-The Busybody-

––He's guilty of consumption.

The pages hold more than a few old stories

And wanderings pause long enough

To be explored between periods of vacancy.

Call him diarist on the days when

Occasional offerings insure safe passage

But who can argue against smooth running?

––The houseflies, belly-up at the windowsills

Are dead of natural causes:

Heatstroke, incoherent slamming and

The inability to exit the premises.–– 

He would argue: the swatter’s as natural a cause as any.––

Open the door, pick a window, any entry,
Some say he's simply sleight-of-hand.

Now you see him, now you think you've seen him.

A meddler into the affairs of others, the busybody's adrift

And snooping around.

––Even the dead have surrendered their space of peace.

Living, some say he'd best be served by leaving everyone to their own interests.
He would argue: better to live among them than die along with them;

That it's best for all concerned when he's made up his mind at the table, but

––(Kerouac,–– of eight, the third child of God, said:

"He is your friend, let him dream;

 He's not your brother, he's not yr. father,

 He's not St. Michael he's a guy".)

––Inevitability points the way like a chromed ornament at the nub of a hood.

All there is to do is con the thing on a heading to a destination.––

He would argue:

One hand for the journey.
One hand for the poem.

                                    

-developments-

so my father was a salesman on the road.

It could be said it was his calling.

he could sell a bill of goods with one glad hand

while the other held tight to his ledger.

"You'll need 40 cases, Ron".
 (Ron went through 38 cases
 with an hour to go 'till closing.)

at the supper table

he was usually quiet and cool-headed.

at Sunday Mass he’d spend

his requisite hour seemingly unimpressed.

driving family to the beach,

to the amusement park or

standing at the fence near the backstop

with his old buddies watching

the little league games,

his attitude was smooth, unassuming and alluring.

they told me
I'm a chip off the old block.
just like the ol'man, they'd say.

from his hospital bed
long after visitors
walked away
to attend to their lives,

with whatever his thoughts,

in the cold-

blue of fluorescence,
with the sounds that rubber

wheels make on linoleum in the quiet night,

with the sounds of the implements in metal

and with the muted

voices of young women
nursing the third shift
wafting in from the corridor

he’d lie in wait for daylight,— waiting

for the angel cloaked in black to show-up,

readying himself to make the sale of his life.
it could be said
it was his calling.

-a song to Virginia Fox-

drying-up at the full-length mirror

I notice the convex arc of the belly,— the drapery

in the skin of the neck, and the remnant of a grade-school

polio vaccination which has nearly vanished.

a direct examination reveals a clearer image of what was once

a robust site, surrounded by hairline fissures of tension.

now it's seen as a dot, unremarkable, but glossier than

the surface surrounding it, as I assume the primordial pool must have been.

from the corridor at the close of our inoculations, the bell at the Hugo A. Dubuque
is calling us to our desks, where I notice the site of her injection. weeks later

with closer observation, it becomes a delicacy of sorts, more of a blooming, a dandelion's blonde-headed petals circling the sweetest hub, and nothing of a wound.

and for none but this reason, Virginia Fox

comes to mind this morning.

-as Leon goes-

confined to the wheelchair

there was no need nor reason

to have him kneel before the gun

which may or may not have added

urgency to the perception of the atrocity.

he was shot in the head, eye-

to-eye with the open-end of the barrel.

he was shot in the chest.

if a bullet glanced

the side of his head due to recoil,

nervousness or second-thought hesitation,

or if Leon suddenly began his prayers

as the trigger was pulled,—  the next
bullet would go through the forehead

and outward, possibly toward the water, or

lodge into an inside wall. either way,

into the forehead and out the back.

they say the entrance hole is smaller

than the exit hole.

backward or forward

it doesn’t matter to bullet or bone

or to membrane. 

the revolver made more sense

than a fast-spitting Tommy-gun.

maybe the shell

casings are lodged someplace,—

in the wall below decks or flattened

at the side of a heavy metal pot in the galley.

they dumped him over the starboard rail to follow

the bullet into the saltwater,— if it went that way.

the ship was moving and there’s little sense
in tossing him over the rail at the churning stern.

this was the killing of a man who

manufactured household appliances.

this wasn’t the suicide of a tortured poet

and besides, Leon’s death was easier

to accomplish.

-August, 2006 and Pluto's expulsion from planetary classification- 

I'm uneasy with this decision.

Regardless, they'll make no apologies
What with accusations that it drifts inconstant

Ellipticals in smears of methane and nitrogen ice.

Looks drunk, they say;

An embarrassment to decent planets, they mumble. 

I'm uneasy with this reasoning.

Why’d they do what they did?

Maybe they weren’t busy enough

Hanging around the idle reflectors

Smoking who-knows-what, or
Grabbing 40-winks beneath the constant
Hiss of the radio dishes, knee-deep in the

Fragments of pepperoni pizzas hold the anchovies.

Could be it started as an inside joke;

Computerize Pluto out of the plates,

See who notices.

Maybe nobody did.
Got them thinking about publishing.
What else looked as rewarding
In the time when peers are mapping
The breadth of the known universe?

I'm uneasy with their findings, but
Maybe in time I'll come to accept their conclusions.

After all, I'm an old-timer preparing to reach his own existence.

What's the use in agonizing over this little core of rock which

Wants nothing more than to kill me.

I can manage the disappointment, and besides,––

I can't get to it from here, and it can't get to me from there.

-the cat sees a fly-

mid-August humidity, and important things stick

to things of less importance.

It's the Andrew Sisters harmonizing "Heat Wave"
from an old 78 rpm as scratched as my scalp, and

I'm living at the edge of the doldrums. 
without momentum I'll fall into the abyss.

so I’ll pack a picnic basket and head-out to

Marquis de Lafayette Park with the wife and kids,

or maybe pack a cooler of sandwiches, soft drinks, and various 
snacks, and stroll to Sandy Beach with acquaintances, or
maybe I'll drive to "Whistle" DeCarlo's installation at the Lodge
which I fear will be contentious, but who knows.
I think I'll just stick-around to watch the cat who sees a fly.

It’s one of those pesky houseflies which never seems

to land on a place where swatting is an option

preferring the rim of a tuna salad plate, or the delicate
mesh of the screen door leading to the backyard, or

the painting hanging on the living room wall where swatting

will leave an abstract expression of the fly's remains
on the picture plane which is otherwise figurative in nature.

but the cat follows the fly on the wing with a keen eye,

and with a one-pawed swipe from a seated position

the lazy-eyed housefly is stunned, 
falling on the rug where the cat flips it around 
like any common ball of fuzz then eats it.
nearing noontime and the temperature's rising
and 'though it isn't surprising that the Andrew Sisters
certainly can, (can-can) what I can't do is find my leopard-
print speedo, so Sandy Beach is out, and there's a gigantic

spider clinging to the inside split-oak weave of the picnic basket,

so the Marquis de Lafayette will have to wait for another day,–– but the cat

appears to be satisfied with a bellyful of housefly, so I guess
I'll take my chances and drive to the Lodge for "Whistle" DeCarlo's
installation which I fear will be contentious.

-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.