking hard at the door.

from here I can go anyplace, but I'll go down to the river.

I'll go down to the river where

the housing projects shelter the dark-haired

Azorean beauties, bright-eyed, and olive-skinned,

who fabricate stories as if the poets advised them

in the faces of fathers as stern as their power-loom machinery.

my young blood is all it takes for a walk to the entry,

a strong inside-arched foot to the kickstand, a grip

of the handlebars, a roll of three bumps down the stairs

of the entry and a westward heading toward the river.

pedaling fast, looking back from the saddle I can see

the house where the inside of the world is growing smaller

and smaller..

                 

-Frank the Cobbler-

Distance sank like stone

In funeral hues and marched 

Across your face like a terrible army.

Uncle,

Your shoemakers' heart
Is hardened in icy stasis
At the influence of cruel

Chemistry.

                                                    

I'm a stranger 
To this festival of permanence.

Your pale
Wife grieves.
Your young
Daughters weep.

Your son has no interest in the business.

The bright

Clutch of flowers cling and pour

Above the hand-scribed note:

With Love, 

William, Anne and Family.

                                 Fall River

                      

-the first movements of the World-

In the bending 

Meadow a strong 

Stone is changing its 

Shape

And from the granite's wall

Between two stones  

Weed springs 

Through to light.

From the blackface
Fireballs of gas with dust in them 

Fall

And in the boiling 
The old stars are dancing

With their young.

They venture outward
Taking what they need.

In the beginning

The Earth is moved to beautify itself
With life on its world.

Now it’s all
This.

                            

                                             

-Big crowd at the "Save-a Lot"-

The weather has broken into sunlight

The last few days.

Outside temperature in the low 60s.

Early last week, two feet of snow.

Everything changes when the weather breaks.

“You believe this weather”?

The people say.

“You believe this weather”?

Say all the people.

I’ve been convinced by science,

And by the Service Department folks at “Pleasant Hyundai”

(my Hyundai dealership on Pleasant Street)

That salt is a corrosive element to metal.

It doesn’t seem right, but I’m convinced.

Salt, once innocent enough.

“Pass the salt, dear”.
Now it eats cars.

With the weather breaking,

I’ll go to the "Save-a-Lot" because

I need a new chamois cloth because 

The one in the trunk,

Inside the compartment with the alloy

Wheel cleaner, has seen its better wipes;

More holes than last year

And covered with grease spots

Not worth laundering.

Anyway, that kind of grease doesn’t

Just go away;

It simply moves to another location.

Mister mayor said: “We have the best

Snow removal equipment in south-
Eastern New England"!

Mister mayor moved the heavy snow from the road,

Plowing it into my car sitting at the entrance to the driveway.

Same snow. Different placement.

But it’s better now, now that the weather
Has broken to sunlight the last few days.

It's snazzy new Hyundai car washing time.
Time for a clean chamois cloth.

Big crowd at the "Save-a-Lot".
Big crowd.

-Columbus Park Requiem-

After the burial ceremony
We piled into "Chico" Johnson's '59 Ford
Fairlane 500 and went to Earnshaw’s.

The Diner was full but we waited.

An hour ago Albie's grandmother, Julia,
Wailed in grief at the grave
As the casket, strapped like a granite block
Was cranked into his hole of the earth.

“Albert! Don’t leave your mother!”

Such pale expressions draped in rare suits.

So we waited.
Some of us inside, standing

Where the cash register pinged for money,

The overflow in the crowded weatherway.

Nobody was driving drunk.

Nobody had a gun.

Nobody cracked under pressure.

It wasn’t a wild pitch.

He wasn’t brushed back.

Albie never crowded the plate.
Inshoot seemed to have a mind of its own

Fast on its way to the temple of his brain.

A middle booth
Separating the busy aisles
Opens up;
Is cleared of its tableware
And spare-change tips.

Shift-Hostess is leading the way.

She makes more money waiting tables

And she lets us know by her attitude.

Seven kids crowd in.

Seven wiseguys.

Seven ballplayers.
Breakfast is served all day.
But it’s the No.2,— the meatloaf plate
All around at the booth in the middle.
It was the meatloaf plate Albie always gravitated to
At Earnshaw's Diner.

                                        Quequechan

-Listen, men..

let’s remember everything;

things amounting to less than happiness.

let’s remember happiness and fulfillment;

the screeching screen-doors
springing to the entries and the outside of things.

let’s remember the moments

elasticized to the other end of our lifetimes;

remember the sounds of the playgrounds;

the seriousness of the ballparks.

let’s recall the permanence of one slow dance;

remember running fast to the fences,

climbing the chain-links to the other side.

let’s remember Saturday nights

and the flood of the girls, older than we were

passing in a wind, inches over the green linoleum.

let’s remember Sunday nights and the flood

of aromas from the kitchens and the women

who made them drift through the occupied

tenements.

let’s remember laying awake in our beds

agonizing the afternoon conversation which came
to end something we thought would never end.

let’s remember all of it.
listen, men;—

let’s remember everything.

                                          3/6/12

-of 4 Sea Interludes from Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes- 

1.

Lento-

Dawn peels Earth-black back from even-

tide, spinning a skirt of light to shimmering seas—

and the interludes,  

born of these measurements

find their way forward from this entry. 

2.

Allegro-

It opens to a Sunday morning’s affirmation— 

a glistening space through brass-

forward cadence and the interlude advances this formula

content in the peacekeeping elements of its atmosphere.

3.

Andante-

Nightfall, and from the face-plate of the moon,

music whispers as through a bellow's breath—  contracting, 

halting and expanding, quietly resolving.

4.

Presto con fuoco

The storm builds convincingly increasing its dynamic. 

Here, music strikes outwardly in performance where
violently descending octaves in recurring fierceness

close the 4 Sea Interludes.

 Leonard Bernstein: "The Final Concert"

 Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood, 8.19.90