-squeeze me. I’m Italian-

prelude:

I was young, but old enough

to cross the street on my own,

when I’d be sent walking with cash in hand

to Marzilli’s Bakery for two "Italian" breads.

the path went this way:

leave the house crossing Bedford at Whitey’s Esso Station,

pivot left, crossing Stinziano and walk the length

of Columbus Park

from the right field corner, passing the infield

from first base to home plate to the backstop

and the water "bubbler" behind the backstop at Bedford and Wall.

landmark!

cross Wall street at the bubbler, a direct shot

to Marzilli’s door and step into paradise.

the oblong beauties were escorted from three, large brick ovens
carried on wide wooden peels with long handles

coated from the flour sprinkled from Marzilli’s hands, Maestro! and shoveled onto
waiting wire shelves where they'd rest, cooling their young, hot temperament.

when cooled enough to carry, they’d be bagged in paper,

always one loaf per bag, the fat, rounded noses
of the pane exposed as if testing the open air for the first time.

I’d follow my tracks back home, cradling the loaves
in my arms as one would carry infant twins,

with the scent of their warmth circulating around me.

the incident:

some time before a Bedford crossing on my own was authorized, 
while the family was sitting in the parlor watching television,
I grabbed a fresh loaf from the kitchen counter before supper,
the loaf still warm from the ovens and instinctively began squeezing it,––

gently at first, but enough to crackle the sand-colored crust covering the warm,
moist dough, then increasing thumb pressure with every crackle

'till the crust crumbled in my palms, releasing the sweetness within the loaf's belly.

I found myself incapable of stopping, pressing my thumbs for the want
of its moistness, well beyond the point of no return.

the addiction:

the tactile sensation was overpowering, the crust, like a communion wafer  
at my thumbs, its crumbs falling at my feet, the aroma released
into the kitchen's atmosphere of tomato paste, garlic, olive oil and nicotine.

I squeezed the heaven out of the molten, crackling loaf,

Its oblong shape redefined to sustenance from the gods.
it was a sweet death.

the closing in the kitchen:

(when confronted, deny everything)

"It was like this when I came home!
 Ya gonna get another one?
 I don’t know what happened"!

and then I began to feast upon the softness of the belly of the pane.

-heading westward away from water-

quite a journey.

my poke is not heavy

with burdensome uselessness.

let’s see here:  sheathed, open-blade knife,

coffee, salt-pork, a nice rip in day-old, emergency  
pharmaceuticals, beans, tobacco, papers and matches.

three nips of ol' "red eye".

canteen’s full-up.

got me a good horse.
got my eyes peeled.

the journey's faster nowadays.
on the way, it's a quick stop at the Howard Johnson's
off the interstate for two sunny-side,

three links, home fries, buttered rye toast and coffee.

just as easy now to get bushwhacked, though.

got me a fast car.

tank's full-up.

got my eyes peeled.

(watched a late-night cowboy movie on television last night)

(read the newspaper early this morning, too)

  

-Out there on the watery side of Earth-

So, it's true. I snoop-around.

Had I not landed on poem-writing to record

my daily observations, I'd be formally charged

with “invasion of privacy” or at the least
its snotty little cousin, “peeping-tomism."

I snoop-around because poetry insists on my busybodiness.

Between sets, I'll be reading some poems by Tracy K. Smith,

a worthy prize-winner who has returned from her trip to Mars

with her findings in hand.

Admittedly, I've never been to Mars, opting for the shortcut

of mentioning the angry red planet on occasion.

So that makes me lazy, you might say.

So I stay put, that's true.

Nabbed a two-footer with sweet peppers to travel

late last night, and put a six pack in the fridge

for the football games on television this afternoon.

Pre-game banter starts at 6:00 AM, running unopposed

and non-stop to kick-off, scheduled at 1:00 PM.

Meanwhile, the remarkable isolationists

are pumping-out poems, dwelling at the borderlines

of dry anonymity far from the watery side of Earth,

and wait a minute... Listen!

––The dead talk back to me, you know.

-waiting on the songbird-

the house in Swansea will soon be emptied,
(save for myself) of its occupants;

a sister and two stop-over houseguests,

who will then travel together

to another house in Westport,

filled with people known to them and loved.

first, four pies will be made and baked in Swansea.

you know which pies.
the pies are specific to the Autumn occasion 
and “coconut balls” as they are called here,
enough rolled to feed a large family of porcupines.

I’m astounded at how many cans it takes

in order to make four “homemade” pies.

this is not a cannery or a patch or a bog;

it’s the house which will soon be emptied, save for myself,

as I wait on a call from the songbird of Boca Raton.

when the call comes, it will come from Fall River,
from the house of her parents as she stops by for a visit

and the two of us will drive to Newport and there,

we’ll eat and drink in snazzy, sea-themed surroundings

in complimentary musings about the ocean views, 

but until then, be as it may, it’s Thanksgiving day

inside an empty, (save for me and the anticipations
of the arrival of the songbird of Boca Raton ) house in Swansea.

-the unofficial alternative to understanding time-

with time on my hands

I'd decided to write a late-night poem,

the last of the day.

time, in its deliberate attitude

hung around at the table tidying-up

leaving trace amounts of itself

which confessed to its presence.

there's something inherently wrong

with the persistent nature of time.

it appears at the front door

disguised as a guest.

it waits at the wedding reception

for the pre-doomed happy couple,

and since its beginning, it decomposes

everything in its wake.

one should approach time with caution.

it holds grudges, imposing severe penalties

when disrespected by waste.

but in the here and now, time belongs to me;

it stays by my side. it lives here.

it will die with me. it's personal.

it has my eyes.

in time I retired to bed,

leaving notations of the poem on the table

for my early consideration.

in the light of morning  I read what I'd jotted-

down the night before,

and although the table was otherwise orderly,

the notes for the poem left upon it were a mess,

and it was now left to me to put a permanent end to it.

time said.

-Before Bach's "Saint Matthew Passion" there's Mahler's "Resurrection"-

1.
I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable

within gatherings of people coming together in the same place for the same reason,
and by this I don’t mean two hundred thousand people as in a pilgrimage,
but say, ten to thirty people, which is a reasonable range, ten to thirty,
because it covers the usual numbers congregating at backyard cookouts,

house parties, snazzy inboard rides to the Bay and the average numbers

found attending pain-in-the-ass funerals of the faithful departed.

It’s becoming clear to me that these apprehensions for the most part,
cover gatherings of people I know, such as relations and pesky neighbors,

as opposed to people I don’t know, as say in attendance at Symphony Hall.

2.
Reviewing the concert schedule for the coming season, I find anticipated
performances of Bach's "Saint Matthew Passion" in mid-October
tapped for a three-day weekend slot, and before that, Mahler's "Symphony Two"

is on tap for three performances in late September.

So, according to the calculous, that'll be a total of 5,400 people
gathered within the same enclosed space for the same reason,

for approximately 4.9 hours, (both performances) and

of the 5,400 people attending, besides myself, I won't know any of them.

                     

-the tale of two big telephones-

considering a man
and he's on a big telephone
talking to a buddy about the game last night

and on the big telephone extension upstairs

his wife's waiting,–– waiting
for the line to clear because
she wants to call a friend to complain about it.
she's glancing through the pages of a magazine 
as if sitting in a waiting room to be seen by a dentist.

It’s a nonchalant sort of waiting,

as in a routine checkup,–– routine,

as in there's no abscessed molar

causing her discomfort,–– routine,

as if nothing’s loose or tainted

green at the gum line.–– she's just waiting upstairs
in a small chair, adjacent to a small table
leafing through the pages of a monthly, coffee-table endorsed

magazine with the big telephone extension echoing the joyful

madness downstairs, waiting for the line to clear, waiting for

the end of the busy line where the game is being dissected like the body

of another man, in another town, in another State, who

dropped-dead in his snazzy red jersey late last night of cardiac arrest

in the bottom of the 10th after a walk-off cleared the bases for the team

of the guy draped in a snazzy blue jersey on the big telephone downstairs.