the Sunday Supplement: “Goings On Around Town"

                   the innocent bystanders:

there were 23 people

on the escalator going up

to procure certain goods

some of whom would soon become

innocent bystanders.

5 steps above them,

the target of the assassination plot,

below them, the assassin.

shots ring out.

6 of the now classified

as innocent bystanders are killed

along with the assassin's target.

the assassin is shot dead by the cops

in a shootout at the base of the escalator

along with 2 cops and 4 additional

innocent bystanders.

potential innocent bystanders

scurry for cover.

12 potential innocent bystanders

call 91l, others place calls to their kids

telling them: “Mommy loves you.”

one (1) innocent bystander

dies of a heart attack on the lower

platform during the turmoil (mass commotion)

which investigators would later determine 

had no direct link to the shootout and consequently

his name was eventually withdrawn from the list

of innocent bystanders.

 

the tearjerker, and a short poem as it struggles to rain and fails.

Benoit wants his money.

Rodolfo's at a verbal standstill.

Marcello can't paint for shit.

it’s freezing in there and across the hall

Mimi’s dying.

you know how it became a standard

backstage ritual before an opera performance

where the male tenors spray their throats

and vocalize: “Mi, Mi.!”?–– well,

it’s not the “Mi, Mi” from the scale they’re singing,

it’s: “Mimi! Mimi!” ‘cause those are the tortured notes

Rudolf cries-out with passion when Mimi dies.

one thing leads to another.

there are better poems.

it struggles to rain and fails.

there are better rainclouds.

there are better operas.

                   -By Unanimous Consideration-

Announcing the "Honorary Chairman"––

duly elected by the official gathering

of the annual "Columbus Day Parade Committee."

––The "Honorary Chairman" is pictured standing

on the rear floorboard of the sharp-finned, slow-

moving, powder blue 1958 Cadillac convertible,

acknowledging the sporadic, but warm, sidewalk reception.

––He spoke the night before at the "Sons Of Italy Hall"

accepting the honorarium with humility and deep emotion.

––He introduced his family from the lectern:

his wife, his daughter and two sons.

––An honorary supper was served downstairs

to invited friends and satellite family members, to church

and local dignitaries; the parish priest, a city councilor

of Italian parentage, and two previous "Honorary Chairmen"

still among the living. It was a bustling, noisy Hall.

––After the blessing,

the guests feasted on spaghetti and meatballs

served-up from the Hall's own kitchen.

––The men drank

Narragansett lager beer from the bottlenecks.

The old-timers drank a sweet Port wine from semiopaque plastic cups.

The women puffed "Viceroy" king size, filter-tipped cigarettes.

The younger kids were unruly, bumping into one another

across the blistered linoleum never quite knowing in which

direction they should run.

––The priest was seated at the head-table with other city dignitaries

including Ray Patrucci, president and chairman of the

"Columbus Day Parade Selection Committee."

––The city councilor shook every hand he could grab

before leaving in a hurry, like any aging local sports hero

who has to catch the last run of the Bedford and County bus. 

A framed, official-looking Proclamation with embossed seal

was presented to the "Honorary Chairman" through the smoky commotion.

It will hang on the parlor wall across from the television

tacked just high enough above the kerosine-fired space heater

to be seen at eye-level by visiting company to my father's house.

Its paper will yellow with age.

In time, the Proclamation will be placed upon a high closet shelf

enclosed within a dank corrugated box marked: "knickknacks."    

Quequechan

-the complete, "all-purpose poem"––

a poem you can reach for everyday without fear

of annoyingly probing introductions found in, well, poetry-

1.   spray your tub, your sink and toilet.

take it to the kitchen for fragrant relief from

the acid aroma of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

2.    spray your closets from musty odors, like

grandpa’s mothy overcoat which smells of stale port,

parmesan cheese, and "Gioconni’s Funeral Home"

conveniently located on the corner of Healy and Quarry.

2b.   also, please be sure to thoroughly spray that McCartney CD

of his recorded “Silly Love Songs” BECAUSE IT STINKS.

advisory:

DO NOT SPRAY LENNON’S “ACROSS THE UNIVERSE”!

what's that you say?  you don’t have it?   hmm.. figures.

3.   go ahead. spray yourself in the face.

go ahead. give it a good shot!

what’s that you ask?

yeah, sure it’s okay to keep your eyes open.

why in hell would you need them?

 

                  Sei

Looking back at it now

after a gaggle of decades

it’s a wonder that my

maternal grandfather

wasn’t bumped-off

by a fast moving vehicle

as he crossed Bedford Street

on his way to church, or

on his way to visit

the DeCarlo band of lunatics,

or on his way to the Marconi Club

to drink a glass of port wine with a rip

of Italian bread before going out back

to play bocci or especially to engage

in the frantic game of odds & evens. (called Morra)

in this case, a rapid-fire encounter of flashing

fingers while shouting out their exposed

numbers in the famed romance of the Italian tongue.

This was a stunning visual and aural event:

Two combatants face-to-face,

nearly no time elapsed between calls,––

no “one-two-three-shoot” bullshit as played by amateurs,

and at the end both players spinning away from the other

in a decisive retreat of the game.

there should be an opera dedicated to odds & evens

as it was played at the Marconi Club on Bedford, out back

at the bocci lanes behind the meadow just beyond the billboards.

It could well be that the reflexes required and honed in order

to stay in the game was the reason why my maternal grandfather

never got bumped-off crossing Bedford by oncoming traffic.

I recall that flashing and screaming the number "six"

was the most dramatic and memorable moment of the game,

the number called with the most searing of emotion:

“Seeeiiiiiiiii..!”

To this day, six stands alongside googolplex as my numbers of choice.

                   In the beginning / the young Italians pose for a snapshot

they're standing upon their territory,

a backyard in need of some repair, or

at the least, a fundamental maintenance.

nourished, if not by the healthiest of meals,

the group stands for a well-directed snapshot.

from top left:

sister Janice and cousin Delores

who holds her baby brother, James.

from bottom left:

brother Robert, cousin Lois,

younger sister to Delores, and me, William.

 

this is monumental.

this snapshot is the personification

of the long romance.

preserved by the shutter speed direct from the Kodak laboratories,

this is the place from which God proposed alternatives to

what once might have been;

a counterweight to the old testament.

no lambs were slaughtered during its development,

and although most therein have died in body or spirit,–– from demon cancer,

from tainted blood, a failed heart, the sucking tentacles of politics,

one who remains is older than the rest, now frail and incoherent, the other,

soon to be lost to this world,–– where after them, there is nothing.

precisely the way it should be.

 

                 painting by numbers

the colors have numbers

and correspond to numbers on the panel  

required to complete the picture.

in the end

there’s a boat, a smack listing to

starboard, bow's on wet

land, stern's in shallow water.

there’s also a neatly kept dock, #1, #12, #7,

ladened with aquatic paraphernalia;

lobster pots, #1,#12, #7, hanging bumpers #16, #1, and so on.

in the distance, clouds, #1, #7, and gulls, #1, #7, hover over the action.

convincingly, the still water glistens, #7, #1, #12..

reflecting

what’s on top of it.

sky’s blue, #7, dock’s brown, #1, #12, #7,

boat’s white, #1,

and in serious need of a paint job.

well, that’s what I thought I was doing.

but apparently not.

 

                   to soothe the savage breast

the first-thing this Wednesday morning

brings to mind are thoughts of eggs, over easy.

actually, the first-thing this Wednesday morning

brings to mind is prioritizing in favor of a quick release.

then my thoughts will turn to frying some eggs.

but in the immediate sense, I'm thinking more along the lines of coffee.

but it's the eggs which keep rolling in

as the embryos they once were laid to be.

I don’t like to think of them that way.

but navigating the morning's mix

I find the “New York Bach Ensemble.”

actually, it's Lara St. John who enters the room with a characteristic jolt,

the famed Stradivarius in hand, the ensemble bringing up the rear.

as is common with the violin's glitterati, the "Stradivarius"

is held unceremoniously by the neck, with Lara at the quickstep shouting:

“I'm in a hurry, but as long as you’re frying eggs,

make mine sunny-side-up"!

so I'm back to considering eggs first-thing this Wednesday morning.

then Bach.

                   The actual monetary worth of things would be well beyond my reach

Viktoria Mullova

Plays the violin

Plays the Bach Partitas

Alone with her fiddle

Plays the “Ciaccona”

Like a bat outta Moscow.

Seems like she’s worth:

CD used from $5.54.

CD new from $19.99.

I opt for CD new at the retail price of $19.99.

For $19.99 I get Viktoria exactly as I want her;

A virgin Viktoria.

A Viktoria without human violation.  A pure Viktoria;

Direct from the retail incubators. Unadulterated. No scuffs.

No scratches. No original sin.