me, too

I, too–– would like to write a poem

to be placed inside a rocket blasting off into space.

a space poem, a rocket poem, a poem written for the young

Seven Sisters, holding themselves in each other's arms until

time itself pulls them apart, a poem for the grieving veil of the Crab

to keep it company on cold, lonely nights.

it'll be a poem for deepest space, a poem better suited for

the blindness of an endless dark, matter less, senseless, save

for the panting of emptiness to find fulfillment, a poem of

ever being but never quite seaming.

my poem will be a poem taking its time hitching a ride

in a fast machine,–– a poem of wanting and forever longing.

that’ll be my poem. it'll be a love poem.

 

                   long in the tooth

there are certain idiosyncrasies

to the daily goings on of old people

which I consciously try to avoid.

nonetheless,

––I leave notes to myself everywhere

for just about anything and

if my head didn’t weigh

as much as a tenpin bowling ball,

I’d have a better chance at staying awake.

yesterday I strung the keys to the doorknob

so I wouldn't leave without them.

1.

the roadmap is shrinking fast at the borderlines.

2.

the neighborhood kids stand on my lawn

simply for the pleasure of hearing me yelling.

3.

It's true. the one cardigan is enough.

4.

although the lapse in sensory perception was temporary

I found my way to the aisle containing nutritional drinks

and found my way to the string in the morning.

  

                 Pope takes a nap

the mass was long-winded and the Cardinals

were fidgeting under their blood-red cassocks

and as the choir hymned an unexpectedly jazzy account

of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater”

which awakened the sleepy-eyed Pope who instinctively

began blessing all who gathered there including the choir

and their crazy rendition of Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” as well.

now, truth-be-told I wasn’t there.

but Marco Marcucci heard it from Joey Fonseca

who said he was there and Marco told uncle Octavio Pieroni

who told Francis, his wife, who told Annie, my mother

who told William, my father, who then told Romeo DiConcinni,

who told his wife, my cousin Edith, eldest daughter to Uncle Frank Toni,

famed cobbler to the residents of the north-end of town, and sans the begats,

this is the process with which the book of Genesis was written.

  

                   why alternates

you may have inadvertently knocked

at the door to the wrong house.

could be you’ve run headlong into

the wrong man regardless of location devices.

even so, I’ll regard your arrival as a positive

response to an invitation.

nothing said here so early in the morning

will encourage you to rise up from the edge of your bed.

there’ll be no revelations or titillations and to be clear,

counter storytellers of the subject matter either living or dead

or busybodies or nincompoops

should’ve submitted their opinions by the deadline.

sure, there’ll be deep-throated grunts of disapproval and

sure, the antagonists will demand peer review documentation and

sure, Marciano broken and bleeding would’ve clocked Ali

with a “Suzy-Q” in the 15th, but...

damn! I’m just daydreaming, for chrissakes!

 

-Dream (a little dream)-

Naomi is in the valley. She reads

from a book of poems by Anna Journey

who is not yet born ––

"Dark Mouth like a Lullaby's"––

reciting to the child, the child beautified;

t-shirt screened in color:

"Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco" which

seems appropriate here.

Obligatory freight train, (the muscular geep)
runs northbound in the near distance.

Boxcars clack, labeled in precision print:
"Chessie Systems" –– glow cadmium

yellow on metal-ribbed
fields of cobalt blue. 

Neville thinks they're in too deep

as if the Ohio is to pull them down.

Naomi is seductive in the valley, hooks

the child below
the hollow pits.

Neville hooks

the bend at his knees
and the child

sways as he would in a hammock latched between

the blue Appalachian hillsides nearing the clapboard

house in the lowlands.