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.