Vignette: 

      It’s where an asylum was built to hold the mad and slightly mad among us

On my nightly neighborhood walk a stranger approached me

near the corner of Bedford and Quarry.

He seemed overly distraught, but otherwise non-threatening.

He asked: “Do you agree that Brahms belongs with Beethoven and Bach

as a member of the so-called "Three B’s”?

––Well, as a matter of fact I don’t, but who’d I replace Brahms with, having

a last name beginning in “B” who’d even begin to fit within a triumvirate

containing Beethoven and Bach?

I advised the stranger: “Listen, pal, you gotta let this go or it’ll drive you straight to Taunton”.

He latched onto my arm with an ancient mariner’s weathered hand bemoaning:

“What the hell’s in Taunton”?

                  Cleo the real Chloe

and now you find me at another confessional

this morning I’ll be speaking of a cat.

a glistening, short-haired feline who made my day.

earlier, 12 of my wives decided to flee to Abdul’s harem

having had it with my inattentiveness to the group.

I openly admit my inattentiveness, but attending to 12

beautiful, silky-veiled women was more than I could handle,

what with the pall of old age hanging over me and a blonde-

wooded Zenith television set also on its last legs.

so..I wrote a poem of remembrance to a curious, rambunctious

cat who’d passed away and was doing time in purgatory for

“obstruction of accepted cat norms.”

It never occurred to me that there was such a thing.

but the point is, that that cat was fictitiously named “Chloe”

for reasons unknown even to me, when actually I was referring

to my lovely run-around-all-day-long, cat “Cleo."

and so, mea culpa.

mea culpa.

mea maxima culpa.

  

                   and then the cat died.

her name is Cleo

which was given to her

by the force of ownership.

I’d like to believe there’s

a cat paradise where “goodie-

four-pawed” cats go to meet-up

with others of their kind.

unfortunately, Cleo will be doing time

in “purgatory” for her crimes.

the disposition of her case, although cruel is justifiable.

of late, she’d put into practice many of my personal traits

in bad timing during appointments, and displays of quirky

attitudes out of the blue in front of company. 

but if purgatory is an island off the coast of paradise, which

many subscribers to the TV Guide have given credence to,

then she’ll be “on” purgatory not “in” purgatory:

as being: “I’m vacationing “ON” Nantucket.”

(which is correct)

as opposed to: “I’m vacationing “IN” Nantucket”

(which is incorrect and sounds pretty stupid if you ask me.)

well,–– that's it. so long.

           tractor trailers downshifting as they rumble off the exit of 79 into the north end of town

and the sound they make is, well, it’s enormous.

the big rigs need the compression of a back thrust

to slow themselves down from the high speed lanes of 79.

the trailers are empty, but they’re in need of a heavy load.

the sound they make is the sound of hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex

chasing down a plump, juicy Edmontosaurus.

that’s the herbivore’s claim to fame. “eaten by: Tyrannosaurus Rex."

what an inglorious epitaph.

but the rumbling, deep-throated sounds of the big rigs on their approach

define themselves by being hungry for product to fill the sides of their steely ribs,

and If you live in the cold north end region of town with its industry and isolation,

you’ll know what I mean.––

If you don’t, well, there are other things for you to consider,

and the charming intricacies of the sights and sounds of my way of life

are probably not among them.

   

                   I awakened to the same sounds, and the same setting of the same scene

––Wednesday:

There was nothing prepared

as the only thing that would’ve been is coffee,

dripping when its machine’s timer is activated

which it wasn’t.

––But Tuesday’s mound of clothes smelled as if dampness

was a mortal wound; like something went wrong,

and I’ll go no further. I don’t want to frighten you.

I’m an animal who has shed its skin.

––What's to consider before total consciousness,

before my sensibilities have had a chance to make sense,

before time begins its march to the sink?

––Is there someone in need of medical attention?

Will certain catastrophes fill the phosphorescent

airways on a loop? And what of the slow, agonizing

death of the morning erection?

God must’ve had some fun with that chapter in human biology.

––Wednesday:

The arbitrary bridge between one occupation, and another.

I know why. It sits in the middle. That's the reason, and yet, here I sit

as much a part of the world as any man, or groundhog, or any one

of those crazy elementary particles passing through solid structures

to get to who knows where, to do who knows what.

––Basta! I’m not writing another word today.

So I'll tune-in to channel 56, linger there with the weather girl,

and later, allow some time for Thursday to show its face.

                   three early acquaintances and their circumstances

––the first acquaintance had semi-normal parents

and 3 cats, the cats of his mother's choosing, and

they lived in a hot and cold running water flat

on Quarry street, in the center of town.

they kept to their own business for the most part

enabling the neighborhood to move along in its natural

instincts without their lopsided suggestions.

––the second acquaintance had a cousin who slipped

on a caught mackerel and fell overboard on her father's skiff,

port-side (to hear him tell of it) as it was being rowed

on Narragansett Bay on a weekend fishing expedition.

she survived, being water-active, once earning neighborhood

praise for shallow rock diving at Cook Pond, located in the deep

south end section of town.

––the third acquaintance acquired a new infielder's glove

by questionable means, a 3-fingered "stiffy" from the sporting-

goods racks, and played the game better than most sand-lotters, 

backhanding grounders heading toward the gap between left and center.

––all this happened in Fall River, Massachusetts

during my early years across the street and due south

of the church which on Saturday mornings absolved me

of my recurring venial sins, and west of Chasidor Leo’s

variety store, where upon the counter by day, gummy candies

lay unwrapped in a bowl of transparent glass of which once-

upon-a-time any number of goldfish and their inevitable replacements

lived out their otherworldly existences without, to the best

of my knowledge, any stories to tell.

                   December 4

I'm not a celebrant, but the first Christmas card

was found taped to my door just below the peephole,

its contents held in an elegant violet envelope.

a short tab of scotch tape promoted as “invisible”

by the 3M Company, held the envelope fast to the door.

I thought: what will the consequence be if leave the envelope

where it is; ignore it like I would a lioness with my head in her mouth?

time would be the measure of certain distress.

"could be William is bleeding from a fall in the kitchen.

they say all his close relations are dead and his friends,

those still among the living, live far, far away–– like the planets,

and within this measurement of distance, William is Pluto

after its fall from grace, and his son is the sun"!

I should stop daydreaming.

screw it. I’ll take it inside and open it.

–– let's see...there's a dove gliding over a sleepy village.

a soft endearing snow drapes the rooftops.

the chimneys billow a warm, radiant smoke. 

inside, a sweet, commercially printed message

speaks of "Good Will Toward Men", slightly embossed.

signed affectionately: Karen 509.

It was thoughtful, it was sent with the best of intensions,

but I fear an unrelenting cycle of commitments is about to begin.

damn it, Karen 509!

you leave me only one way out.

I gotta move.

                   poetry on the cheap

it came to me last night before lights-out

as the television pattern emerged in glorious

black and white, crackling with the echo

of the birth of the universe which some romantic

theorists still cling to, and I'm one of them,–– 

that I should just sit and listen, contemplating the hot

stench of God's exhalation.

maybe I'll read a few poems before hitting the sack.

nothing too scorching for this time of night,

which is normally my wont, you know, Daphne Gottlieb,

Bukowski, Ashley M. Jones and the like, but someone

with a softer edge, the bite of a soft caress.

after all, I’m always open to an opinion.

so I pulled an old volume of William Carlos Williams

from my limited, but vital horizontal stack

realizing the price paid for many of the editions

before poems for the most part were readily available

on line, which is to say: basically for free.

a quick calculation of my sumptuous chorus line

amounted to $1,500.00, American.

I suppose I don't need the money, given that the quality of life

seems to have stabilized and is generally in fine order.

but,—I don’t know. I shouldn't complain. money well spent, I’d say.

W.C.Williams, "Selected Poems", New Directions, 7th printing, $1.95 in 1981.

   

                   the mid-18th century dream

In the silence of the vale

I encountered a lady

who was fine indeed

and I was a bum-like thing

where the road narrowed

to a slim slip of dirt

and allowing her passage

I stepped aside

into the heavy marshland

into the briers into the brambles

into cow dung ankle-deep

into dark and swampy things

where otherworldly animals

slithered and tightened, one foot

then the other, bitten by

who knows what beneath the silt

as she shifted her body

to an angle in a way that said

don’t touch me, the full

measure of the moon

draping her shoulders

gleaming beneath the

awkward presence of

the lesser moon, and she walked

to the place of her going,–– but I tell ya,

she was fine indeed,

and dream or no dream

snakes or no snakes

I’d freakin' do it it again.