-Britten, and a gathering of my senses-

May, 2014

1.

last night I calculated the risks, and I've concluded this morning

that my chances of being bumped-off by cause of collision on route 6 east

over Memorial Day weekend decrease significantly if I stay put.

––early birdsong from my station near the river will better serve me

than sounds of traumatized sheetmetal and injection-molded plastics

blistering by gasoline on fire.

–– so it’s Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, (Ah, the Impromptu!)

followed by something from the shelf.. and later, near lunchtime,

a leisurely walk to the never-say-die UltraMart, open 24/365, for a cold drink

and a pint of raspberry sherbet for the home freezer. ––so I'll stay put;

jot a few ideas down after the news,–– then decide on a poem-writer:

–– Hannah Sullivan's "Three Poems" which I started reading last Thursday

until she tied my brain in a knot.

I'll clear my head of the loopy news cycles and try again, later.

––for lunch, a grilled Swiss with vine tomato on seedless rye sounds about right.

2. and fini.

my head's revolving erratically around Britten's fierce Piano Concerto,

and like distant Pluto around the Sun,–– I'm wobbling like a drunk,

and I've bailed on Hannah Sullivan for the second time. –– mea culpa.

as to the late midday count on route 6 east I'd rather not know,–– but

I've decided to spring for lemon/lime as raspberry isn't available at the flickering,

silver-glistened, never-ending UltraMart!                

                   

-history of civilization-

Fall River —

the setting of the scene.— well,

that is

It molded me and my kind
within a hard landscape
close to the edge of water.

then the immovable 

architecture
clinging to the hill,
arches its back.

once, we were attached to our bikes
like appendages,—
that is, when they moved, we moved
weaving between the blood-

red tinctured granite of the sweltering
textile mills
approached at sunset,

down to the Housing Projects
slung horizontally
below the hill where
the old-world Portuguese fathers
cloistered
their burgeoning daughters,

passing fast beyond the mysterious
Pier 14 barroom
acting-out its secret moods behind its walls
sitting at the bowels of lower Bedford Street
beyond the perimeter
where we pedaled at risk and on our own.

that is, before the girls showed-up.

then in swift sequence
as in the discovery of new
sets of arms
and legs and lips and stars,
the girls were riding fast
along with us,

side-saddling the top-tubes.

history tells us
that because of them
slow dancing came into play
and I can't stress enough
the importance of that momentous
introduction.

so let this serve as the first
installment of the earliest known
place in time
which formed our beginnings,

where me and my kind came to occupy
a space of land at the cape of the water.

                                       Quequechan