dream or not

this could be his last Thanksgiving,

his last Christmas, his last new year.

this could be his last Halloween.

(his best was when he dressed as a pimp

and his sister and friend Robin

dressed as hookers, looking fine indeed.)

but this could be his last birthday, his last recollection

of the Hindenburg in flames.

(christ, all that yelling!)

to be sure, this could be his final scent of history, of naugahyde,

of crinoline, her eyes half-lidded in sweet perspiration...

he may have flown for the last time over the chicken coop

into the clouds to greet the dream of an old friend and his great alligator.

December 30, 2025

 

                   roll sound and action

Rene walks through the opened door

and into a make believe house.

make believe people are there to greet him.

Rene is make believe, too.

the heavily-flowered wallpaper conceals

the guilt of horse-hair plaster.

its history is real enough.

the participants speak in false notations

and all is as it should be.

a curious on-looker coughs-up a lunger and

someone yells “cut”!

everyone seems overly disappointed.

it’s what is expected of them.

another “take” is called for.

Rene walks out into the night closing

the door behind him.

alone, Rene is thankful that it isn’t raining.

his line is easy to recall but it runs through his head.

soon everything will be as it should be with take 2.

scene still: “Below the Hill” 1963.

Fall River.

                   12/26/2025

10:15 a.m.

I’m up.

gradually.

then a walk

to the kitchen

where the coffee drips

electrically.

I planned ahead and

acquired all the fixins’

then drank it

sip by sip.

what a glorious morning.

ice-cold. no snow.

season's greetings cards delivered

are removed

from the top of the refrigerator

reclaiming its skull

to the way General Electric

intended it to be.

a clean rejuvenation.

a friend from the past..

an acquaintance

uses his ultra smart phone

and has a message for me,

yelling: “Merry Christmas”!

I’m in a reflective state of mind.

have we lost

the "X" now, too?

                  vignette / the enlightenment of the meadow / 1950

I learned the mechanics of sex in the meadow on Healy Street

behind my house and adjacent to Rachlin's junkyard.

it was Michelle Sperling who whispered the secret to my ear.

she was older by about a year and whenever she came my way

it was met with a great deal of visual satisfaction.

in the meadow were two goats chained to an iron horseshoe stake,

the goats, feasting on the stiff meadow grass. 

knowing to what end would have only frightened me.

they belonged to a cranky upstairs neighbor of my aunt Pauline,

the first born of four sisters to Pietro Pieroni and Rose Giambastino.

in the meadow Michelle Sperling said:  "the man puts his thing inside

the lady’s thing where she pees.”

the usually hectic but fascinating supper table was, I must confess,

mostly weird-as-hell that night. 

Quequechan

                    from the Library of the Rejected

it’s not far away; just up the street somewhere

between Carmella's Italian sausage exhibition

and Alphonso's diner, where horrific cutlery

is displayed without concern for the safety of the kids.

it’s my responsibility to express myself or otherwise

keep my mouth shut.

literarily, I place myself in different circumstances

sometimes with people who are mostly incorrigible

due to their lawlessness and a lack of decency, who

roam the Earth like ghosts bemoaning their stations.

I breathe life into their lungs, dress them in guilt

and sometimes kill them depending upon personal interests.

for example: Manson disciple Leslie Van Houten quietly

departed my apartment during the early morning hours

due to my inability to form a positive opinion on the La Bianca twins.

so come on down to the Library of the Rejected and...

bring the little ones why doncha.

                   aging / a vignette

some crackpot on television

said: “it’s all in the mind”.

yesterday I was sitting

at the table and

I wanted a cold drink.

I pushed my chair back

to get a head start,

looked over to the fridge

and thought:

“is it worth the effort”?

so the crackpot’s got a point.

                    my god. what will my biographers say?

from a correspondence sent in haste.

It was nothing more than a scribbled notation;

an inclination from the borderlines.

It was uninspired, meritless and… let's see.

what else? ah, yes! dimwitted.

I don’t drink so-to-speak so I wasn’t drunk.

well, not so's you'd notice.

extreme daylight was beginning to piss me off

the way it does sometimes. well, all the time.

look. none of which is spoken here is to be seen

as an indictment of a criminal act.

but almost everyone I know is dead, or like me, soon to be.

so who's left to council in times of mediocrity?

well, that’s not fair. who am I to be granted immunity?

mea culpa. mea culpa. mea maxima culpa.

basta!–– my god. what will my biographers say?

well, nothing good I'll tell you that.

there’s water in the immediate

regions surrounding the stars.

it's not nearly as rare as Earth's water.

it’s not to drink. it leaves us to wonder.

what’s it doing there?

is the star’s lick of flame its tongue

seeking the water beneath it?

I'm amazed in the morning to find

that everything works.

vignette

                    his foundational principle:

create an interior then populate it.

away from interiors the human form dominates the street scene.

witness the hotrod’s aggressive right hand turn

screeching its tires heading towards its fate.–– and so it goes.

take cover! the assassin smokes a cigarette, its trail of smoke

is a burning fuse. 

and there are dreams to decipher of unaided flight and in one

he's flying and an alligator flies close by. these are the things

dreams do and if we record them they've accomplished their mission.

I'm in the backyard for a portrait. I don't recall the sky being as blue.

rare are the singular portraits of individuals and

because I’ve become one of them, suddenly I'm expensive.

before you go, look closely at his newer pictures. the depth of surface

is convincing without the use of two-point perspective.

horizontals, verticals and angles are enough to pull us through.

Uccello would have second thoughts about his illusions.

ah!..luminosity hangs like an attitude!

sure he occasionally pissed me off.

maybe he pissed you off, too, occasionally.

that was our journey as well. but wasn't it fun? wasn't it unique?

do you know what I mean?