-1017 Requiem.
 For the hot-ticket with a quick nod to Pablo's "Autumn Testament"
 and to the York Clan of the Valley of the Seven Forks, Kentucky. (inverted.)

They’ll never publish

My regional observations

Let alone my socks.

But then another morning

And I’m busy at something

Which might amount to nothing.

It’s in the setting of the scene;

The rapid activity of the tenements,

What the entries, the connectors to everything

Have in store for us while moving in or out.

The Schwinn bicycles leaned on the pea-

Green paint where the plaster

Split at its ribs through the still of the night.

Inside, the immediate space-heater,

The brown-metal Sun of our planet

Warmed and waited,— expanding, contracting

Measuring the pulse of the population through
Season's and weather.

It’s nearly impossible to tell of it

Without exuberance warping the realities. 

It’s been lived-through without peer review.
Nobody's left to leaf through the pages.

And the choice has been to liquidate

Much of the assets of the here and now.

There’s a time limit on moving forward.

But the same mantel clock shows up,

The worn armrests of the living room
Holding the stale ashtrays,

The slap-happy wallpaper, running water
In the two rooms reserved for faucets, the frantic
Sounds of living in that place and the lingering aromas.

The first floor was the bedrock.

The Carocelli family looked to my father

From their perch on the second floor;

The nightly inquiries drifting downward

From the narrow stairway to knock at his door.

("strange how those on top look up
  to those on the bottom")

Not that he had all the answers at hand.—

But then again, the egg-man delivered
First to us and to that extent

The eggs were fresher,— the shells

Dotted with straw and chicken-shit

Still warm from the morning’s coops.

So, sure.—
For him, I’ll at least leave 'em laughing.