-lone wolf-

again, the poem-writer sounds-off

on the singular guy who smoked

a certain brand of cigarettes when another brand

won him over until the brand that settled-in for keeps

applied its own cunning fatality ––

the man behind the wheel

of the working Buick,

trench-coat buttoned-up,

frontcloth to the blue pencil neck-tie
clipped in a plating of gold,

the material of the road,

ready to do business from the top down

from the hand out

from the crew-cut 

capped by the pliable, all day fedora

(brim like a breaking wave) ––

the guy who carried the Company's promotions
from the outside to the inside

from the crowded displays of the trunk,––
the stand-alone bathing beauty cutouts, romanticizing
beer with a smile, the neon things glowing,  
give-a-way art which hawks by brand so he didn't have to,

into the bars and restaurants from Buzzard's Bay to Orleans.

(the stagnant atmosphere of last night's beer joints
cling to his clothes, a perennial scent) 

again, the poem-writer sounds-off about the guy
who fixed things after supper,

things he didn't know how to fix,— the original

jury-rigger, knob-twister, gluer, pipe-knocker,

one wrench, one hammer, one slot-head will do,
one phillips-head held in reserve just in case,
the guy who smacked with an open hand

the broadside of anything not functioning properly,

who approached the night's phosphorescent static like a mad scientist
for the sake of better reception inside the frantic laboratory of his house.

yeah, that guy.

I had me one.

                                               Quequechan