-from the first step-

the great Chilean poet lingered
inside the tool-shops where hardware

exposed itself openly for consideration; the skilled

walls displaying the naked strength of metal.

In the here and now, implements of the trade

are packaged for sale in snazzy blister-packs

dressed-up for immediate recognition.

the bakeries exist

on the slower side of commerce,

where the scent of confections,

of flower and water roam free of fierceness.

even the ovens take-on the scent

of the sweet, the pliable of form.

the pane crusts, warm and earth-colored,

linger like the poet lingered at the altar of iron,
at the mouth of their singular languages,–

the abrupt attack in the metal of tools,
the organic activity of sugars, the stringent salts,

the moistness of the cooling pane,

the common sense in the fierceness of crowbars,

from the anvil through the distance to the oven's peel,

from the Chilean's atmosphere of nickel and copper,

to the crusts of the pane belly-up on the shelves, waiting
across the street from the third base line ready for the tables,––
all of it and more and now even this.

-This Day-

I woke-up considering

The foolishness of not smoking cigarettes,

Soaped-away the curious scent from my fingers

And looking into the mirror

Surrendered to an aging landscape.

In the News, a Congressman 

From Brooklyn and Queens, New York,

Is reported sticking his penis into his cellphone,

Transporting the image to a less than receptive young woman.

  

This morning, that's the News.

Bathroom faucets produce a fierce

Water which I splash to my face, as if water

Was on a mission of immediate redemption.

Aerosol shaving cream lubricates my skin,

And anticipating an early encore to yesterday's performance,

I assume the Congressman from Brooklyn and Queens, New York,

Might have lubed-up, too.

 June, 2011 / Fall River 

   

-Road starts somewhere-

The potato has blind eyes

a parched skin

the scent of water trapped inside it

and laboring the few

crooked furrows behind his house, 

my great grandfather

from the northern provinces

pulled them out of the earth by hand,

sacked them and sold them in the central

marketplace in the town of Lucca.

In her city, my mother, his granddaughter,

had the hands of fine linen, an after-

scent of bleach and she pulled potatoes

from the bins of Maretti’s market

corner of Bedford and Wall,

third-base side of the park,

south-end face of the church,

walked them home in their dusty

brown-paper bags,

first-base side of the park

across the street from the gas station where

the scent of leaded gasoline danced

with the scent of simmering tomato sauce

inside the first-floor tenement where

she peeled them in the kitchen sink

under running water with the blade to thumb,
the cascading peels rolling to their ends,—

washed them-up, sectioned them

first in halves then in quarters

and boiled them in either one of two pots

deep enough to require the strength of handles

paired at their sides;

the same deep pots used to cook spaghetti,

to humidify the air atop the space-heater in winter;

the same deep pots her husband, my father,

removed from the gas-stove burners, transporting

bathwater to the tub and I’m closer to home

on the road from where it was that I began.

                                                  Quequechan

Remembering me. (The sitcom)

What'll they’ll say when I’m as dead as the route 6 opossum?

There's a bag for both of us, but the opossum's bag'll be tied in a knot.

Mine'll have a snazzy zipper –– and a heavier mil.

There’s nothing either of us can do when entering the realm

of the "Omnipotent Equalizer" where requiems are played

on an endless loop, although the opossum makes more sense when it's dead.

At the remembrance the women will whisper:

Good bunter, they'll say.

Fast up the first base line, they'll mostly agree. 

Couldn’t hit for shit, she might add.

Cue the canned laughter.

Hell-of-a slow dancer, though, she'll sigh.

Cue the canned murmuring, third pew center

from the altar's polished rail.

That's if they show-up at all.

I used to like the scent of burning incense wafting from

the rocking thurible serving at the altar of the Benediction.

I've driven a fast car passing the opossum laid waste on the

tarmac of the open road.–– I've fathered one child.

That's 20 short of the common opossum, so say the women.

Cue the canned laughter. Curtain, and houselights.

11 / 4 / 1918


So this morning

I’m reminded of

Wilfred Owen which

Leads me directly to

Benjamin Britten.

So if any music-makers

Out there have a few minutes
Which can be set aside
Before beginning those pesky requirements

Why not consider penning a tune set to:

The “Freddy Requiem”?

-when nothing much is happening-

walking into a room

I’d long ago dedicated

to be “the spare room”

which has become over time
a gallery of objects,
agonizing in a purgatory of plastics
and metals, things I presume

I might resurrect someday, like

the electrical apparatus which

no longer works,— well, it works,

but makes a high-pitched 

sound when it’s plugged in

until the internal rotating mechanism
gains momentum, then it smokes.

now I see the cat perched on the sill

of an open but screened window

looking out at a squirrel, plucking
and munching on currant-berries of the bush.

there’s nothing fluid in the motion

of squirrels going about their daily procedures,
those jerky moment-to-moment instincts of survival.

but the cat is frozen in its observation

much like her sleek and powerful cousins of the savanna

occupied in the detailed study of antelope, which reminds me

I've got a steak in the fridge.

so I'll find my way to the kitchen,
get the frypan out, the muscular
cast-iron beauty, sixty years if it's a week,

drizzle of virgin olive oil, pan to the burner's low, blue flame,

the sirloin strip seared to black with sautéed onions
and maybe a green vegetable, french-cut on the side,
a sensible meal, then I’ll type-out the masterpiece

running around my brain the last couple of hours.

    

-the "Nicotine Tree"
 San Marcos Requiem-

1.
He said:  "Let’s meet at the Nicotine Tree

And smoke a cigarette together".

At the tree she told him: "Tap the soft-
Pack hard to the heel of your palm.

Tamp the loose tobacco down".

They smoked at the trunk of the ancient tree,
The tree of folklore and countless suspensions,

By the street between two large buildings between the opening bells.

There, the studious and incorrigible,

Those slated for the great Universities

Along with those to be deposited to the Factories

And Filling Stations, spilled into the street
Like wrapped confections

Tumbling from opposing containers, where

The last of the spent-blue smoke is hung at her mouth.

He said: "Let’s go.

It's time to snuff our smokes
And enter the darkness inside their world".

2.
At the fabled tree, rooted near the street now drained of life
Between two buildings between the closing bells

She told him: "No.

Let’s be bold my love, and smoke another one".



                             

                           

                                           

-the soda-jerk at the drug store and so on-

I know of a soda fountain at the Oak Grove Pharmacy
on the corner of Bedford Street

and the Avenue for which it is named.

there, you can order hot

fudge sundays, banana splits,

malts and lime-rickeys.

when the pills are ready, the pharmacist

will call out whatever name is on the prescription.
It's a long walk from the counter to where
the pharmacist stands on-high, exposing only
his shoulders to his head, and he shouts out the names
of the sick who need their pills with authority. 

the soda-jerk behind the counter is an older kid we know
because his sister is a grade school friend of my sister.

out the front window is the street where we live.

across the street, the girl I like lives in the big grey

tenement house, third floor, with a washing machine on the piazza.

out there, the people are walking by.

men with tilted hats on their heads,
women with pocketbooks clutched under their armpits.

the cars parked on the street look heavy,

dressed in gleaming metals, fenders like dirigibles. 

new-styled "panoramic" windshields distort the landscape.

the school we go to is straight up the avenue towards the cemetery.
K through 6.

inside the drug store's soda fountain area, music is played

through portable transistor radios lying on their backs on the counter.

the music is convincing but constricted, circulating
inside the walls of the little, plastic transistors.
it's only the restlessness of early rock n' roll which finds its way out.

my older sister is with me, and my younger brother.

the pills are for our grandfather,

our mother’s father who has sugar diabetes.

I saw a black growth on the side of the little

toe of his left foot one night as his wife, our grandmother,

our mother’s mother, soaked and patted his foot in a shallow

basin on the floor of the parlor in front of the television.

later in the month his foot was amputated in Boston.

later in the year his sight began to fail and he died soon after.

I thought he'd be buried in the backyard

near the grapevine he cultivated and meticulously tended,––
laid to rest back there with the growing list of cats and parakeets,

but they packed him off to the funeral home

just beyond Marzilli's Bakery across the street
from DeSpirito Brothers barbershop.

but before all of that, the soda-jerk
is serving his paying customers.

my sister, my brother and me are spinning on our stools
at the slurping counter waiting for our grandfather's pills.

                                                                Quequechan