-Stop. Look. Listen.-

Requiem for the liquor salesman on the road

Hit by the train

The Doppler Shift won’t matter.

But a slow death’s like the funeral knell

With the Doppler in effect.

It opens with its soft alarm, then

Crescendo—

And it’s too late as sound collapses.

The tree

Falls and you aren't in the woods to hear it.

The star

You’re looking at isn’t really there.

You don’t

Hear the one that’s got your name on it.

It’s the last

Chesterfield that killed you.

                                                      

  

-intermezzo-

The child was born to grow

Within two enclosures.

Both would come to him at near the same time.

This is before he discovered the outside world

And what it could do with its open-ended

Possibilities.

The schoolroom introduced the first of strangers
More probable to connect than passersby;

Requirements in posture and clothing;

A fixed order of personality and stringent

Attitudes of community apart from those

Accustomed to while inside his active house,

With its racket, its eclectic populace
And its ever-present scent of potted water
Heating atop the burners.

The puzzle of life was pieced together
With larger fragments here,

Assembled by the simple physical movement

From room to room,— the narrow hallways

Linking them with warm introductions

And from the outside entryway's evening mystique.

He learned what there was to know,
Where everything was,
What to do inside each room

And that the secrets of life were kept
Behind the closed dresser drawers.

Each passageway was naturally mapped-out

And he exhibited an expertise in negotiating
The crazy geography.

The closed-form topography of his school-desk
Was Plutonian, as cold and as distant.

He was left-handed in the world of right-

Handedness.
He smudged the watery ink
As his hand moved to do its letters across the page.

His grandmother believed the left hand
Was that of the Devil’s making.

Inside the buttoned-up classroom, her conclusion
Was daily justified.

The electric bells
Of school announcements
Rang sharply
Against the smoother grain
Of the female voice
Calling his name
At the bottom of the stairs
From the entry at the open screen-door
To the waiting supper tables
Of the kitchen to his active house.

Now,— let’s begin.

1.

-what sweet song-

had rainfall swept

the city streets before 

the fleeting moment froze

within your breast 

when last the burning

bullet struck to pierce your heart––

or soft breeze lingered

through an open space to softly 

cool your olive skin. but—

what sweet song, Neda,

left your mouth to yield 

such blood? 

and so they tell you: "don't be afraid.

Neda, don't be afraid".

06/20/09

Ray / a self portrait of sorts (with compliments to Bill Saluga)

Call him

Procrastinator to the next step

Part-time rationalizer

Apprentice to the one who makes the thing.

Call him

Student of the daily recollected 

Jury-rigger

Know-it-all

The one who passed the test for certification.

Call him

Novice

Small Potatoes

Intruder into the lives of those
Who've chosen to remain anonymous. 

Call him

Star-gazer

Ringsider

Striker of the set

Amateur poet of the after-living.

Chisel into his headstone:

"Here lies

The lone assembler of the fragments to his singular life."

Now,—  you can call him Ray

Or you can call him Jay

But-cha doesn’t hasta call him

Know-it-all.

                            

-the two wheel rag-

to lubricate the chain

turn the bike upside down

remove the guard

lube the bearings at the hub

then lightly oil the chain's links

while spinning the back wheel

fast by the pedal.

this spinning is unnecessary

but fun to do, a tactile experience

impressing the girls

as a clever procedure.

we didn’t react to their interest

but we knew about bikes.

we knew about exposure.

the girls knew about attitude

and striking distance.

these natural attributes

would serve them well.

the boys will soon grow out of date.

they’ll have fallen behind

and the girls will have waited long enough.

that’s when they introduce themselves.

that’s what's happened, boy.

that’s what's happened, young man.

that’s what’s happened, old-timer.

                                     

-watching the airplanes come and go-

I went to the airport

to take off my shoes

to take off my socks.
they passed a beeping wand
upward then downward
across the opening between
the legs of my pants then squeezed

the material at the buttocks

like a bathtub ducky.

no squeaks.

no findings.

they opened my mouth

and poked-around

with the implement

of their fingers
draped in surgical gloves.

they mussed-up my hair

then spread my whatchamacallit

looking deeply into the dark situation.

now,—  some of you

may have moved-on from

Osama bin Laden.

but he still pisses me off.

                          

  

-across the street from the ESSO station-

my old house is dressed in vinyl.

It was dressed in aluminum before that

after it was dressed in wood.

It’s during the age of wood where I showed up.

now when I drive by on my way over the river,

across the big bridge which

wasn’t there during the time of wood,

when gasoline wasn’t sissified by the extraction
of its lead and doctors

smoked cigarettes during the examinations,

I see lots of vinyl.— pea green. sky blue.

even sunlight can’t help it.

here, the entries have entrances,—

little structures of their own leading to them.

God’s been vaporized

and I mean that in the good sense.

I didn’t think of God as vapor, in the time of wood.

backstops have been moved further from the plate,—

in my case, further toward Wall Street

beyond the third base line where a friend
lived with his family.

he was a good shortstop, a mariner later in life
and later still, dead of a fat-constricted heart.

four or five mills have burned to the ground

and four churches, too.

as I've told you, during the age of wood,
at the bubbler beyond the backstop, the water was a clear fall.

and I've said: one could see through the water to the other side

where the game would play-out— 

and I've imagined

it might have been the way baseball would be seen when played on another planet.

and that imagery could never be experienced in the age of vinyl.

  

-Waiting on the Troubadour-

I've chosen the audaciousness

Of personal preference

Over those whose performances

Are more skilled than my own;

Urlicht over Des Knaben Wunderhorn;

The tenacity of Rockland over fractured Airplane Dreams.

But two weeks in––

And still, nothing.

Then on the first day of the third week,

The day God seemed to like above the others

Late afternoon

Under the mailbox

In the dirt

Nearing mud

Behind the dense

Neck-high honeysuckle

On the south-

Side of the house where

The driveway winds to the road,

A small package sealed

But carelessly delivered,

Dropped down

Through a night of light

But steady rain

Is retrieved—

Is addressed to me

Under shrink-wrap cover

Shielded from the elements,
Is carried inside, is opened,
Is engaged and begins

As drenched as the water

With "Duquesne Whistle."

                             

-Steppin' out-

–––Let’s meet at the Grand Opera Diner;

We'll order from the menu's elegant penmanship,

Dressed appropriately at our seats.

–––At the diner down by the river,

The waitress calls me “Honey”

And I'll order the meatloaf plate, double-up on the mashed.

–––The guy at the steamer's hard-working

And meatloaf is laid-out one thick slice

Upon the heavy utilitarian plate.

At the diner down by the river,

One thick slice is the distance the stomach can run.

–––Let’s meet at the Grand Opera Diner;

Order from the elegant cursive gracing its page.

–––At the diner down by the river, the menu

Is slipped inside a sleeve of stiff, yellowing acetate.

It's been this way since the diner rose-up in stainless

Steel at the banks of the Taunton.

–––Let’s meet at the Grand Opera Diner.

The light is softly articulated.

Everything seems to be anticipated.

Let's meet at the Grand Opera Diner.

–––The diner down by the river is cranky.

The light slaps with a harsh fluorescence. 

Nickel-plated jukes at the walls of its naugahyde
Booths offer Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino,

And the Everly Brothers harmonizing a tough-strung "Bird Dog."

–––Let’s meet at the Grand Opera Diner;

order from the menu's elegant penmanship:

–––"I'll  have the Mezzo, Coloratura on the side, and...

Easy on the Vibrato."