the four sisters

there’s a park in the city

where a stone fountain stands.

this fountain isn’t elaborately decorated

or sculpted, it isn't named for a local Union soldier

lost in the Civil War, nor for the God of water. –– 

its wide bowl rests upon a substantial pedestal,

the whole of it reflecting the utilitarian nature

of the working class city it stands in.

the four sisters pose there arcing slightly around

the bowl of the fountain.

one sister pretends to drink from the bubbler

as instructed by the snapshooter.

in the foreground from the left, we find

Olympia, and to her left, Pauline,

and to her left, Antoinette.

behind them, stands the youngest of them by far, 

Anne, who is my mother.

sensible, open-toed shoes all around,

four purses called "pocketbooks," the straps held

by hand as prescribed by their time, fashion and culture,

four dresses preparatorily dry-cleaned and hung

under cover to be worn and displayed

when away from the kitchen sinks of home.

It’s a local outing of some kind.

maybe there's a function at the park.

a Roman Catholic celebration perhaps, which means

the festivities are more Italian than Roman Catholic.

a guest of honor may come to speak.

could be a Bishop from the Boston Diocese.

there's a grandstand in the distance, where

the chosen speakers will be ear-piercingly amplified.

Olympia Pieroni, who kept an orderly house,

is mother to Paul, famed knuckleballer,

and married a man with the same last name.

Pauline Pieroni, who kept an orderly house,

is mother to Albert, eulogized in the poem: “Fate of God,”

also married a man with the same last name.

Antoinette Toni, who kept the most orderly of houses,

married the great cobbler to the southend of town

with a different last name, although

it rhymed, somewhat, with Antoinette’s maiden name.

the youngest of the four sisters by far, Anne, called: “Annie,”

married the salesman on the road with a very different last name,

not a hint, not a syllable resembling her maiden name, which

may have been a source of confusion among the older sisters.

she kept the house, (the house like a beehive)

listed on the city planner's registry

of multi-tenement domiciles as:

"1017 Bedford, West, first floor,"

as well as any young mother could,–– and where

over the usual racket of the interior, her two sons

were often called-out, referred to as "roughnecks"

as opposed to her theatrical, tap-dancing daughter,

three years my elder, and referred to as..

well, let me say with the grace deserved,–– not a "roughneck."

From the archives / Quequechan

         addendum to: Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s influence on: “the Annex at Lincoln Park”

at the far left of the plane, a young couple

seems to be entering the "Clambake Pavilion."

it’s yet another man dressed in another grey suit.

his woman wears a shimmering green dress,

and seen from behind, she appears to be walking

with assurance that her man knows the way.

but her man is looking uncomfortably to his right, toward where

the clambake is being prepared by a sweltering staff.

It seems to this observer, that the man in yet another grey suit,

now realizes they need tickets for the clambake.

he’s leading his woman toward the wrong approach.

they’ll never get their clambake from this direction!

the tilt of his head and his expression is, how do you say: palpable.

he’s the breadwinner.

he’s the decision-maker.

he’s the one relied upon to adjust the cranky

television’s wayward vertical control.

his woman leans on his direction. It’s 1952, for chrissakes!

his dilemma: 

he’s too close to the "Clambake Pavilion" to steer a slow right turn,

implying to his woman he's been on the correct path all along.

"just follow me, sweetiepuss."

a hard right turn is an undeniable admission of his incompetence.

question:

what do you think this man should do?

1. blame the woman.

“damn you, honey! I told you! It’s THAT way over THERE”!

2. trip her to the pavement skinning her knee.

(she’ll need immediate medical attention)

3. make a hard right anyway and live under the shadow

of weakness sure to follow him for the rest of his life.

4. bop her on the head with a bag of discarded quahog shells,

and dump her body in the woods behind the “Pitch n’ Putt.”

 

 

                  “Tell me of your reactions and discoveries” 

1.

A recently unearthed

scrap of paper found between

pages 502 and 503, of a large

volume of “Latin American Poetry”

published by “New Directions” in 1942,

remains a mystery to me in that a notation

under the heading, written in my young

mother’s delicate cursive states:

“Tell me of your reactions and discoveries.”

It is meant to be sent to someone named “Lee”,

which could be interpreted as Olympia Pieroni,

called: “Lee” my mother’s next older sister, and

mother to Paul Pieroni, the great knuckleballer

of city-wide CYO baseball lore.

In time's past I might have tracked this mystery

to those who might have had some recollection of it,

adding necessary input into the meaning of its existence.

But everyone’s long gone to explore their circumstance

of afterlife bequeathed to them by the flotsam of the Big Bang.

As such, it will end here, splitting Carmen Alicia Cadilla's

Spanish transcription: "Responsos," p. 502,

and it's English translation: "Responsories" p. 503.  

2.

So,–– so long to all who had knowledge of this scrap's

beginnings with Annie Pieroni's notation dancing across it.

I hope you’ve found the Heaven you were promised

through the articles of the new testament by way of Priest.

But even with that, we’ll not meet again.

                  Bonnie and Clyde in Fall River

I like Beethoven’s Third Symphony.

But the young twosome known as Bonnie & Clyde

were on the run,–– got lost heading north when they thought

they were heading south.

They were running from the cops after a petty shoplifting

episode, west of the bayou.

They drove night and day, and it grew colder, not so’s they’d notice.

But it grew colder than that.

Still, the twosome drove like a couple of bats from the belfry

of sweltering Louisiana.

Being a poet, Bonnie told Clyde she thought she could smell

"a different kind of salt".

Clyde stepped on the gas not realizing he was running

fast toward Bonnie's sense of smell, and the Ford V8,–– 85 horses,

and near 75 miles an hour barreled into salty southeastern

Massachusetts,–– the twosome finding their way to 1017 Bedford

across the street from Columbus Park, named for another

sacker of human dignity.

There, at the drainpipe, Bonnie snapped a Kodak Brownie

of the inhabitants thereof, liking the cut of their jib.

Wig and Annie didn’t rob nor were they killers.

But for one brief moment they simply appeared to be.

So the next time you listen to Beethoven’s Eroica, initially named for

yet another sacker of human dignity, remember my father and my mother,––

presumed innocent in the eyes of the law.

 

                   I have a friend who has a daughter

she’s a poet, who one day will be ushered

to her place in the canon, although for now

she’s far too young for such a thing.–– besides,

“a place in the canon” sounds like an institution

where grandma's sent packing while the kids

rationalize what's best for grandma.

oh, my goodness! how do I justify such madness?

says here the poet has her man and kids alongside to live the life.

that's a good thing.–– but no mention of cats or parakeets?

I take umbrage.

ya gots to have a parakeet in the house

with a flask of sippin’ whiskey at the edge of the table

and doves on the wing in the room like Matisse or a cat.

 

-maybe love poems-

In the dream, the poets

who’ve made something of themselves

came to me, frustrated in reviewing

my attempts at writing what the world calls

for the lack of any evidence to be otherwise,

“love poems.”

I argued a weak defense before the

assembled court of the frustrated.

“what about this one, here?!” I pleaded

as I submitted: “the break-up with a true beauty”

for reconsideration.

the French scoffed and snuffed.

the Americans, their hands in their pockets,

whistled above their heads, while the Italians

cranked-up a "Pagliacci" tearjerker and wept, openly.

Christ. I was drowning in the sea of the frustrated, when

the Spaniard said: "that poem for reconsideration is about

love lost, William," shaking his head and his pen; pen like an inquisition.

“Is it?” I responded, bending low to examine the print.

but I woke-up in a frenzy, typical of dreams gone bad,

and damn! if it wasn't only Tuesday.

  

The Game of “Peanut”

As boy, the composer

Manuel de Falla along with his young cousin,

created a game they called: "Peanut."

I can find no evidence of the existence

of the game called "Peanut” anywhere, except for

its mention during a decades old interview with

de Falla's aunt, reminiscing on the great Spanish composer's

life as a boy in Cádiz, Spain.

The game of “Peanut” as described

by de Falla's aunt is played thusly:

Two players lay belly-down, silently side-by-side

in opposite directions on the floor of the house,

and incrementally begin to shrink in size.

As they shrink, they stop periodically to report

their visual findings to one another, of how things

appear to be from these new perspectives, and

the game continues this way until each player

shrinks down to the size of a peanut.

The game was first played by the young cousins around 1883,

and in 1891, girls were allowed to play "Peanut" without

being separated from the boys, adding elements of excitement

and titillation to the game.

Adults take notice.

There are no winners nor losers in the game of "Peanut"

and parents laud the intense concentration and blessed silence

which comes with the game, and although a game-board

of "Peanut" would be ridiculous, the game as created by

de Falla and cousin is certainly interesting in concept,

and could be introduced to rainy day kids as an alternative to...

                  My breakup with Visual Art

Not Visual Art produced by others, but

Visual Art produced by my often heavy-handed hand.

I expected the breakup to be messy, but

in fact it was quite cordial.

I told Her I was leaving

and Visual Art said it was fine with that.

Surprisingly, Visual Art surrendered

all Her possessions to my care,

calling it a “clean break”––

but even those possessions

expressed a desire to go out on their own.

That's fine. They’re old enough.

But they did pose for a few snapshots

as they packed, although none of them

told me where they were going.

Well, maybe they told me, but I forget.

It's been a long, long time.

Nowadays, I'm left to leaf-through

the pages of my history with them, and

I enjoy looking at the snapshots.

I see something of myself there.

They have my nose.

Pablo Neruda, closing his remarkable poem

of passion and remembrance, "Where can Guillermina be"

said simply: ––"I came to live in this world."––

Now I'm told that Neruda couldn't draw worth a shit.

So, how 'bout that?

                  Zina Bethune, her spellbinding death, and the predestined fate of the opossum

                  the impact / part one:

02,12,2012.

the first car to strike her catapulted Zina Bethune

into the opposite lane of oncoming traffic.

an interlude:

putting myself at the wheel of the first car

I might’ve been distracted by reaching into

the sloppy glove compartment for something special.

suddenly there’s Zina in the road

bending over the lifeless form of a possum;

there's the sickening thud on contact, and Zina

goes flying through the air toward oncoming traffic

as the breaks, no more useful than an afterthought,

are screeching tires across the pavement.

It smells like the atmosphere’s burning.

It sounds like the atmosphere's in pain.

It looks like Hell on Earth in Southern California.

the impact / part two: 02,12,2012.

the second car in the oncoming lane hits her in mid-flight.

an interlude:

putting myself at the wheel of the second car,

I see her coming at me like the freeze-frame

advance in a Muybridge sequence. 

I might've recognized Zina, now tumbling through the air

as pretty as a whirling dervish after kicking back a few drinks.

then splat!, as she hits the windshield then rolls

beneath the wheels of the car, at which time I commence

to dragging her some 600 feet before I gain control of my machine

and my senses. but floating in space on her approach she looked

like an angel. I thought she’d be taking it easy, living the good life,

part-time hawking nonsensical fitness contraptions between innings,

making a bundle with each 15 second pitch.

Zina,–– look at you, tumbling through the air in slo-mo in So-Cal.

Zina,–– why did you cross a strip of asphalt God itself had determined

to be reserved for the death of opossums?