-the puddles of April, 1950-

there were lots of puddles after the downpour,

but I’m drawn to this one.

it’s not as big as the one

in front of  "Cipollini's Macaroni Shop”

but it's bigger than the one

across from "LaCava’s Autobody Repair".

 

I’ve counted nine worthy puddles viewed

since the rain calmed in the early afternoon

after the late morning announcements.

it’s raining, but lightly,

and reflections are skewed due to pinging

raindrops adding a rippling effect to the images.

this is the puddle laying in front of the house: black as an ink-spot,

metal-scented, rainbow smeared in leaded gasoline spillover.

this is the puddle which lays inward enough that if I moved
my torso over it, I wondered: will the tenement house behind me be reflected

as slipping across a black hole's face, or sinking like an asbestos moon into it?

Fall River, April, 1950.

sure to say, I no longer have the inclination to do such things with puddles.

but, I can say this.  ("this" is to be read with a sliding pitch and refers to the poem)
and I can say that.  ("that" is to be read with a sliding pitch and refers to "I can say this")

Swansea, July, 2017

              

-a poet’s fast end to a slow meal-

February, 2009.

We're gathered there for the trimonthly lunch;
the large circular table designated: "No. 32 / Columbus Park".
It's a dizzying array, this sea in grey and age-spotted scalps,
ranging through the expansive banquet hall of the "Venus de Milo".

At the table, you’re receiving their offerings in good faith 

which will cause you to become responsible for them.

You remember the active interiors and the outside romance
with the others seated at "No. 32 / Columbus Park"
who've long ago moved on and can not help you in the here and now.

Somebody says: “wasn’t the ledge filled-in by then”?

You remember: the glazed and violet boy pulled from the water.

One, invokes the title of an old “Platters” tune calling it: “real music”.

Another, shows-off Florida in pictures, then California.
Says next year, “the Bahamas”!

Even the wallpaper on this side of the banquet hall is emblazoned
with false-looking palm trees and impossibly pink flamingos
standing knee-deep in a blue, sort-of water.

Everything is foreign, now.
But you want them with you forever, the loves of your early life.

You're cutting into prime rib, rejecting potato skins, choosing the vinaigrette,
harvesting the rarest of beauties out of everything left unsaid.

-A young poet's adventure in making it to the big time, dream-

Claudette Colbert Requiem

I reasoned there was a process to becoming famous,

but I didn’t know what it was. So I abandoned my oil paint-
splattered jeans in favor of slacks and sport jacket, grabbed my stuff

and headed to New York City, where I went in for one of those
Thursday night "Open Mic" offerings and once there, I sat

at a small, round, cocktail table for two with a little candle in the middle,
aflame inside a red, fish-netted goblet, showed my I.D., ordered a highball,
choked-down a long Pall Mall, fidgeted with my Zippo 
and was first to be called up by a funny M.C. wearing a tuxedo.

So I walked on stage and began reading my poems with, I must say,
surprising adroitness with only a hint of vocal quavering. 

I planned on reading six short poems, but only managed to read three,

each curiously received; curious, in that sounds of muffled discomfort
and outright hostility from the audience, mingled with a sprinkling
of apathetic applause.

The M.C. bounded back to the stage, patted me on the back

with a “Let’s give him a big hand, folks!.. He’s from up north”! 

I decided to stick around for awhile to listen to some other poets,

but the next guy just told some dirty jokes and a horrible story about his wife,

all the while praising the physical appearance of the audience.

I said: “Hey! what is this place”?

M.C. said: “It’s called a "Comedy Club", kid. You did good. Nobody laughed”.

In most dreams, the Express Bus home usually takes about three and a half hours.

                                                                             19(34) 19(65) 2016?

 -I went to Harvard-

I was accepted with some degree of hesitance

and a hefty amount of curiosity, but without debate.

No, not to make the grade, but to simply walk around the yard

in search of the hearts and minds of those holding academic

credentials and formal documents of enrollment.

Ahh! Look there!

Skipping down the granite steps of one of the great

university's libraries,–– the one where the rarest

known pigments in the world are housed, and attended to

like the ancient Chinese tenders of silkworms before the boiling,–– a young

woman is clutching a stack of books to her breast, and

ahh, yes! Her auburn hair lifts lightly in strands

of reddened earth-colors on the quick descent, –– graceful, tall,

5’9” or so, bundled in the cold March of Cambridge, passing into

and through the warm water vapor exhaled from her mouth, and look!

It dances behind her, spun by the backdraft,–– her young,

pliable brain infused with expansive information penned by others,–– 

and I know this because I went to Harvard, and there, in the knowledge

of my own experience with the passage of time, I instinctively murmured:

"And she, too, will grow old soon enough".

-With García Lorca in Fall River-

Federico García Lorca

Writes of seeing the green

Frock-coated lizard

(One drop of crocodile)

Meditating.

Then the eye greets the green-

Coated outfield

Across the street of my earliest house.

(One drop of planet)

Northward,

Along the tree-lined avenue

The great stone Victorian sits

Jewel-coated.

(One drop of tenement)

In that direction the eye sees.

In this direction the eye drinks.

(Two drops of journey)

With García Lorca in Fall River.

                                    

-the mirror-

the mirror

hits the spot

for the young with a quick

last glance on the run —

it serves the aging

morning-groomers

prepping before the fall.

the mirror

confuses the senses

of cats

and last week

the parakeet

flew into it with a dull

sickening thud as if

it'd had enough.

children often seem

puzzled by the mirror as

they neither appear to like

what they see nor dislike

what they see

and the blankness

of expression is instructive

as it goes that way

with me sometimes,—
one morning

presenting the articles of surrender,

another morning and onward with a warm

faucet-water splash to my face.

-Poetry with spatial accompaniment-

1.

It wasn't meant to accompany the poem, but

from behind the writing table music was playing

through the slick machinery:

Morton Feldman's: "Two Intermissions For Solo Piano".

The poem (not this one, but the one in question)

seemed to expand its meter committing itself to

Feldman's elasticity as if the keys

(of my MacBook, not Aki Takahashi's piano)
were destined to, well, fill-in-the-blanks.–– But

as it turned out it wasn’t very good.

(the poem, not the Feldman) 

The Feldman was pretty good.

2.

I like the pacing and spacial mobility of Morton Feldman.

He allows the listener time to...

leave the table and walk to the snack bar at the fading

of one chord and return to the wheelhouse of the poem
with a burger and fries and refreshing ice-cold Coca-Cola
in time for the start of the next chord.

                                                                

behavioral suggestions during my reading at the "Sons of Italy Hall"

feel free to walk around, to eat and drink,

to excuse yourselves and quick-step toward the door.

feel free to stay for the long haul to the benefit or the detriment

to posterity. feel free to wear lapel pins indicating your preferences.  

feel free to make yourselves available to ushers if bewildered by

certain passages or misguided adjectives. 

feel free to come-about from the effects left in the flotsam 

of God and Flag as presented by officials beforehand.

feel free to gossip amongst yourselves if bored to death or tears.

feel free to be enlightened, or to scream bloody hell while calling for my head!

the fluorescents will inhale to signal an end to it,

and the ritual of gathering your belongings to begin.

finito.

                   

-what's to do in '72? / an exposé in pre-cellular time-

to begin, walk inside. 

choose a stool at the counter, and sit on it.

make the necessary physical adjustments.

within a minute, say “Yes” to coffee.

pull the menu from the little nickel-plated rack

where the paper napkin dispenser also resides.
pull a napkin from the heavy dispenser.
use two hands and even then it won't be easy.

(of course it will tear. don't worry, it's an institutional flaw

now commonly accepted as inevitable) open the menu.
choose your breakfast from among the 20 available entries.

tell the waitress who writes things down, then slip

the riven, acetate-covered menu back into its slot.

the coffee's delivered in a thick, utilitarian mug.
create its personality with the specialties of cream and sugar.
take the first sip cautiously, followed quickly by a more

assertive second sip. fidget with the spoon

lying in repose upon the thin paper napkin;

"Geneviéve Odalisque" in stainless steel.
(this is how one considered things within the restless,
empty latitudes of pre-cellular space and time)

readjust yourself on the wobbling stool and

feel free to take another sip.–– look around.

there's nothing more to see. don't linger.

relax. what seems an eternity only seems that way.

avoid tapping your fingertips upon the counter,

more likely than not in a nonsensical beat.

consider those who might be trying to call.

consider them stagnating inside the twine

of wires dipping gracefully between their poles.

inside the diner the naked exposure of self is palpable.

swivel your stool, swivel your head, wish you were dead

and with your plate of breakfast slipped in front of you, eat.

                                          

-at another diner-

seating is at near capacity.

I'm lucky to find a stool at the counter that doesn't wobble,

but the stool's leatherette seat-cushion is torn

and the edge of the tear is sharp and unforgiving.

this happened in New Bedford, Massachusetts

where 19th century whalers went down to the sea in ships,

where the great sperms were hunted for the surrender

of their necessary oils,

and Inns, sitting low at the sides of narrow,
unpaved roads were called: “The Bucket of Blood”—

“A Stove Boat” and "The Widow's Watch”.

in the here now the stainless, gleaming
eateries are called the “Shawmut” and

“Angelo’s Orchid”—

where the meatloaf plate is

delicious with a huge scoop

of real mashed at the “Shawmut”

and “Angelo’s Orchid” whose

"New England Style ONLY!" clam chowder

is first-rate.

today I’m at the “Shawmut"

in the presence of men and women

eating hot food and drinking hot coffee

as if they had little time to finish

before returning to their responsibilities.

It might merely be an impression,

but I feel I'm treated with a common respect

granted for the sole act of entering, which
in diner-song is enough.

waitress smiles warmly with my approach.

grill-man nods a sweltering greeting in the quick.

stern-fisher, whose yellow slicker is stained, still,
with the grime of last month's haul, silently minds

to his plate, same as is done within the walls of his house.

the diner is quiet save for its mechanics,

and although people are talking, the sentences

they make are indiscernible. 

the menu's the size of a continent.

I order up, and to the counter girl it's no surprise.

It's the meatloaf plate.

I contort my expression with the first
sip of hot, strong coffee, the last of the pot.

in time, a heavy, utilitarian plate is placed in front of me

within the constricting confines of my station.

there are strangers all around me, and yet I feel at one

with my brethren at the "Shawmut" today.–– truth is,

I wouldn’t have lasted thirty seconds at “The Bucket of Blood.”

-Poem-guy: diagnose thyself-

as time advances in its cavalier attitude

and the chart's architecture
is drawn from appliance to appliance,

but the poem-guy has decided to

drive to the Cape today, up Provincetown,

the chart's instructions are first, to open the refrigerator door,

poke around in there and then,

rummage through the fruit bowl, fingering
between the apples and bananas
sitting on the kitchen table and then,

as the chart prescribes, a quick navigation should be performed
under the sink where the cleaning poisons are placed
with their handy spritzing nozzles and lastly,

to complete the self-diagnostics, the poem-guy is advised to:

check the big hook on the wall near the front door
where the car keys are hung in anticipation of another morning

and if they're hanging there, where they're supposed to be,
the chart's prognosis will probably conclude
that it's okay for the poem-guy to drive to the Cape today.

-Louie. the tough guy-

Luigi Mezzotesta was small of stature,

smaller than any of the other boys

at the Hugo A. Dubuque School,
smaller than more than half the girls.

Louie was a punk.

Louie was the Rico Bandello of the hallways.

Louie was like a small, mad dog

who doesn't realize the fierce significance of the doberman

and goes yap yap yap yap yap yap yapping 

directly into the snout of the disbelieving pinscher.

the after-school fistfight with Manny Mederios,

(last row at the back wall) lasted all but four seconds.

one punch and Louie's nose was swelling, blue and bloody.

Louie just laid there, propped-up by his elbows in the middle

of the dry, yellow meadow behind the billboards
staring into the blood-red tincture of semiconsciousness
exhibiting the blank expression of the dazed wildebeest

clamped at the neck by the jaws of the lioness on the savanna, which 

was altogether a fitting end of the day for Luigi Mezzotessta. the tough guy.

1952? 1951?

-the instruments-

now there’s birdsong and piano playing.

the early morning sparrow has found a natural hole
formed in the bark of the great sugar maple
just outside the window, street-side behind my working space,

and she's woven her nest of twigs and brush in there.

the sparrow is diligent in attending to
relentlessly pleading nestlings, and

there’s Debussy’s "12 Etudes", rarer than sparrows

shimmering the atmosphere of the interior.

now come the sounds of nestlings
pleading for a taste of the succulent earthworm;

of Claude Debussy's "Etudes", released from under

Mitsuko Uchida's fingertips and me, in attendance

during a light, cooling rain in the midst of yet another

miraculous moment in time.

 Swansea / late April

-occupied rooms-

1.
In one room, Gregory Corso is talking about

the Memphis of greek mythology.

In another, I'm talking about Memphis,

Tennessee.

but,

both led to a couple of poems

and I think most poem-writers will tell you

that sometimes just a word overheard said in anger,

or an act of love or hatred, or something of discomfort,––
or of a place referred to by others

or a misplaced hand,

could travel beyond themselves,

as in a dream sequence, or the sting of a hangnail,

almost anything
could move toward the act of poem-writing.

2.
you see, I’ve never caught a fish

outside the marketplace, where

the fresh-dressed silver-glistened bodies 
are laid in state in rows by type over beds of ice.

nor have I been shot at with malice of forethought,

nor have I otherwise yet suffered,––

but

I know of others who’ve suffered,

some in my own house,

none of whom, as I recall have been shot at,

or have caught fishes outside the tense marketplace,
but –– they've spoken of places and things and so on and so forth and

well, with this convolution at an end, that said –– there's poetry all the time.