-Oh, Lordy!-

1.

God's got the dryness of the withered hand at his mouth.

––His fingertips smell like salt & vinegar.

He’s at the snack cupboard again panting for potato chips.

No wonder he’s fat,–– 

lounging around all day with Marilyn, JFK and the oldman,––

playing penny-ante five card draw, ogling the new batch

of young women long before their natural time,

arriving at Peter's Pearlies, wiggling in their summer dresses

on their way to influence the auditions,–– and he's drinking...

what's that he's drinking...

“Ahh..champagne.–– Champagne cocktails”!

(Always wanted to use old Frank Pentangeli's line in a poem)

2.

Due to the eagerly anticipated death of perennial speaker,

fatso Dominic DeCarlo, I've been selected to address

the yearly "Frank Nitty Businessman’s Lunch"

at Club Marconi's annex downtown to benefit unpublished poets

and other displaced derelicts week after next.

3.

Oh, Lordy!

It's later than I think.–– “Cicci! la porta”!

-What's a day... more or less-

Well, my son. You must know by now

that your birthday slipped by without my recognition.

––You see, It’s all a matter of timing.

Usually the slippage is realized the day after

the day of the event often over morning coffee

sometimes with toast, sometimes without toast.

But, well, there you have it.

––In defense of my absentmindedness, I’ll have you know

that other notable birthdates have also slipped the surly

bonds of recognition within that space of  “a matter of timing.”

––The likes of Emily for example, sweetly fanged in Amherst.

(I can see her writing poems at her bedroom desk, her tongue

sticking out the side of her mouth, slightly sneering, can't you?)

––Oh, and Bukowski, that marvelous lunatic a few years back,

and recently your own mother for chrissakes!

Oh! And that whacky old lady across the street who keeps

yelling: "Cocksucker! Cocksucker"!
in the middle of the night and who knows why?
––So, although not excusable in the fatherly sense of the word,

as you can see, I've managed to misplace your birthdate in the presence

of some very fine company with which I'm sure you'd agree, and

accept this missive as an apology which is what is intended.

-piecing the meat-

some 45 years ago in deep, southern Ohio, a deer laid slain atop

the Chevrolet Nomad station wagon, the Stars and Bars stuck upon

its back-end window, the young buck's permanent eyes, black,
stranger jewels than once they were, round like glassies, glistening
under the brushed-red twilight of Wellston, tied-down for the long haul home.

the guy who shot the young buck called-out for his wife to:

"go get the knife” so’s he could “skin the animal” then

telling her to go find the “good knife” so’s he could “piece the meat”.

I wasn’t familiar with that kind of direct talk during previous
locations of residence, let alone that kind of stuff going on
as a matter-of-course next door to a house I thought I'd never
find myself living next to.

but I've eaten hamburgers and hot dogs at the occasional
backyard cookout, the meat "pieced" from other kinds of animal life and

there are those who hunt the meat down
and others who raise it for the killing and those who pick
the prime cuts from the supermarket's one-way glassy line-ups.

so, as to the cause of meat, I’ve been around the block, meaning
I'm sympathetic to the reasoning behind the slaughter of the buck. 

but one day while driving on Route 31 South just west of Jeffersonville,
a few miles north of the Ohio River and the Kentucky line, a crooked,
scrawling hand-painted sign nailed to a tilting roadside tree read:

“Death awaits you...5 miles”

so, why vote? well, just a thought for the day.

-judging the high-fly-ball-

Niels Bohr said:

“you can’t predict where smashed

elementary particles will go.

you can only predict where they might go.”

um...sort of.

it’s the same with a high-fly-ball.

off the bat, there’s a tendency for the outfielder to begin

the process of making the catch by taking a few steps backward.

this could be seen as instinctive, but from my experience
it’s reasonable to conclude: it’s better that a high-fly-ball

if misjudged, falls in front of you rather than behind you.

but the game is complex.

let’s consider a high-fly-ball which off the bat,

and for a time is traveling upward above the field of play;
"slipping the surly bonds of earth.." as Ronald Reagan once eulogized

by vulgarly ripping off a poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr..

but the outfielder makes an immediate assumption: that is,

that from the moment of contact with the bat, the ball,

in its upward arc is leading to the downward arc of its flight.

this is the crucial moment when the outfielder predicts

where the ball might begin its downward arc and further predicts

where the downward arc of the ball might come to an end, which

hopefully is inside the pocket of the outfielder’s glove.

(the "Rawlings" rawhide strung 5-fingered was best.

no doubt about it.)

-the left hand of God, the right-handed paddle chair and Olive Goff remembered-

a sleight of hand:

the fierce, right hand of God was drilled into the vulnerable

sensitivities of the left-handed few at weekly catechisms.
priest never said god had two hands.

and the right-handed paddle chair is not only common to

Coney Island hotdog joints.

let's get a couple with the works to travel and eat them for lunch
in the great outdoors where the trees are and the clouds roll by.

there’s a little park across the street.

c'mon! make the environment a better place.

make it smell like a Coney Island wiener.  (the scent lingers...)

In the early 50s at the now infamous

Hugo A. Dubuque School,  (there he goes again)

the use of right-handed paddle chairs was common

in classrooms occupied by students of the working class.

college prep kids from "Up the Highlands" sat at snazzy desks

with popup lids, recessed inkwells with little hinged caps to conceal
the ink when not in use and secret compartments to hide their lunch money.

(my lunch was pressed inside a brown paper bag

sitting on the floor between my feet.)

"my tuna sandwich smells like feet"!

the link of Olive's:

I met Olive Goff when she entered the classroom one morning

and sat at the right-handed paddle chair across the aisle from mine.
It made sense.

Olive was left-handed, too.

Olive was sweetly reserved and had a smile

like that which brushed across the mouth of.. what’s-her-name;

you know, slight, come-hither, like, oh, yeah... Bette Davis.

she wore wire-rimmed eyeglasses, unpopular at the time and had

a certain attitude of locomotion when breezing through the corridors.
Olive was a tap dancer in the making, or a pole dancer in my dreams.

she lived on Locust street, a stone's throw from the city Dump,

and three blocks from the ledge at the granite quarry.

(and there he goes Again!)

the big finish:

Olive was the link in the chain between the three
once forbidden, now enduring territories of my pliable youth.



...and goodnight Olive Goff, wherever you are.

for tonight's dinner I'm visiting friends from the old neighborhood.

an assorted cheese platter is served as hors d'oeuvres

which is fine with me, and conversation is light,

but tentative with scattered pauses

before awkward changes of subjects are proposed.

 

with an opening in the night's occupation I politely excuse myself.

what’s this?

it’s one of those new toilets

in pastel pink built low to the floor.

the bowl sits a good six inches below my knees.

Impossible to piss in a toilet like this without splattering.

it’s inevitable.

this toilet shows a lack of respect to certain guests.

look.

wallpaper's dotted with pink flamingos, standing

among lily pads in calm water, and my hosts 

live in Seekonk for christ's sake!

small window over the tub, but under
florescence it's very bright in here.
it's a cold, blueish light. it's a harsh, buzzing light.

there should be a cash register sitting behind the sink's counter.

"ten items or less".

daydreaming far above the bowl, I'm wondering
what they might be serving.

it goes like this: when invited, don’t ask.
but from the smell of things it seems they prefer

the old-school Portuguese way of cooking.

christ,–– could be pigs feet.

hold on.
smooth jazz gliding in from the player in the living room.

sounds good.–– Thelonious Monk,

surprising in a bathroom fitted with an inappropriate toddler's toilet!
at least the notorious "no- show" made an after-life appearance for the gig.

gotta make-do without excessive shaking.
maybe utilize a less aggressive vertical wagging technique.
easy on the upswing.

from standing room only I'm enjoying the music.
I'm an invited guest same as Thelonius, and hopefully I'll be free

from the toilet's impossibility before the next track.

Seekonk, Massachusetts

Arrival. Destination unknown.

1.
My father and my mother

are seen standing on what appears to be

a city rooftop.

almost any city you might imagine.

If you imagine New York, so shall it be.

Boston? OK, Boston.

No, Chloe. It’s not a rooftop overlooking
the lost city of Tibet.

they're not dressed for Memphis, although

I know they went there at least once
during their young marriage to visit my mother's brother,
Nathan and his sizzling red-headed wife, Annabelle, called: "Billie".

but on a rooftop this day, they’re dressed to the nines.

Annie, wrapped in a coat's fur collar which
circles her neck like a coconut doughnut, bird feathers
are inserts for her hat and stability's maintained by sensible,
yet somehow, fashionable shoes.

her head is slightly bowed, almost humbled as her eyes look forward.

she rigidly promised to honor and obey.

this promise will find a way to slacken over time.

William wears a tailored topcoat over a dress shirt

and necktie tucked beneath a straight-necked,
shoulder to shoulder, sweater.

he sports a new fedora; not a hint of sweat along the band.

shoes, polished to a glaze “Shinola” would covet

for its advertising pages and

leather gloves of high quality. soft. pliable.

you'd like to shake the hand of the man who wears a glove like this.

(the line above is a paraphrase of one of the greatest one-liners
in the history one-liners.)

the time: bootcamp during the Second World War.

Seaman, Artie Shaw, a Hollywood clarinet player who "knows"
many of the female stars of the silver screen, is greeted by a fast-
approaching, glad-handed Lieutenant Commander of the U.S. Navy
who delivers the great one-liner to the stunned Artie Shaw:

“I just wanted to shake the hand that patted the ass of Lana Turner”.

2.
William shakes with the right hand, also. –– but wait.

the right hand’s busy.

we see protruding from the leather glove,
the sneaky duck’s-ass end of a Luck Strike!

this is a common sleight-of-hand technique used by gentlemen

in the late '30s through the '40s to conceal their lit cigarettes
while being photographed in the presence of a lady.

good technique, William.–– but you know,

I’ll have more to say about the consequence of diagnostics in due time.

as to where and when you are, well, it's enough to say: there you were.

(the paraphrase about Artie in the Navy was supplied by
Lenny Bruce in his comic-relief volume:

"How To Talk Dirty And Influence People"
whose title is itself a parody on Dale Carnegie's:
"How To Win Friends And Influence People"
which my father read as a salesman on the road.
I read Lenny's book instead.)

  

-the aging poem-writer waits

for the "common good" to show its true face of prejudice.

for daydreams to begin again which long ago lead him to impossible places.

for the portal to appear that he might witness what it is he's been up to––

to see what it is he's missed of the outside during his time at the table.

early Sunday morning complex, 8/9/'20

(posted in January, 2024)