woe is me

Istanbul, June, 2016

the latest terrorist bombing presents some problems.

prior to the bombing, the finalized poem just recently

out of draft status which addressed

a spate of bombings over recent months

was readied to be published, and damn it! now this.

I'll have to commit to largely altering the poem
if I decide for this latest bombing's inclusion because

it presents a new set of difficulties;

difficulties as to the dense syllabic count of its newly-

bombed airport, which can't be cobbled cohesively

within the established syntax of the completed poem,

which would necessitate an overhaul to its entire structure.

the alternative is to let it be, and wait it out for a bombing

better aligned with the syntax of the originally intended poem.

christ, the last bombing should've been enough to tap out a permanent

pathway to an exposé of certain terrorist activities, but now this! woe is me.

woe is me with the intrusion of this latest bombing into my creative life!

damn. damn it! woe is me! I say: woe is me!

-January intrada-

1.
twenty minutes awake.

ten minutes into sunup and

the rooms of the house accompany the stillness.

pausing to look outside across the landscape,

Schubert's Piano Quintet

introduces its palette of atmosphere
to the light of an overnight snowfall.

the kitchen microwave continues
wafting its noxious veil of fish

the morning after warming

a late-night snack of leftover haddock.

the microwave spun my pant for fish,––

that once sweet, moist captain’s cut,

the true catch-of-the-day from the stern-

trawler's nets of New Bedford, that salty, lamp-

oiled town of whale-hunters turned fish-nabbers,

to a rubberized, simply dead late-night snack. 

2.
when the roads clear,

when the Sun warms the pavement

I’ll drive to the beach,––

the great beach eastward where

the towering heathlands yield
their pounds of clay to relentless tides, where

only those who claim

a right of kinship dare show-up.

                                    

                                

                                      

                                

-The attendant / An April yard sale, Dartmouth, Massachusetts-

Articles less personal than those held back, 

belongings of her grandmother, are placed atop the dry-stone wall

facing the neighborhood's lightly-traveled road.

Backward, the yard opens quietly descending toward the Slocum River.

Items are neatly arranged by category 

in relationship to those placed adjacent to them.

TABLEWARE:— Linen. Silver. China. Glassware.

JEWELRY:— Rings. Necklaces. Bracelets. Broaches.

Within these categories individual items can seem to be as different

in application as plastics are to fragrances.

But common bonds between them have long been formed.

––The planets act this way.

A strand of pearls ranging from large as a cat's-eye to rest below the neck

to the small-as-a-pebble found at the clasp is examined by a newcomer to the wall,

running the strand through an open hand, questioning: "Are these pearls authenticated"?

––There's no necessity in tagging descriptions nor compulsion to address personal attachments as gatherers drizzle-in, each like a pinch of salt to an open wound.

––Storm clouds forming westward beyond the quiet Slocum keep conversations

to a minimum and maybe everything will come to an end with the rain.

              

                                          

-Be careful out there-

I liked Lipsky's post and I told him so

by utilizing the ubiquitous little blue "thumb's-up"

but I didn't like his follow-up

so I kept my mouth shut by keeping the thumb quiet.

Now Lipsky's out to get me

posting demands for an explanation

concerning my snub of his follow-up

and I'm trying to weasel-out of my digit's inaction
to Lipsky's active digital plane. 

Now Lipsky's publicly insinuating that it was me

dancing with "mutual friend" Antoine's wife last night

and he’s all-caps-curious as to why I purchased
certain combustible materials at "Smart-a-Lot" the other day
suggesting "somebody better investigate soon."

Lipsky's demanding an explanation as to why the little blue

thumb’s-up
       didn’t show-up
              on the follow-up.

the line: "somebody better investigate soon"

is nabbed from Bob Dylan's "Oxford Town"

-Well beyond the liner notes-

 Paraphrasing Francis Poulenc on the condition of Erik Satie's piano:

"When he died, the condition in which they found
his piano showed that he hardly ever made use of it".

That’s interesting,––– that someone

of such accomplishment, by-in-large
made little use of the singular instrument

of that accomplishment.

If that’s true.

It’s hard to believe.

I don’t believe it.

So what if Satie's piano appeared to be in pristine condition?

For the sake of addressing this question, we shouldn't
juxtapose his piano through the modus operandi of piano-
pounders like Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis.

Maybe Satie cleaned-up after playing,–––

meticulously polishing the grand's surface with a soft cloth,

brushing away the dust of his skin from the slender fissures of its keys.

Maybe Satie’s piano as reported by Poulenc upon his death

was a new piano and the time-worn instrument was rolled

into the apartment across the hall and given to the young lady

of modest means living there who longed to have a piano of her own.

That conjecture alone should at the least add another dimension

to any discussions pertaining to the condition of Satie's piano.
But why question the condition of Satie's piano in the first place?

Paraphrasing McCartney

on the criticism that it was too long:

 “It's great. It sold. It’s the bloody Beatle’s White Album.

   Shut the fook oop”.

-the little ones-

big dogs appear to enjoy

walking with their handlers

more than do little dogs.

big dogs trot along
aloof in their shining coats

and when they want to stop

it always seems okay with the people.

the people seem interested in what
big dogs are doing at these stops along the way.

little dogs are yanked by the neck

before they’ve had a chance

to complete the task at hand.

their little feet run in triple-time trying to keep up.

their leashes are short, giving little lead.

they’re out of breath.
their narrower tongues are drying out on the march.

the chubby pug openly annoys the doberman.

the people are perplexed at their constant anxieties.

this poem is an honorarium

to the walk-alone, stand-alone, run-alone house cat
now sleeping on the couch, as much as it is
an exposé on walking the stupid dog.

and yelping dogs wake the sleeping people

in the middle of the night, cats don't,––

unless they're fighting or making love.

a cat person. Swansea, present day.

-a nightmarish morning at Pauline’s house and the images in the leaves-

mid-evening at my aunt's house and in bed there, headboard at the window,
first floor but overlooking dusty Way Street and a few ill-tempered goats
short-chained in the sickly meadow, chewing on the meadow, eating it.

but these goats, they belonged to a neighbor of Aunt Pauline,
an old Portuguese man who kept road-roaming chickens as well as goats.
beyond the meadow approaching the junkyard but on this side of the fence,

stood a big tree with a full head of August leaves standing near the streetlight.

Inside and across the thickness of the leaves, images could be found

if one was so inclined as to find them and identify them.

from the open, narrow bedroom window, I began sifting through
the dense foliage with squinting eyes, drawing from the light
and shaded areas, mapping images in there,––

many, many images of Jesus in there, some of them upside-down,
scattered like candlepins at the "Walco Bowl-Away",–– so many it seemed
that I could bat a bushel of messiahs from the tree like so many sour apples
if I had the tenacity to escape Pauline's house and do such a thing.

I wanted to see Dagmar in the tree, or a horse, or Eisenhower.
but with heightened observation into the images in the leaves
I found what it was that would haunt me through the dark night ahead,––
the terrible face of the horrible maniac!
(looked a lot like Uncle Octavio, sharp, bald-headed and goo-goo eyed.)

In the morning, Aunt Pauline served-up a runny soft-boiled egg
spooned across a slice of tepid toast and a glass of warm milk with two
tablespoons of sticky molasses stirred in for my breakfast prolonging the nightmare.

-Shake, Rattle 'n Roll-

1.

The Parkinson’s was degenerative, causing havoc

To Uncle Armand’s central nervous system.

As his body shook involuntarily

Armand displayed a slight, although continual,

And some might say, disturbing smile across his mouth;

Disturbing because his eyes weren't smiling.
Above the grin, Armand had the eyes of a Hollywood
B-movie slasher.

I was too young to feel anything

Beyond the pressing desire to leave the house ––

To venture outside, out there,—
Crossing the street to the park, joining
The ranks of my own kind.

These were the weekly visits
To the gallery of Armand's exhibition
Inside my father's house at 1017 Bedford.
Alma, Armand's wife, would assist his movements,
Plopping him on the couch in front of the television.

It was as if the bell for recess rang for Alma,
The time for her to walk freely, to converse
With others from room to room, –– to laugh a little.
  
There was no need to warm it up because
At our house the television was always
Tuned-in and warmed to perfection.
Our couch was the mother-load for Auntie Alma.

2.
There’s a lot of information

To sort through when the day begins.
If diligence is applied a foundation may develop.

But with Armand I don't recall much of anything

Save his involuntary presence, those eyes and
That mysterious smile cutting across his jittering face,
A smile not even the undertaker could wipe away.

3.
Now at the stream of stories to be told
Comes this violation into Uncle Armand's nothingness.

But I raise my early morning cup to say herein:
Alma, this one's for you.

Quequechan, c. 1951 / 1953
                                                 

-detergent-

after the rapid-fire,

the massacre,

the blood-spiller

shall lay down his arms,

commit to a moment-of-silence

for then shall he be absolved.

congregant, senator, priest,
celebrity commentator,
jokester, the nodding electorate,

couch potato, poem-writer, gunslinger,

the representer of the house, the sellers
and advocate defenders

of provisions for the common defense

at 30 rounds per 30 seconds
shall commit to,
at the stroke of the gavel,

a moment-of-silence
for then shall they be absolved.

“et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis”

-The game through water-

At the fountainhead,–– the bubbler

behind the backstop, the water
is a clear fall unimpeded by industry.

After the girls had their drink, the sandlotter

moves in to peer through the falling water

to where the game is playing-out, a spectator

to what baseball might look like when played

on the home field of another planet.

           
Columbus Park, the early years.

-Audrey Hepburn in Fall River-


In the morning I'll wake her gently,

Nudging her shoulder.

She complains
By moaning sweetly, burying her head
Deeply under the top sheets.

Later:
I fasten my cufflinks and adjust
The silk and linen material of a black-tie affair,
Bypassing the frayed crew-neck sweater and faded
Corduroys reflected in the mirror.

A night on the town at the movies and then, after the comic

Stress-test of "Charade" screened at the "Bijou",
We'll sup across the street at "China Royal"
Over chow mien sandwiches and icy orangeade.

Earlier:
Audrey Hepburn prepares herself at the mirror
As if she finds it necessary to do such a thing

And now

She tells me

She’s leaving in the morning
To cradle an infant child in her arms,
Deep in the middle of dry Ethiopia, so that

The child

Will die in someone’s arms instead ––

And maybe it's true, but I think
I asked her:  "So, we goin' to China Royal, or what"?

-with the songbird on Bannister's Wharf-

with the young woman much to my liking,

a summer-dense outdoor restaurant

on the active wharf where the big boats tie-up––

the glass-glistening hulls of the fuel-powered yachts,

the wood-hulled jib-rigged, the square and gaff-rigged beauties,

a bright Newport night of starlight and brushed incandescence,––

the sweltering waitresses lured there from France
and Denmark, from Italy, Germany, Israel and Australia,

from the African Continent, they've come here, and the southern Americas,
the Barbary Coast, from the southend and the north end of Fall River, they've come
and from whale-hearted New Bedford, gliding table to table, as gracefully
as the great breeching sperms, as swift as the shuttles through the thread
of the clacking power looms, and too, from Antarctica, the West Indies,
the deep Sargasso and the breathless air of the Horse Latitudes,–– from the east-side
of Providence, (Gina, spit that gum out!) and the far-side of the Moon,

from Mecca, from the Mount of Olives, and, well, from who the hell knows where,––

the New Word, the Old World, the Otherworld, they've come to this place speaking

broken English which, when delivered with convincing attitude, garners the fat tip

at each table's turn; it's here they've come, here to this bustling port-of-call where

I say to the lovely, olive-throated jazz singer:

"let’s eat and drink and feel at one with the touch of saltwater at our skin.

let's become as barnacles clinging to the keel of this place, take-in
the never ending caw of the gulls, the great romance in the towering mast-headers,
and inhale the mossy perfume of the pylons and then, and then, my lovely one,

let's walk southward along the wharf in the direction of the Americas, to another

place like this to see and feel and do the astonishing same things!"   

                                                                       

-from out-of-the-blue to someplace else-

1.
visiting friends in Manhattan

(East 53rd street) within sight of the tall, white building

with the strange 45 degree angled top where solar panels
were to be installed, except the angle was the wrong angle,

I noticed, particularly in the early evening when people

were vacating the office buildings, the vehicular horns,

not only of taxicabs, but also personal cars, and

business trucks, (trucks with short-enough wheelbases

to be allowed on the streets) formed an urban cacophony of sound,

were never complained of as “noise” or "unnatural disturbances,"

but were engaged in never-ending one-way grievances with

the aggrieved's intended recipient not paying the slightest

degree of attention, being busy blowing his own horn at another guy.

2.
on a recent late afternoon, months after the horn stylings of East 53rd street

as I sat ensconced within the bucolic nature of South Swansea, the short

burst of a horn delivered from a snazzy late-model Range Rover cruising

down the quiet tree-lined road of homes with nicely mowed frontage,

in neighborly recognition of the casual motorist to the hedge trimming perfectionist,

got me to thinking...

                                                      

-the source of light on the water-

Requiem for Mihaela Ursuleasa

1.

It begins well enough
in the light of early morning
looking out across the river,

arranging the most common of things,

tuning-in to the young concert pianist
keying-in Alberto Ginastera.

(It's true I have 59 friends, 40 of whom

won’t show-up for the memorial service.

they don’t know how tall I am,

the distance from my hat to my history,

my ass from my elbow, the last
unsettling count of my natural teeth

or what it was that caused me to come to this place)

but she wakes-up in Vienna,

walks a few steps toward the instrument

and drops dead at 33 from a pathological finding:

"...due to intracerebral commotion.”

which

mad plan of God is this?

2.

It begins well enough in the light of early morning

getting the common stuff ready.

first there’s the light source and then there's the river.

                                             August 2, 2012

-The ringside blues-

1.

The hometown geography ranges north to south, its length overall,

more-so than east to west which serves as the beam of the city's geophysical

placement on the continent.

––Flashy poetics aside, it's a hard-knuckled town.

It's not the lightning bantamweight stinging jabs to the head in the middle of the ring,

but more the heavyweight, the bloodied bruiser crouching flat-footed on the ropes,

waiting for just the right time to throw the right cross in time to stop the bleeding.

––It's a tough, indelicate, indelible place, paid for its labors by hand delivered check

at their stations, and forgiven of its sins at the end of the week.

––Near gone to history are the Portuguese widows, black-shawled in never-ending mourning,–– but the spar of light still strengthens the eye; sweeps from east to west

at the horizons.

2.

Across the street, the raspy-throated Bolognese is constantly yapping.

When I close my eyes it sounds like an improvised jazz riff for high reed instrument

as if composed by Luigi Nono.

––Dog or man within their rightful place lean-in to be heard.

3.

At the quickstep from this morning's reading, the first stanza of a short poem,–– 

Kerouac tells us:

––"someday you'll be lying

there in a nice trance

and suddenly a hot

soapy brush will be

applied to your face

—it'll be unwelcome

—someday the

undertaker will shave you.."

 

-last stop, 168th-

I’m up to my adam’s apple

in Kerouac's "Mexico City Blues"      what with those jazzy 

riffs and scatterings,     the lost parts settling

to the wayside by the time of closing

the 168th Chorus:   “—Looking over your shoulder
                                      At the beautiful maidens––"
and what’s the harm

to sneak-a-peek inside for the number

of the final Chorus  (242nd)  when you’ve dropped-out

at 168?

but reading Mexico City Blues, for me,

is like wandering through a field of glassies, sounds

like saltwater retreating over stones, lazy-jazzy, but looks

like adjusting the dippy vertical-hold for the Friday Night Fights.

and not everybody's starving hysterical naked, like Ginsberg,

but Mexico City Blues is, ––– is like

I'm stuck in the middle of the Himalayas, here.  

now, phrase-processing is a function
I often approach from a careful distance, but

closing the 1st Chorus with "Mersion of Missy"

cracks me up and to be fair, I linger as much as I read, but

senses are enhanced and seem to be kicking-in and that's good enough.


                                                                      Fall River, 3/12/10