-breaking bread with the common birds-

          5/16/19

          in the morning they glide in, then it's a wing-flapping

          approach toward the empty feeder.

          it’s a natural touch and go.

          but the feeder's refilled and the birds fly back,

          land, commence to pecking seed and soon

          the base is laden with birds wing-to-wing, holding on
          for dear life, pecking seed like a bunch of lunatics.

          the standard double-feeder, purchased at Walmart

          for twelve bucks, is emptied of its morning’s seed

          by mid-afternoon.

          say what you will of the fierce-feeding piranha,

          they have nothing over the group of sparrows at my feeder.

          if this continues I’ll be broke by December.

         “breaking bread” is a common phrase,

          now free of its old and new testament shackles.

          on holidays, groups of friends and relations tend

          to gather and eat together around a festive table.

          the breaking of bread.

          three mornings past I was biting into a toasted

          Portuguese muffin glazed in raspberry jam,

          standing at the window as the birds feasted
          on seed at the freshly-filled feeder, and as I see it,

          and for the sake of early morning poetry, that's close enough

          to be considered the breaking of bread with the common birds.

          

               -the temporary residence- WORK ON THIS !

               the temporary residence is unrestrained,

               what with intrusive friends and relations,

               the spacial availability to house visiting dogs,
               residential cats, common bird varieties
               gorging themselves at their feeders and me.

               I occupy a corner room with my stuff.

               I’m allowed free access throughout the house,

               its in-ground swimming pool, the shed out back

               for the storage of questionable items assigned to purgatory

               and lounge-chair relaxation on the property with a morning cup

               and a westward view of Mount Hope Bay which is first rate.

               it’s too soon for me to become an adjunct curiosity,

               but I’m ready to hang-on by my fingertips.

               I have a sweltering girlfriend who lives inside the Sun
               among a clutch of coconut palm trees,––

               an ex-wife who’s become understanding of my short-

               comings and a parakeet who seems to recognize me.

               I don’t eat very much, but

               I’ll eat what’s put in front of me
               like the dogs and cats do at their stations,

               and the birds at their feeders.

               inside the joint, Arnold enjoys swinging in his cage after a meal.

               but none of 'em write no poems,

               a double negative I can live with.

  

               -Rose and Pietro and a soundbite from Lennon in typical form-

               "what happens when the bubble bursts"?
               
               1.
               history's finer plateaus are revisited
               now and then, so

               some of the early characterizations

               cling to the current nature of things.

               but I’m less easily distracted

               and my span of attention has increased.
               even so, it remains a short crossing.

               I've cultivated an ability to zero-in.

               so this is the way it is.

               I do more than just look around.

               I consider my findings and tell short stories
               (stacked narrowly at the beam)
               of occasional interest to a small audience.

               but my prints are all over the place.

               2.
               an ancient Italian woman introduced to me
               the two-knot system of securing my laces.
               she struggled against the tenacity of my left handedness.

               she brought a husband and her knowledge of the old world

               to the new world long before Mussolini's inversion at Mezzegra.

               it was Pietro, her husband, who introduced

               the measure of peace to an otherwise frantic interior.

               he had his peculiar easy-chair set-up with its fixings in the kitchen

               with an occasional chicken or two, also inverted, bleeding-out,
               hanging in the entry

               and still,–– after all these early goings-on and other things,
               I'm reminded of Lennon's lament from the backseat of his limousine
               when he came to answer:–– "I'm still waiting for the bubble".