If he can get away with it why can’t I get away with it ?

yawning, Rembrandt set-up,

considered the light source and said:

“fuck the light source.”

where’s the light source? they asked.

where’s the light coming from? one said.

northside, southside, eastside, westside?

what the hell, Rembrandt!–– three others would come to exclaim.

then Rembrandt whipped it out.  (the painting)

undaunted, Rembrandt set-up again.

this was about three weeks later.

he grabbed some stuff from the “inanimate objects closet,"

placed them on a sturdy table and said: “before I start,

I’d better clean-up the mess

inside the “inanimate objects closet” so he did.

later, while he fucked around with the light source again, he thought:

“ya know, someday, somewhere in this world, some kid’s gonna

clean up a messy “inanimate objects closet” just like me.”

William in the still life room, the Swiz-D, 1963.

                   "Meantime life outside goes on all around you" / Bob Dylan  / A true story in progress 

I'm in the middle of the fourth day

of an Ivan the Terrible rash which is responsible

for the maddening, all-day-long itching and scratching cycle.

My primary care physician checked it out, but

referred me to a dermatologist who

can’t see me until next Thursday because he's busy.

I may not be as busy as the good doctor, but the scratching up and down

over my legs and across my butt running parallel to the equator is relentless,

and I should add: overwhelmingly busy.

At this hour there's nothing much I can do, so I’ll read some poems

by somebody else higher up in the rankings, and maybe that'll take

my mind off the intolerable itch.

If not, I may find myself admitted to the institute for observation, laying stark naked

upon a vinyl-covered bunk, cell number 503, 2:28 a.m. reading a very funny

sonnet by Diane Seuss on page 4 of her volume: “Frank: Sonnets”

wondering what my chances are for an early release from the facility.

Meantime, my frantic fingertips are scratching the flesh from my rash-

smeared ass while I'm laughing out loud like the other observable lunatics.

                  -part one / the beginning-

2/ 15/ '43

It’s a bright, sudden light.

a harsh light.

a light like to burn my eyes.

maybe it's heaven’s light––

could be the 24 hour snack emporium's

light of florescence, the buzzing light that never sleeps,

not for Christmas, not for holy days of obligation––

not even for when J.F.K. gets popped, for chrissakes!

and me, a standard issue male,

7 pounds plus an ounce calculated fo be up to 7:

an abstract creature–– twice

removed descendant of 

Lucca, northern province where

our cousins are blonde-headed

just south of Switzerland

my mother would come to say

wrapped-up in a warped geography,––

and me, born in time to make early

reservations to Mussolini’s inversion,––

and me, a slimy pink bauble wailing

to be pushed back to the inside as a sterilized

maniac slaps me senseless into the dry

cruel new word.

February 15, 1943:

Truesdale Hospital

Fall River, Massachusetts,––

and me, slithering my way between

common anesthesia and thalidomide

the miracle drug to help her relax a little,

take it easy, kick back, it's a boy,––

this, long before zip codes

long before area codes––

a time when

telephones were heavier

than volume 18: "M to Mexico"

inconvenient, but––

you got to where you otherwise

wouldn’t want to be;

a place at the end of the line,

a time when the Moon

was considered a deep sky object

and neighborhood kids were doomed

by the physical force of domestic politics

to Saturday morning confessionals

before being strapped-in for the afternoon

accordion lessons.

my father,

a non-recipient

of the Congressional Medal of Honor

had just stepped out of World War 2

Minneapolis, Minnesota, 

bringing home

his souvenir MP armband

and his bully club

a highly lacquered

two-footer

with attached

rawhide loop at the base

used for

clubbing stability and swinging

accuracy.

my mother

had her work cut out for her,––

and me, acting the part of a stencil.

she’d done this

once before, and after me

she’d do it again for the last time,

but this time, taking time off to finish me off,

with no gratuity as "maternity leave with pay"

at the sweltering Sagamore textile mill in the early days of 1943...

end of part one

 

-The man in the moon / part one-

––I’m the first son born

to the liquor salesman on the road

and the inner hatband stitcher.

I’m nephew to the great cobbler,

south-end of the city,

nephew to the catholic hymnal soprano,

the younger cousin to her middle son,

the league's hypnotic knuckleballer,

the older cousin to the storefront proprietors

in the artificial floral arrangements trade

accounts receivable from the occupants

of the north-end tenements.

––I’m the friend of the friend departed,

the shortstop defending the gap to center

against the swift Portuguese

who lived out their lives on the distant side of the planet

a few blocks to the west.

––In the evening, the streetlight incandescence

polished the dome-topped roofs

of the standing automobiles,— the heavy

Buicks and Oldsmobiles our fathers

would drive to their daily occupations in the morning.

Quequechan, early 1950s

                   the man in the moon / the second part

––we learned about the "man in the moon,"

not by academic instruction, but by, well,–– actually

we just seemed to know about the man in the moon.

somebody, somewhere, at one time or other told us about it,

and when we looked up, this somebody navigating the moon face

with the dexterity of an index finger said: "see? there's the eye,

there's the mouth, can't see the nose, but there's the other eye!"

and sure enough, there he was. "the man in the moon."

––it takes some study and a large dose

of imagination to visually decipher the man in the moon,

to make it out as it conforms to the implied 

pictures they've also made of the stars.

they've said, for example, a specific constellation

is called the "water bearer" so we looked up and mapped-out

the "water bearer" although it could've just as easily been an "anteater."

––likewise, the man in the moon isn’t a like a halloween mask that

jumps into view when you open the door: "Dracula"!  "Nixon !"

we have to work at the image, make it the way they say it is.

––the man in the moon isn’t even a full-length man; that is,

a man from head to toe, where we can scrutinize his choice of shoes,

his suit of clothes, debate the material of his coat in winter, or snicker at

the crop of his hair, or his nakedness,–– a more detailed account of

what could be considered as the man in the moon.

––it's only the abstract face of a man assigned to the surface of the moon,

making the moon a silvery ornament gracing the nub of the hood in the sky,

or earthbound, the king of a nation stamped into a commemorative non-

negotiable coin.

––with scrutiny we can call-up another image: "the woman in the moon"

and there she’ll be, wise goddess, glorious, strong and beautiful.

––with alternate scrutiny we can call-up another image: "God in the moon"

adding another metaphysical dimension to the discussion of the imagery:

the cold Face of God (oh, god) in the moon, or––

we can rely on the foundational image: the geological

depressions of the moon's surface causing the reflective chiaroscuro

of the faceplate and there we are, romance be damned, all grown up.