-aural amusements in recital-

reading the poems of others to myself

in a small room without reverberation,
the readings are imagined as readings in my voice,

the voice I recognize as my own;

the voice I hear when ordering take-out at the "China Royal"

(for that “personal touch”)

or when talking to my son on the phone
about matters of import twixt father and son.

he lives in Los Angeles by choice,
although I've absolved him from feelings of guilt

if I croak alone in an unseemly manner.
(more can be found of "LeCapri Motel" elsewhere in the canon)

this morning, while "listening" to one of my poems

in my own voice in my own head, the reading morphed
to the voice of a young Naomi Replansky, adding a streetwise,
Queens, N.Y. punctuation to an otherwise dreamy little poem
of true romance.

well, nearly true romance.

but along with her voice, an exaggerated image of Naomi
appeared to me, reciting from behind a lectern
with a Camel cigarette hanging from the far side of her mouth
drenched in a duck’s-ass.

this absurd sighting brought early neighborhood to mind;
images of Carmella Tacovelli, the tough-talking
mother to “Pappy” Tacovelli who, through the seasons
played the game battered and bruised from the crouch.

and there were other sightings.

I’ve experimented with other voices in recital, too.

like the John Wayne drawl, the charming
falsetto of Wally Cox, of Marilyn's breathlessness
and even the ill-tempered staccato of old Miss Sykes,

my 5th-grade correctional officer while doing hard time
at the great and terrible Hugo A. Dubuque School.
(and more can be found of this institution and others elsewhere in the canon)

I've enjoyed listening to all of them and often lingered,
but eventually gave-way to the familiarity of my own voice.
(once, just in time before falling from the edge like others of my kind)

the good news is
the annoyingly dour voice of God
hasn’t appeared to me in recital yet.
the bad news is
I hear the lectern rolling into place.

-not last night's sky,

but tonight's sky which is clear

and ripe for a wandering eye, the waxing

crescent contributing in its muted role.

I'll walk a short distance to "Nancy's Country Store"

open 'till 10, for a sugar-free, low-sodium drink

touting an "advanced electrolyte system" then a shortcut 

through the backyards on the return to the house, but I won't go inside.

––I'll wander around the landscape absorbed by the lushness

of late August's atmosphere, a lingering mid-evening scent

salted by the southerlies skimming the bay, 32 points of the compass,

stars all over the place, and I still can't make out the pictures.

––the stars are eating themselves to death,

devouring themselves in a fierceness barely understood

within the realm of our natural order of things.

neither man, woman, laughing hyena, king-shit, nor insect

can begin to fathom the ferociousness of stars.

the romance of the great open-air convertibles should remain

within the province of the Moon, as dead as it is.

there is no romance to be found in the stars up-close.

––tonight, cloaked beneath a glittering firmament 

which deepens its fatal attitude with increasing scrutiny,
it's determined to be too god-damned out here,

and the time for retreating into the house has come.
Swansea / August / 2018