Vignette: 

      Answer: It’s where an asylum was built to house the mad and slightly mad among us.

On a medically prescribed neighborhood stroll, the third of the week,

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 exclaiming:

“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.

           the big rigs downshifting as they rumble off the exit of 79 south into the north end of town

and the sound they make is enormous.

they need the compression of a back thrust to slow themselves down

from the high speed lanes of 79 south.

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

this could be the sound of hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing down

a plump, juicy Edmontosaurus for a meaty nighttime snack.

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

but the rumbling, deep-throated sounds of the tractor trailers downshifting

on their approach define themselves by being hungry for product to fill

the insides of their steely ribs, and If you live in the cold north end region of town

with its echo of industrial mechanisms and human isolation, you’ll know what I mean.

if you don’t, well, there are other regional interests for you to consider, but the fierceness

of the downshifting big rigs exiting 79 south are probably not among them.

   

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

––early 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 the mound of clothes in the hamper smelled as if dampness

was a mortal wound.

––What's left 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 once glorious morning erection?

God, displaying its unique sense of humor, must’ve had some fun

with that chapter in human ecstasy.

––later Wednesday:

Now comes the arbitrary bridge between one occupation, and another.

I know why it sits in the middle of the day, 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 thinking far too clearly for my own good this Wednesday.

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

and later, I'll allow some time for Thursday morning 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 me no more than a bum-like thing.

this happened where the road narrowed to a slim slip of dirt,

and allowing her passage, I stepped aside into the heavy marshland,

into the muck and mire, the antithesis of earth, ankle-deep into dark

and swampy things where otherworldly creatures slithered

and tightened their grip, 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 elegance draping the slender

avenue of her neck into the valley of the shoulders glazed beneath

the presence of moonlight, and she walked to the place of her going

without a hint of care of my existence, but I say, she was fine indeed,

and dream or no dream, snakes or no snakes, I’d freakin' do it again.