-the study of a young woman-

in this study

an arm appears before me,

sleeveless and caucasian with

wisps of nearly invisible

blonde hairs lying

comfortably across it

as if the arm was newborn,
swaddled in filament.

let’s follow this arm
upward from the wrist,
passing the interior fold at the elbow,

then to the slow-
turn of the shoulder,
dotted in freckles barely visible,

to the elegant neck
and delicate line of the jaw.

the cheeks at the face

fill-in nicely, the mouth indicating

a full set of teeth where above it

the cheekbones rest blanketed

by a radiant skin, high and angular

at the zygomatics.

above them,
the eyes continue

as translucent green,

like salt marshes near the ocean

and it's here, that the air
begins to circulate.

I try to speak.

she tells me to continue downward.

I try to speak.
she tells me to continue downward.

-near seven days in June-

a requiem:

1.

I missed by the better part of a week

a remembrance of the birthdate of Federico García Lorca.

inside the dank confessional behind the left field fence
where faults pressed upon the soul are reviewed for absolution,

I atoned for my weekly transgressions
including the Lorca lapse, listing it as

the grand finale in the litany of venial sins.  

for my penance it was left to Priest to order-up

five “Our Fathers'” and  five “Hail Marys'”

followed by "a Sincere Act of Contrition.”

later, when I placed a toll-call to Granada,

I was informed that it was too late,—

that they had killed him,— killed García Lorca.

I returned to give the bad news to Priest who babbled:

“pray for the repose of his soul

and the souls of all the faithful departed.”

I'd heard that refrain from the mouth of Priest before,
but they shot him dead anyway,— shot dead, Federico García Lorca.

2.

It's better, not to pray alongside Priest, but to read some Lorca poems.

                                               

-Britten, and a gathering of my senses-

May

1.

last night I calculated the risks, and I've concluded this morning

that my chances of being bumped-off by cause of collision on route 6 east

over Memorial Day weekend decrease significantly if I stay put.

––early birdsong from my station near the river will better serve me

than sounds of traumatized sheetmetal and injection-molded plastics

blistering by gasoline on fire.

–– so it’s Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, (Ah, the Impromptu!)

followed by something from the shelf.. and later, near lunchtime,

a leisurely walk to the never-say-die UltraMart, open 24/365, for a cold drink

and a pint of raspberry sherbet for the home freezer. ––so I'll stay put;

jot a few ideas down after the news,–– then decide on a poem-writer:

–– Hannah Sullivan's "Three Poems" which I started reading last Thursday

until she tied my brain in a knot.

I'll clear my head of the loopy news cycles and try again, later.

––for lunch, a grilled Swiss with vine tomato on seedless rye sounds about right.

2. and fini.

my head's revolving erratically around Britten's fierce Piano Concerto,

and like distant Pluto around the Sun,–– I'm wobbling like a drunk,

and I've bailed on Hannah Sullivan for the second time. –– mea culpa.

as to the late midday count on route 6 east I'd rather not know,–– but

I've decided to spring for lemon/lime as raspberry isn't available at

the flickering, silver-glistened, never-ending UltraMart!                

                   

-history of civilization-

Fall River —

the setting of the scene.— well,

that is

It molded me and my kind
within a hard landscape
close to the edge of water.

then the immovable 

architecture
clinging to the hill,
arches its back.

once, we were attached to our bikes
like appendages,—
that is, when they moved, we moved
weaving between the blood-

red tinctured granite of the sweltering
textile mills
approached at sunset,

down to the Housing Projects
slung horizontally
below the hill where
the old-world Portuguese fathers
cloistered
their burgeoning daughters,

passing fast beyond the mysterious
Pier 14 barroom
acting-out its secret moods behind its walls
sitting at the bowels of lower Bedford Street
beyond the perimeter
where we pedaled at risk and on our own.

that is, before the girls showed-up.

then in swift sequence
as in the discovery of new
sets of arms
and legs and lips and stars,
the girls were riding fast
along with us,

side-saddling the top-tubes.

history tells us
that because of them
slow dancing came into play
and I can't stress enough
the importance of that momentous
introduction.

so let this serve as the first
installment of the earliest known
place in time
which formed our beginnings,

where me and my kind came to occupy
a space of land at the cape of the water.

                                       Quequechan

-Ode to Turo Takemitsu-

A flock descends into

the pentagonal garden.

I try to understand Toru Takemitsu,

his residence of contemplation,—

the season in which

a flock of birds enter a garden space.

(Then the dragons air-breathing,
the boxes and pointed quads beating
with hand-knotted tails trailing,
cross the daylight skies above the park
of my earliest neighborhood.)

I try to map their movements now
from outside Takemitsu's garden, 
at times rolling slowly in atmospheric dances
then diving sharply toward the earth
in a moment's fury.

The papers crackled at their spars.

I fought the lines to hold them true.

I try to understand Toru Takemitsu — listening
to the sounds of kites in the wind above the park
of my earliest neighborhood.


                                 

                                             

-for all the benchseat manipulators-

the old men are dropping like flies.

the strangers listed in the newspapers,—
the grandfathers, the uncles and the portuguese

guy who lived across the street who

dropped like a lazy fly ball
to the outfield grass on Tuesday
and is now ready for viewing.

I was young and lived through it

to what I am now which is old
but still living.

It’s hard to disapprove

of one's earliest yearnings,

those which are expressed

as a rite of passage.

even so, I was hesitant

to drive up there with her,

up the hill to the Narrows where

the forest blinds the standing water.

It was untrue when I told her

we'd go to the movies and then

cross the street to someplace nice to eat.

It came more easily to tell her

(after I stopped the car,
after I shifted to first gear
from the column and turned
the engine off and cracked the window,

after I pulled the lever up
and pushed the benchseat
back on its rails as far as it would go)

softly, cautiously, with but a modicum

of the current situation's half-truth, that I loved her.

-For Olive Goffe in paradise-

Serenade:

Olive,––

your grey sweater frays

at the hemline of a common twill.

Olive,––

I am a poor boy, too. (pa-rum-pa-pum-pum)

but not so poor as you.

Olive,––quieter than a leaf.
smarter than the blackboard.

Olive,––
did you smile my way when all the while

you knew I was not looking?

shame on me for being the fool who

didn't know any better.

Coda:

Olive,

I leave this missive for you, and when I die,

will you pant for my bones?  (pa-rum-pa-pum-pum)

Fall River Public Schools

"pant for (my) bones" paraphrasing  "for Marylin M" / Charles Bukowski

-first meaningful act of disobedience-

they gave me a bike

and I was going to use it.

what did they think

I was going to do with it?

where was it they assumed
I wouldn't go?

I was the cave-dweller

looking toward the horizon

beyond every sight and scent

of my neighborhood planet,—

out there, over the mountains

beyond the clouds
far from the river,

the open gates, the broken fences

across the backyards of no-man’s-land,

across the stiff meadow grasses

beyond the billboards,

the backsides of the billboards,
the sides without pictures,
the sides with the architecture,—

southward where the mill's granite
walls are red-colored,

where the trees at twilight seem
dressed-up and dancing like newer women,

where sound seems muted,—

out there, into the black-hole where nothing
looks like anything I've known
or smells the same as before

and I won't be coming back.

they said: “don’t ride it across the street.”

don’t ride it across the street?

they gave me a bike for christsake.

where’d they think I would't go?

                                     Quequechan

-on another page-

It was then I realized

As the wafer of communion
Was placed with fingertip precision
At the flat-side of my tongue,

The wafer I couldn’t swallow,

The one that stuck

To the roof of my mouth,

From the tongue to the sacrament,
The holy eucharist,
The tongue sticking it to Jesus,

The tongue of Judas and the Priests —

The tongue later retracted
In a booth at Al Mac’s Diner,

A plate of eggs over easy,
With friends at the table,
That life was traveling forward

In another direction

From that of the doctrines
Of the Holy Rosary Church,

The church with its stone facade
Rising on a low-lying hilltop
Behind left field.

Inez at the Diner was more inviting —

The music of Jerry Lee Lewis
Romancing from the juke,

Superseding the Agnus Dei,— 
Inez of the Diner
Smiling as we sat in the booth at her section;
Inez, who wore an artificial flower
Pinned to the lacy collar of her dress of fading pink,
Inez, who called me "Honey"

And wouldn’t he have smelled like olives

And stale perspiration?

Wouldn’t Inez have let him in
To wash the crusted skin
Of his sun-burned feet?

Wouldn’t our dead friend be made living

And baseball made whole again?

So at the rail for the last time

I rose from a kneeling position,—

And on my way to the world outside,
When Jesus called my name for the last time

I said:— “Now who do, who do

You think you’re foolin’?”

                                        Fall River

-Wisdom-

1.

Somebody told me Jews 

Like to drink

Manischewitz.

I know one Jew.

Joy Liebmann's desk was adjoining my desk

At the infamous grade school we both attended;

Her careful eyes wide-open to her books.
She was studious

And ignored me as she should have.

I'd drop pencils to the floor and then

Under the canopy of hard wood hinged in iron, 

I travelled northward from the tops of her brown & whites...

2.

I befriended Edward Meckelberg

At the face of harsh

Peer opposition in junior high school.

I know two Jews.

Edward was an outsider, socially funny-looking and brilliant.

Crazy Michael Joseph, the kid with two first names,

Informed me that Edward didn’t believe in the Virgin Mary,

Of whom it was drilled into me at Saturday catechisms,

Was the hand-picked mother-to-be of baby Jesus.

But it was Edward’s Mother who introduced me to Gelatin,

Which beforehand I had only known as JELLO.

3.

The Nazis (Let us all spit-up now) told us 

That Jews have long, convex noses,

Beady eyes and smirked hunched-over

Looking for cover 

As they counted their reichsmarks.

You've seen the illustrations. 

I know seven additional Jews. 

One has what seems to be a normal nose,

Dark-brown eyes, and works for tips as a waitress

At the Nite Owl Diner on Pleasant Street.

Of the other six, one has a nose like 

The Portuguese guy watering his lawn across the street.

Another has eyes for terra-cotta

And makes it into figures who nearly

Escape from their enclosures.  

Another is a bank teller. He counts money,

But it’s not his money.

Of the other three, one has a nose like Durante,

The "Schnozzola," substantial and crowd-pleasing.

His eyes seem normal enough.

The sixth of seven has one working eye,

A terrible accident, and I don't remember

Anything about his nose which is probably a good thing.

The seventh of seven slept late in the morning; 

Her eyes opened slowly like the lids of most treasure chests to sunlight

And of her nose, well, her nose was formed like that of the polished 

Marble-pink of the Renaissance Madonna long before

The mallet of Laszlo Toth struck. 

The Portuguese guy across the street

Would call it: “Belo.”

Me? I’d call it: “Jewish-Florentine.”