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?

                

                "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" is a film by Georges Méliés / 1902

                 original poem by: "The Consortium D'Quequechan." 

                 (my younger brother said: "It looks like a rocket ship!")

                   Requiem:

Our father died and

with our mother and older sister distraught and unable,

I drove west on Bedford with my younger brother aside

to make arrangements at the funeral home––

the one used to bury

my father’s parents

the same one used to bury

my mother’s parents and

just about every dead

relative in the city.

So we entered the funeral home

to pick a casket from three available,––

each ready to serve a worthy occupant.

The first was a bronze color and too flashy,

the second was brownish and too earthy,

but the third was silver-toned,

smeared in a heavily glazed lacquer.

My little brother said it looked like a rocket ship. It looked

like the one Flash Gordon would fly on his way to Stardom.

That was it. That's the one. The one that’ll rocket the oldman

beyond the stacks and steeples of a hard, working-class landscape,

beyond the summer sweltering saloons of "Buzzard's Bay"

their proprietors eager to shell-out for the oldman's wares,––

upward, far beyond the gloomy precinct of priests, and far,

far beyond the craggy Man-in-the-Moon with a lesser rocket run through his eye!–– 

Well, these are the things I would have liked to tell my sister and my mother

in order to assuage their grief, leaving them free to tidy-up, to set out platters

of Marcucci's cold cuts, and Marzilli's pizza for the hordes of well-wishers

pulling up to the curb in their Oldsmobiles and Studebakers and Pontiacs and..

and.. Wait a minute! What the hell is that?–– 

Who the christ do we know owns a freakin' Henry J. Kaiser?!

Requiem

                  anthropology less than 101

a presentation to dear professor, Dr. Nadine Constantinople,

in the form of a question:

let's consider the first human being who had a thought

beyond the confines of instinct; the first, because

the initial ability to reason is not an immediate herd sort of thing.

before the millisecond it took for others to catch on,

there had to be... the first. 

where would he or she have lived? well,

Africa comes to mind, not Sweden as you've proposed, Nadine, 

in a time without drawn borders, and I say that because

it stands to reason that if borders were drawn consciously

and used to separate one's self from the unknown others,–– 

a lake, or stream, or hillside, (natural) or snapped sticks

pressed into soil to form a perimeter, (reasoned) those would be

defined as acts of thought beyond the confines of instinct.

I bet it was a woman.

but for this writing, I’m referring to "one's self " 

as a man,–– as in mankind, but a man, a creature

with more upper body strength than, you know,

the standard female of that era, and I say: “of that era”

because I'm familiar with a number of women of this era

who could easily, and would gladly, kick the shit outta me.

anyway, Nadine, back to this.."guy"––  this.. "One's self" who meets

all the criteria;–– has weight, occupies space, is capable of reason,

but doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

so this particular prehistoric "One's self"

decides to enlighten the dwellers within his locality

of this new-found wisdom, and as he does,

somewhere during the middle passages in the oral defense

of his dissertation on "thought beyond the confines of instinct,"

the community of fellow dwellers kill him with hand-held stones.

so my question, dear Nadine, is...

in your opinion, how much longer will it take for another guy,

like the above noted "One's self"–– to show-up?

                  The young castrati

It’s a mid sixteenth century line-up

and those who aspire

to sing the highest of the high notes

within the boys choirs are asked

to step forward as it was proposed

that this was a great honor bringing

the chosen closer to God. 

This is in praise and wonderment

of the young castrati,

suffering for the pitch of the song,

but I can’t get my head wrapped-

around their reasoning,

even when God is placed at the center,

not of the universe, but of the conversation,

and there's always the standard falsetto option.

What must the young, curious girls

have thought about the castrati,––

walking side-by-side on the shortcut home,

crossing the meadow behind the bakery,

sunset closing in, the atmosphere

more Venetian than Florentine, asking slyly,

their eyes passed down, if they might...

see it.