-Today’s weather-

Geographers tell me

I'm nearly surrounded by water;

their findings substantiated

by a leisurely walk-around.

Biologists tell me

my body is composed of nearly 65% water,

somewhat less when calculated by

Pathologists.

Geologists say
there’s a quantifiable element of water
to be found in subsurface crystalline stone.

with enough evidence at hand,

I've considered the inclusion of indispensable

bodies of water within the texts of poems, and this morning

Meteorologists are predicting

increasingly overcast skies with an 80%

chance of rain later in the afternoon, and yet

it's raining now.

                   smart-ass

the brain informs me of things I should like

and sometimes enlightens as to why.

the brain advises against what will kill me

and up to now effectively, although

it warns of inevitable change

in its benevolent attitude.  it's true,

the brain works in mysterious ways, the God of my physiology

and sometimes it’s difficult to determine the difference between

construction and destruction when the process lies somewhere

in the rubble of the middle-ground of each.

but to write poems I need first

the audacity to do such a thing and even then

I don’t always see clearly, but I think I do, and that’s enough

to get the brain through the day in nearly one piece.

                   -Regarding Marguerite's Ascension-

1.

With the measurement of time and distance considered,

If a star exploded last night I wouldn’t have known.

It's a rare, deep sleep with clinical aids in capsule form

Dissolved in the bloodstream with the measured accuracy

Expected of any prescribed pharmaceutical.

I'm in the raucous company of Hector Berlioz this late afternoon

Acting out his visions of Heaven and Hell;

Of how through circumstance, he who loved descends

Into the abyss as she, the loved-one ascends to paradise. 

"La Damnation de Faust" is its calling;

A fitting requiem to a deep-sky object

Reaching its existence.

2.

It's a wide berth the skies grant unto us.

Inside, another Monday begins to slip beyond itself

With little time remaining to establish its residence.

                    the pineapple

it’s the symbol of hospitality, but

its juice is dangerous to consume according to

many pharmaceutical advisories.

also, the pineapple rates poorly among 300

hypochondriacs recently polled by Quinnipiac.

its got more scales than many fish, and its cloak is nearly as hard

as the shell of the tortoise, and yet the tortoise runs faster.

oh, and its meat is stringier than the cartilage

which holds us in place!

the pineapple looks okay on the mantelpiece

when reproduced in cut glass, but so does everything else,

and apart from the produce bins, it’s rarely seen

with other pineapples,–– 

and even when shown

as a symbol of hospitality, it’s always alone.

and let's face it; when you bring a pineapple

home from the grocery, do you really feel

comfortable in knowing what you have to do with it?

isn't the purchase immediately regrettable?

sure, you'll eventually cut into it, cube it,

and concoct some sort of platter of it for company, but

danger lurks with every movement of the knife.

oh, and it’s menacing. it’s the black hole of fruits..

or vegetables..or botanicals..or bromeliads or whatever

classification it happens to land upon in the moment.

but who knows? certainly not me.

just make it easy on yourselves and keep your distance

from the pineapple.

              -the dog, the rug, the Pope and Benito-

the dog

raised its empty head

and squatting hollow-eyed

in the strain of its circumstance

looked like a meditator

of the spiritual world—  like the Pope at the first

crack of pistol

fire—  like Benito nodding pompously

cross-armed upon his

balcony—  like ditzy Bernadette at the foot

of her burning bush—  like the passive

wildebeest trapped by the jaws clamped at its throat

just before I whacked it on the head

with last month's National Geographic.

                   -the final straw in my relationship with the scintillating Virginia Fox- 

there’s a small rectangular

felt pad on my desk upon which

lies a mimeographed sheet of paper with six,

block-print capital letters running across it:

MOTHER.

along with classmates, I’m given a needle––

like a hatpin, and I’m told to be careful.

the test is to pinprick along

the interior lines of the six letters

into the felt pad without pricking

beyond their borders.

for my efforts I was awarded three stickers:

a duck, a flower, and a five-pointed star.

in a collective showing against the stickers won by classmates,

it appeared I had achieved a comparatively high rating.

but my girlfriend, the scintillating Virginia Fox,

next row to the right, and two desks forward, presented

upon her page: a flower, a five-pointed star, and a pony.

her snarky attitude at the comparison jamboree seemed

to indicate that her stickers were a notch above my stickers,

reasoning that a pony was better than a duck.

she said: “I got a pony.”

in the court of public opinion I didn’t stand a chance in hell.

so, that was it for the scintillating Virginia Fox, although

her  snarky point-of-view was substantive. 

what kid in his right mind would want a duck for Christmas?

                  -let's try not to be unreasonable-

it's unreasonable

to consider the game

as running clockwise.

it's unreasonable

to accept the implementation

of the designated hitter rule as reasonable.

(In the sandlot game, it's reasonable to refer to

a throw-pillow nabbed from the couch as "home".)  

it's not unreasonable

to suggest that the batter's box

at any given time favors one batter over another.

it's unreasonable to think that Nestor Chylak

(5/11/'22 - 2/17/'82) wasn't born to be an umpire.

it's reasonable

that in today's game the manager not be required

to wear a suit and tie in the dugout;

why, if that were to happen now,

the game would be thrown into chaos.

it's reasonable

that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bases

be carried away at the close of the game

like buntings toward their shelters while

the plate remains on the field which is not unreasonable.

A dream to a large extent historically accurate

Intrada:

A dog is barking, squealing at times.

The sounds of distress.

The animal seems chained to a stake beyond the barb-

wired fence into the junkyard, deeply

toward the darkest end.  It’s a junkyard dog.

1.  I'm not one given to awakening

from fierce dreams in panic-driven

cold sweats like other poets in the neighborhood,

but curiosity leads me out of bed

to look out the window to see what's what.

There's clarity there, and the night sky

opens its eye to reveal its depth.

The barb-wired fence beyond the meadow is gone

as is the junkyard it couldn't protect;–– the junks,

replaced by neat, single family ranch houses.

There's three of them built upon the buried backs of the once

indelible cars of our fathers and their fathers before them.

Almost no frontage, but out back assembled swing

sets stand brightly colored (the sunlight assists)

in red, yellow and blue, inviting occupancy.

2.  A soft breeze nudges the crescent moon-shaped

seats from their stillness, with no signs of neighborhood anxiety.

The atmosphere strengthens with early morning's arrival

and translucent skies with feathery's high on the wing

performing in accompaniment.

Serenade:

3.  It's noted that I be so informed, and so I am.

And the song continues to come this way.

 

 

                  Joyce Reopel / "Medusa 111" / silverpoint, 1965

                  -a final accounting of a decades-long grievance-

Joyce Reopel,

silverpoint aficionado

is dead.

I came to know this when

an old art school friend sent the announcement

along with this notation: "William, for your archives"

via secret messenger because

he knew she'd held a shadowed place in my brain

as indelible as any act of rudeness.

the announcement included

photos of Joyce, and her husband, Mel,

non-aficionado of picture painting, also dead,

their deaths separated by a half-month passage of time.

some may see a measure of romance in that,

and that's ok, yet here is a side-by-side;

a pairing of sorts, like shoes or socks,

or an occupied two car garage, or two fewer

than the number of victims necessary to be classified

as a mass shooting event arbitrarily set at four

by the U.S. Department of Justice.

I hold no considerations of heaven or hell or the wacky

way-station known as purgatory,–– but certain moments remain

within the bowels of my continuing consciousness. 

death announces its resolution to cats, to dogs,

to priests counted among the sinners, to Joyce, to Mel,

to single cell organisms; to you and to me.

"The Horse Fair" / Rosa Bonheur / French / 1852, 1853.

earlier, while gawking into

a troubling atmosphere,

over a mug of "french roast"

I had no thoughts of horses, letting alone

taking the time and effort to actually write about them.

but later,

after reading the "suite" from W. C. Williams' flowering

"January Morning" and then Googling horse pictures,

everything seemed within reach.

as a kid, I had a fundamental fear of horses.

it wasn’t a paralyzing fear, or a haunting remnant

of a vivid horse dream, but simply due to the size of their heads;

big, hard, and long, with black-nodule eyes, mouths full of gnarling

yellow teeth, with long, pink-thick tongues the size of waterslides.

kids from Wyoming would've

laughed at me if they had the chance,

but that didn't happen because

I didn't go to Wyoming.

but in time I grew from my fear of horses

to more immediate fears of other kinds

running rampant in today’s critical world

of new and improved gun-slingers.

recently, during a frantic game

of hide and seek with the kids, I refused to hide 

below the head of a horse, and because of its size

and ultimate consequence, I would rather be caught dead

than hide behind the ass of a horse.

remembering: LaCava's "free horse rides" at his stable

on North Quarry Street. 1952?

 

               there they are / once a young family

               this family stands between

               the calm and restlessness, backs

               to the trees and sky, the bloated

               sheetmetal of yesteryears heavy 

               automobiles, their romanticized ornaments

               kissing the tree-line, maybe late into summer––

               everything's open to discussion.

               who knows where this family stands?

               someplace planned and executed, or

               the consequence of veering onto the wrong exit, or

               an impulse to adventure,–– but only one

               stands among them to authenticate these findings.

               parents dressed for separate outings

               and who knows which to where?

               first son, heal of his hand pressed

               into an eye’s socket nearly irretrievable.

               second son, still blonde as a german.

               sister, first child closing in on herself,

               pulsar at the hub,––

               this family group stands as early arrivals

               to an unknown destination, and who knows

               where or when or why, yet there they are,––

               and here I sit, writing this early event with

               a retrievable eye, unable to authenticate

               the destination with certainty, and who knows why?

               

                   the unwelcome

there are guests on the balcony.

they are not my guests.

I'm not to be held accountable.

not one by my invitation.

not one with a reason to be introduced.

none will appear at the borderline of my interests

and when the unwelcome depart,

entering the portal of 505 from whence they came,

the balcony will be left to its residents,           

its concrete backbone, the strength of its steel,

the exhibition of the trees above their roots,

the call of the southbound river, its natural isolation,

and the northeast stroke of the wind.

                   It’s difficult to hear the pianissimos with all this ruckus!

beyond

the 5th floor balcony

a horizontal line

of densely-populated trees

runs south to north

this 2nd of June, inhabited

by chirping birds, scurrying squirrels,

buzzing insects, and industry

clamoring in the short distance.

from 5 floors up, the treetops

confront me, rising no higher

than my line-of-sight, and

nature's tenants therein have things to tell me.

I listen to their confessions in birdsong,

the squirrel’s admission of yesterday’s

treasures in scavenging,

the insects, marginally justifying

reasons for their collective madness,

and fierce-sounding industry,–– introducing

its machinery’s accomplishments, eventually

placing the necessities of them in evidence.

In time I've heard enough, and absolve them

of their intrusions, releasing them unconditionally

to go about their occupations.

this is done by the power of my good graces,–– whereupon,

the snazzy earbuds are inserted into their respective canals,

continuing the "Langsam Misterioso" from Gustav Mahler's

"Symphony No. 2 in C minor,"–– and the longer this morning

continues its disclosures awaiting my adjudications, the more I feel

like a

fucking God!