Swain's Requiem:

forty-eight hours after Thanksgiving day.

inclement weather. cold outside and inside.

like to chill your bones.

5:20 AM and I’m "up"..
as my grandmother would say: "with the chickens".

out there, the same dog's barking at the same nothingness.

two cognacs late last night long after an early evening snack of sliced turkey

with mayo, leafy romaine, and thinly sliced vine tomato on Canadian White

then bed at 12:15 AM.  / sleep-aid necessary.

a place beyond the borders:

admission to the little "professional" art school which long ago sat inside
the belly of the "Whaling City" was need-blind long before the term
"need-blind" was a thing to be debated.

missive to a classmate / life after life drawing: 

do you recall the image: "nude on all fours" 

crawling across the newsprint beneath the snout of my heavy-
handed compressed charcoal stick?

Sigmund Ables criticized it as not having "even one clean line"––

nine years beyond a half-century in time and I remember that moment.

well, so long.

-The World Clock-

Fall River:

Today, 8:25 AM.

Making adjustments.
There are possibilities beyond the margins.

Los Angeles:

5:25 AM. Today, minus 3 hours.

Close relations are stepping out of bed in Los Angeles,

activating the commonness of morning rituals.

They'll shower and groom themselves

to a ready finish, topping-off the travel-mugs on the run.
It's justifiable. They're young enough to be in a hurry.

Paris:

2:25 PM. Today, plus 6 hours.

The brunch crowd drifts from the Champs-Élysées.

I hear the French have a passion for their pastries

to go along with their firm distaste for Americans.

Tokyo:

10:25 PM. Today, plus 14 hours.

What could the madding Japanese be running from now?

During the countdown nearing the end of World War 2,
long before the arrival of the heavy-footed fire breather,
Tokyo was burning beneath the bomb-bloated bellies of American B-29s.
The date was November 17, 1944.

Madrid:

2:25 PM. Today, plus 6 hours.

In time for the bullfights!

We see Picasso in the arena with Jaqueline
and Paloma–– and there's Jean Cocteau in a surprise
guest appearance!

Christ, how the lance thrusts
downward for its blood; shaft wrapped in ribbon.
There’s got to be a reason for the pomp,

but I'm too lazy to make inquiries, and besides,

the World Clock moves at its own mysterious pace, not mine. 

-periodic muse under the cover of winter-

the pressure's on.
my back’s against the wall
and me, without a sombrero
retrieved from the dust to offer comfort.

expectations are high, but doubt lingers.

girlfriend came flying in
from the land of the over-exposed Sun.

she showed-up at the door to the northeast wind
under a cold, driving rain at high noon, unannounced,
due to a pathological finding of: "death by malfunctioning smartphone."

we went out to eat and drink.

we had a good time.

in the morning she took-off on a southerly heading,

first class on a snazzy aeroplane.

the pressure's on.

I gotta pen something that’ll send her swooning 

within the fragile domain of warmer weather, where

she offers comfort to those in need and croons some tunes
to the highball set in rooms of low light and soft licks.

from this poem-writer’s point of view

something beyond the two-of-us has to show-up

in order to avoid repetitions of  "just-we-two;"

(a lonely-heart at the end of the bar on the edge of despair;

a seagull gliding over the Newport dumpsters, panting for a drop

of Duck á l’Orange;  I say,
a weathered boutique at the head of the wharf, pushing

pricey bath soaps fashioned in the shapes and pastel
frostings of fancy french pastries)  but––

in the end, this outing had none of that. but––

from the beginning, this outing had the two-of-us and that was enough.

       

-looks to be around 1949, 1950?-

1.

during the installation of officers

at the Sons of Italy Hall, John Vickers leaned-in
to whisper something close to my young mother’s ear.

the image was captured across the folding banquet table

by a mutual friend who took the snapshot with a Kodak Brownie;

the document finding its way to my hands after six decades.

I’m presenting this photograph in the rare chance

that someone still among the living or roaming the aether,
shed light as to what the hell's going on.

this isn’t a pleasant whisper of best wishes, nor

is it a whisper asking if she would like

another slice of cake.

I think John Vickers wants to advance his standing
with my young mother.

his Chevrolet coupe is warming-up in the parking lot

behind the wood-shingled building on Covel street, a short,
densely populated roadway connecting Bedford to Pleasant.

It’s the street where Louie Samph’s oldman had a small variety store.

It’s the store where we bought our "peggy-balls" and stickball "pinkies",
also offering a sweet array of gummy candies crowded into a fishbowl on the counter.

In time, Louie would  become a well known hairdresser in town,

sole proprietor of “Mr. Louis Hair Salon” and was reputed to be a good dancer,

an honorarium later authenticated by my older sister Janice, the one who'd know.

1b.

"Annie, Would you like a ride home after the vote?" whispered the cad, John Vickers.

"Annie, What a lovely dress you're wearing." his beer breath closing-in fast
                                                                         to her pearl-spangled ear.

"Annie, Did you cast your vote for me tonight?" asked the eventual vote winner

                                                                              for "Treasurer" later that evening.

                                                                              

contact information:

D’Elia
C/O Bedford Street Consortium

Eastside hub of the district.

City.

-Evelyne deMarco is among the living-

Antoine deMarco,

the great and terrible classroom nuisance,

sat in the last row, the chair of his desk leaning
against the wall on timid rear legs

challenging the laws of gravitation
as well as the laws of physics and yet
he placed far below the fundamental
grading requirements in both math and science.

the obituary was written in the terse manner

with which it should have been read:

"Antoine deMarco was an employee

of “Troy Refrigeration and Heating Co”.

He leaves behind his mother, his wife, Teresa,..

says here, he was a "faithful congregant

of Saint Anthony of Padua Church"

which I find to be a hard sell, but in all, 
the obit was a fundamentally believable read.

also listed as a survivor, one younger sister,

Evelyne deMarco Mello of Brewster, Massachusetts.

(Evelyne is remembered here as shyly following Antoine

through the school system, 2 grades behind, studious

and reserved, and it does my heart good to know that she is living.)

a guide to riding home at twilight on the 24" Schwinn D-12


destination:

1.
twilight, and homeward.
junkyard south-by-east return.

point to Quarry Street horizon.

con the grips to hold-fast
against lateral drift toward the Flint
at Pleasant where "Carmella's Coney Island"
makes its living.

coast Healy downwind with pedals
aligned to the running wheels.

begin the starboard run
across the rusted hulks cloistered behind
the barbed-wire fence.

full to starboard.
steer from the weather-helm.

pump the break slowly.
the gate to the backyard's open.

It’s always open.–– destination.

kickstand if you have one that works.

2.
the interior:

the science of the interior tells us
the galaxy's center has a lingering
scent of raspberries and rum.

sure, the chemical menu
at the galactic hub is abundant
with scents of countless elements
recognizable to earthlings, but

for the ghosts of poets who long went before me,
helm's hard-over and I'm buying-in to rum and raspberries.


Quequechan

-random harvest-

the phone rang last night; It's Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue".

a girlfriend is calling.

she’s busy. she’s always busy.

lots of things on the fire; writing books to give people
a lift in need of one, jazzy front-girl in the manner of Peggy Lee,
on the move to strange-sounding places like Boca Raton and

Delray Beach where palm trees make their living.
then, on occasion, northward to where I sit, an old icicle

for poetry and haircuts.

she’s a whirlwind, that one.

even over the phone she gives me boner.

I liked the idea of the old land-line rotary telephones

during the time when standup comedian George Carlin quipped:

"when you dial, do you keep your finger
in the hole for the free ride back"?

there are no free rides anymore.
time was, "talking over the phone"
was a true sense of connection for the voice of man;

simply follow the wire.

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-the three-deckers ran to the clouds-

from the pavement the three-deckers

seemed to run to the clouds.

the four-deckers broke through

like inverted meteorites.

(meteorites are a better metaphor
than mountain-tops here because
there's a lot of action to the workings of meteorites)

still, that’s a tough climb.

Norene Ferreira

lived on the backend

of one of those.
four decks, two
apartments per deck.

that’a a small planet. 

It’s the stairway to heaven, boys

and I'm going up.

the ballgame’s over.

I'm one for four,

a dribbler in the gap
between

third and short.

I’m stranded at first.

now I’m climbing

the stairway to the stars,

a full nine years
of life under my belt.

no answer after three knocks.

a pause, then four more knocks
and still no answer.
I tell you, men, Norene Ferreira's
worth a minimum of seven knocks.

the long climb down
and I leave behind 

a column in knock arithmetic
lingering at the door without its sum.

it's a step to the corner

of Bedford and Johnston,

that’s one block from the ballpark

where the game was lost
and my house, a three-decker siting across the street.

submitted for consideration
on this day, Thursday,
August 15, 2019 to the canon
of countless unrequited love poems.

-the accordion lesson-

––it was held on a Saturday morning in a vacant,

oversized room in an old, redbrick building on Second Street.

I’m there with cousin Paul, three years my elder and against my will.

cousin Paul was in the early developmental stage of knuckleball techniques,

and I was beginning to notice something was going on with the girls;

something intriguing. 

metal folding chairs were meticulously placed in a circle such so

that even Leonardo might’ve assigned his name to it.

––seven mothers walked in with their kids in tow, each kid

struggling to carry his accordion at rest in its bulking case.

––the instructor, tall and lanky in his mid-twenties began the session

by impressing everyone with his rapid rendition of “Lady of Spain"

a tune I was familiar with and remembered singing as:
“Lady of Spain I adore you. Pull down your pants I’ll explore you..” 

––but ending his proof of qualification, the lanky specialist

pulled his accordion's intriguing bellows outward from the straps

making a sound only an accordion would dare to make.
the kids in the circle followed along in this learning procedure;

bellows out (shriek)  bellows in (shriek)  and so on.

––I sat quietly against the wall with the smilingly proud mothers, then
closing the session at one hour to the second, the exhaled accordions
were packed-up inside their cases like chubby infant vampires assigned

to their caskets and everyone walked out without making another sound.

Quequechan

-what is it you want, poem-writer?-

early morning music leads to

sightings of intermittent bombings and shootings.

over there, the ergonomic chair
sits at the table without concern
over the recent goings-on and all-the-while
I grow old along the way.

my son won’t be old until he occupies
my space within his own frame of time, but

it's only the very old who dare not scrutinize
beyond their immediate circumstance.

as for me in the meantime, the walk
to somewhere is accomplished with minimal effort.

but only by taking my place at the table
will the distance to reconciliation be travelled,

to a crowded, often unhinged existence 

waiting for its daily resurrection, where
the done-for will be done-in all over again.

-the Bay is the Mount Hope, the Taunton is the River-

1.

they’re excavating to lay a foundation north of the Mount Hope

at the banks of the Taunton, the high northward of the river

toward its beginnings.

I can hear the sounds of industry distant enough to haunt,––

all for the sake of development;  an Erechtheum on the Taunton.

could be housing for the multitudes and I guess that’s okay.

since we the people necessarily live someplace we may as well

have a river view.

the busses don’t run like they use to,

and the taxicab companies are broke, their cars so beat-up

they look like welterweights at the bell closing the 9th.

the churches are near empty; the priests,

cloaked in their collective guilt are still seen driving around..

2.

my son called from Los Angeles last night.

I told him when I croak he’s getting some damn good poems

for a quick look-see when his daily vocations are concluded.

I advised him to be on the lookout; ––to keep his eyes peeled

like a Crow scouting for the 7th cavalry. a terrible analogy. meanwhile,

  

3.

time advances toward my place of standing in the world.

––all's fair when everything's considered from the middle.

northward, the machine of industry distant enough to haunt,

is laying the foundation for a structure.

City

    

               -populating the interior-

               It was the rarest of moments

               entering an empty “house” at 1017.

               father’s working his drive through the eastern route.

               mother’s visiting a friend and who knows who?

               grandmother and grandfather are seen

               walking beyond left field toward the church
               for yet another funeral.

               it’s the time in life when they’re dropping like flies.

               my sister’s expected home from spending time
               at the "house" of the fascinating Edwina Mello

               and my brother’s temporarily ensconced in the dark,
               North End of town accompanied by the little lunatic
               who goes by the name: Douglas "Dougie” Bear.

               but here, there’s nothing to look into.

               there’s little if anything to make my own.
               the bedroom doors are open to rooms of fading mysteries.

               the closed dresser drawers are of little to no interest;

               I’ve seen the insides of them; the dry,
               tangled guts of common cloth.

               the sink and gas stove look dead.
               linoleum looks to peel away at the corners by the sheer force of nature.

               my friends are cloistered inside their own “houses”
               which form a perfect circle around the nucleus of the world.

               there’s a note on the kitchen table left there for my sister,
               written in our young mother's delicate hand:

               “Janice,

               I'll be back soon.

               tell Billy to stay in the house”.

               I’m the only one in the “house” left standing to read the note

               and I’m the only one singled-out by name to "stay in the “house”.

              from the first floor tenement, called the "house" /  1954

-Only you-

There's a lot that can happen at the plate.

You can stand on either side of it with a 3 & 2 count,

with men on 2nd and 3rd, behind by 2 in the 8th,

waiting with nowhere near the patience of Job.

You can strike out at the plate.

You can slide into it feet first, head first, hands first.

You can squat behind it flashing secret finger signs

while the pitcher bends his torso and stares you down like priest.

Consider this: the stubby fingers of the catcher, often the most

unkempt player on the field held to the same artistry as one

would demand in the performance of a ballet

You can observe the goings-on standing behind the catcher,
bending your torso so that everything's on the up-and-up,

and when all this seriousness is over,

you can have a lot of fun at the plate, jumping

up and down on it like a gang of dusty lunatics
whenever somebody hits the game-winner. 

Watch out! You'll certainly get beaned at the plate

if you approach it as if it belongs to only you.

I once knew a kid who played second base

for Immaculate Conception (called: “the I-macs”)

in the old CYO League of Fall River who

seemed a little crazy when he marked
the cross of the crucifixion in the dirt
with the knob of his bat at the edge of the box
before stepping to the plate.

At about the same time, Jimmy Piersall,
centerfielder for the Red Sox was doing the same thing
before stepping-up and Jimmy, well, he seemed to go a little crazy, too.

So, yeah. There’s a lot that can happen at the plate.

6/3/17 RIP

          -certified alternate-

          
          you may have inadvertently knocked at the door to the wrong house.

          'could be you've run into the wrong man regardless of poetry.
          even so, I'll accept your arrival as a positive response to an invitation.

          nothing said this early in the morning will urge you to sit at the edge of your seat.

          there’ll be no revelations or titillations and to be clear,

          even a spritz of truth gleaned from the institution is enough when

          counter-storytellers of the subject matter are are either

          dead or uninvolved or nincompoops.

          they should've written their own damn poems.

          sure, there'll be deep-throated grunts of disapproval and

          sure, the antagonist will demand peer review documentation

          but goddamn! I'm just daydreaming for christsake. 

          2014

-a summer morning-

1.
Saturday and the early church
bell tolls as the ballpark opens to sunlight.

It’s a measured knell, the muted
clapper inhaling between each strike to its metal lung.

It’s the toll for the dead
as we gather at the plate to choose-up
the sides who will play the game.

we're waiting on Petrillo who's standing
across the street as the slow procession rolls by, a true
stone's-throw from the red-brick facade of the church

whose bell calls the solemn bereaved to someone's end-of-the-line.

(there’s an awkward silence at the plate

brushing across the shuttered mouth of the game)

Petrillo's young temptation is to cross to the ballpark
jolting between the broken links of the murmuring transport
and he's fast enough to do it, but–– he waits it out.

behind us at the bakery's door, the ancient
Italian widow respectfully signs:

one touch for the father, one touch for the son.––
the holy ghost gets two.

2.
from the heavy four-footed print of his house, Petrillo
crosses behind the final car of second cousins, passing through
the gate at the towering backstop and we start to choose-up.

the death knell sounds in the name of one whose time has come
and the last kid standing in the dirt at the plate is taken by force.

Columbus Park, 1953-1954? 1952.