-way the hell off Broadway-

when I die —

drop dead of the aneurysm or

by a common episode in choking or

by the general physiological constriction

of internal passageways or 

by descending stairs in the darkness,

by the slickness of ice or the heavy

density of snow,
exaggerated senility,

the last
elongation of exhaling,

the indiscriminate

maniac 

the hip-bone

the chicken-bone

the chemical boner,

will Fall River,
the heavy-handed city of longer poems,

dim its lights,—— dim

the slanting incandescent

streetlamp at the gutter

over the sewer where I once
was a fisher of baseballs?

I’m not asking for much.

perhaps the goliath 

drive-in movie screen

will rise from its ashes
above the moistened naugahyde

to flash its light for the sake of young
love's exploration

at the sweltering Ponta Delgada 

when the lid is locked-down 

when I die —

            drop dead

                        maybe of the aneurysm...

-The horizon-

Beyond the two green-

Primed leviathan water tanks

Rising to the east

At the summit of road's end

Leading to the sloping

Banks at the horizon,

The great fresh-water

Ponds of the Narrows

Split the sweeping

Watuppa Reservation

Of the fading Wampanoag.

But the road downtown

Departs westward

Toward the bridge, a muscular

Continuous through-truss beauty

Spanning the craggy banks

Of the Taunton River.

I'm below the fresh-water ponds

But above the running river

With not much recognized now

Of what was commonplace,

The stage of the hill

From where my friends were born

And with me, raised.

We knew the Narrows 

And the sweeping Watuppa

As few others knew it;

From the saddles and the pedals

Of our gleaming,

Indelible bicycles.

We knew the water around us,—

The river, the ponds, the red-

Tinctured fresh-water lakes of algae and metals,

The stiff-weeded

Inlets calmly resting at the foot
Of the sweltering textile mills,—

The salted ocean, the running water

Of two tenement rooms reserved for running water,

The frantic interiors, our revolving planets,— the crazy

Caricatures of the active inhabitants

And there isn’t a convincing explanation of this

Nor one required to forward to anyone.

                                           Quequechan

-Territorial / 1971-

I worked with John Williston in Michigan

running certain documents to specific places

from the start of the day to its end. And then

from the distance of nowhere, his young wife

died at the hands of a quick, fatal illness.

The last time I saw her she was on display,––

her silent, lidded face as celestial as the outer planets.

I'm drawn to travel there, to snoop around,

maybe get a sense of the raw materials

before I wander back to the living.

John Williston's young wife is new to death.

Exotic, frigid fluids fill her arteries.

Intrusive cements petrify her muscle.

The examination laid before John is to see her

as she was in the time when she occupied her life,

when the warmth within her ignited her living breasts,

watered her eyes and her mouth which lulled him

to a trance by the simple nature of a glance.

Now John Williston's young wife

is laid-out before him exposing herself

as the contradiction to everything he knows, and this

was stored in my brain to be retrieved in the here and now,

born from within a crowded funeral home in Ypsilanti, 1971.

smart-town noir  (now with additional commentary) 

1.

downtown in the dead of night

where abandoned streets seem to

whisper among themselves.

a light rain has fallen and the stage is set
for its final performance.

2.

from behind a streetlamp an assailant

invades the unoccupied dimension

between my shadow and me, seizing

the material at the collar of my trench coat

pinning me against the rough granite wall

below its chiseled declaration proclaiming:

“The People’s University.”

3.

there, the assailant's fists tighten their grip

pushing the crumpled collar upward into

the Adam's apple of my scrawny neck

to the boney base of the jaw, dimming the narrow
corridor reserved for consciousness, sneering

to within an inch of my face..

"Okay, punk!....Copland or Ives”?

-the forensic findings concerning the demise

of Antoine’s novelty remain inconclusive-

today marks the first
anniversary regarding the questionable demise

of Antoine’s ideal inflatable wife,—

the warm

breath once inside her, quietly

dispersed through the stillness of nightfall.

now Antoine's payments are past-due.

mischief has been alleged.

recently, Antoine seemed annoyed
by the simplest of things;—
the unavailability of typewriter ribbon, or
by common annoyances such as

a minimum of three eggs per dozen
cracked and oozing in their cartons, knowing

the return policy is a maze of time consuming requirements.

Antoine's ideal inflatable wife once glistened, flesh-

colored caucasian cloaked in the vinyl scent of petroleum,—

her constant eyes possessed,
the alluring lead-red circle of her mouth,

the torrid grand canyon between her pliable breasts,

(especially when inflation is temporarily decreased)

and the exploration of the narrow isthmus of canal,–– but then

the slow, determined release of carbon
dioxide, –– Antoine's own breath of life

seeping into the night as he lay sleeping,

his once beloved ideal inflatable wife now punctured,

wrinkled-flat and lifeless, the diminished seeping, the moonlight

reflecting the surfaces closest to it the way it always did.

   

-celestial notations from the humdrum of a natural life-

the young woman, clearly less than half my age

standing before me in line turned swiftly

with the eyes of an assassin, scolding me to step back,

and so I stepped back, hovering briefly above her head

looking down from below the sharp florescence at the crooked

part in the middle of her hair,––  a naked, narrow path running

through a dark, tangled thicket of black. I stepped back.

I broke through the ceiling. I stepped back

gazing downward from beyond the pole-wires dipping with clinging birds.

I hovered briefly over the cumulus, the stratus, and nimbostratus,

I stepped back from the rushing thrust of the turbines,

and beyond them, the puckered dust of the Moon, then backward 

to acid Venus exposing her false face for the sake of a glistening exhibition.

I stepped back, ducking below the dusty rings of Saturn to glimpse

the pinprick of Earth, posing for Cassini's documentation; hovered

from beyond the outer planets, iced-cold, gassed-up and empty-handed,

then outbound, glanced the Sun’s corona, stepping back, onward

and outbound to the grieving veil of the Crab, an endless state of mourning

over the violent death of its star.

I stepped back into the deepest realms of the darkest sides of matter

and then and then and then and then (as Neruda poignantly questioned in

"Where Can Quillermina Be"?) a sharp, sudden poke to my back

from an unforgiving index finger admonished me to step forward because

down here, down here at the Stop & Shop I’m next in line to the check-out register, rudely reminding me of my proper place in the universe, at the handlebar

of a squealing metal shopping-cart holding my goods.

Friday

                                                    

                                          

-an examination of a previously recorded moment-

 

some time ago in the grip of warm weather,

posing outside the entryway to our earliest house,

a snapshot was taken. my brother, three years the younger,

stands beside me alongside his new bicycle as I stand beside him alongside my own.

he'll maintain his bike meticulously as it arrived from the store downtown

where both bikes were purchased by our father at the same time of the same day.
I never knew what it was he bought for our sister, three years my elder, but
I'll bet it cost more than the price of two bicycles.

my brother rides it high in the saddle, handlebars positioned as corporately prescribed, its grips leveled toward the chest as drawn by the Schwinn engineers.

he wants the chain-guard bolted in place because the bike came to him that way,

reasoning that at the store downtown they must know what they’re doing.

I can't ride across the street to the corner with my bike in that condition.

so I drop the saddle.

the handlebars are loosened by the central bolt and turned downward,

the new horns of the Schwinn, altering the generally accepted configuration

in the on-going romance of young rebellion. 

the chain-guard, our young mother’s last-line of defense against grease

on the cuff is removed, but only when far from her line-of-sight.

these procedures mean nothing when applied to the physics of momentum, but

only because we can't ride the bikes fast enough to present a finding of proof.

but they separate the bike-riders of the corner across the street like myself,

from the younger kids consigned to the sidewalks like my brother.
as to the snapshot: it was taken by uncle Frank Toni,
on Sunday leave from his southend cobbler shop,

before any covert alterations took place, during the time

when everyone once loved now lost would live forever.
Quequechan

-Interruption-

Tonight, it's Seamus Heaney, — a poem

Written of his younger self away at school,

Informed of the accidental death of his brother,

A child of four years.

Arriving to the deep   

Distress at the porch to his house

The old men gathered there

Are rising to their feet, shaking his hand,

Sorry for his troubles.

Then in the midst of Heaney's heart-beat,

The cold phosphorescence of television intrudes 
With its cunning seduction and the reading is paused.

It will be an hour

Before I find my way back

To "Mid-Term Break" —

An hour to the atmosphere

Greying heavily

Folding layer on layer —

An hour to the child

Gauze-swaddled by nurses
Carried to the house in funeral steps,

The child thrown clear of the thresher's
Rattling bumper — (was as if

The seed's husk bruised his head) –– 

An hour to find my way to the porch once again

Where a cradle is rocking with life anew, 

Where a mother mourns grief sick

For the loss of her child four years and done,

And upon the bed in the silent upstairs room

Candles and snowdrops grace the little coffin;

"A four foot box, a foot for every year."

                                                      

-why poetry-

within the first

moments casting my father
in the lead role, the scenes are set
in an effort to give everything a strong foundation.

one of the poems takes place at his funeral

where I approach in order to move him around,

get him up, wipe away the matte
powder and vulgar rouge from his face,

maybe take off 30 or 40 years,

re-dress him, then send him on his way

toward whatever journey I’ll set for him.

a few poems find him traveling with a purpose,
east on route 6 in his Buick.

others, have him sitting at the frantic supper tables.

a recent poem takes place
during the beginning of his final years

initiated from a faded snapshot which has him
standing and waving happily to the crowd
of well-wishers, in his trench-coat and WW2
Italian-American veteran's cap on the parade route
rolling down Bedford Street

from a Cadillac convertible, introducing him by paper placards
masking-taped to the doors announcing him
as: “Honorary Parade Chairman” of the Columbus Day Parade.

               "Honorary Chairman".
               (not elected Chairman)

                This year's Place-Setter.
                Silver medalist chosen by Committee. 
                The liquor salesman on the road.
                Glad-hander extraordinaire.  
                Responsible husband and citizen.
                Stable, reliable father of three.
                On-time payer of monthly bills.
                

another I’m particularly drawn to

finds him simply hanging around the corner

with his buddies when everybody was young, active,

and me, unborn.

but I like to keep him moving.

what I also try to do within the poems

is allow everybody else inside the architecture

to move along with him.

this is easily accomplished as the linkage
is pre-set by history.
but somebody else has to write their particular poetry.

I don’t take credit for understanding,
let alone defining

the personal inner movements of any of them.

-at first sight-

when she walked through the din

of the crowded corridors she left in her wake

a polished filament of jet-stone hair and the lingering

scent of Ivory soap.

my eyes were on a level

plain with her eyes as she passed
without a glancing note of my presence,

and although I’m not tall she is taller than the girls

mulling around her;

a descendant of the formidable

Portuguese,–– bloodline of the Azores,

great granddaughter to the island fisher,

granddaughter to the wine-
grape cultivator of  São Miguel,
first daughter to the sweltering

Kerr-Thread Textile Mill's boiler-tender,––

the living romance of this olive-skinned

beauty of the Westside Projects

rising in red-brick from its authority on the banks of the Taunton.

nearing seven decades, and this historical recollection came to be penned
after reading the obituary page in the morning's newspaper, of which not a word

nor phrase from that frigid column honored Madalena Mello's memory as I have here.

                                                 

-A reading in December-

With Ferlinghetti’s “San Francisco Poems"––

His love-songs to the city, the bay and its bridge ––

Some of fishers casting nets above their natural side of the water,—

But all of the light, the light Ferlinghetti sees, and sees nowhere else,

And the Bridge, the Bridge,–– that Bridge piercing sun-colored,

The landscape of Saint Francis.

With Ferlinghetti's "San Francisco Poems"
A reading in December, holding fast to my edge of the continent,––

The hard drop of Truro, nor'easter slicing inland crossing the North

Atlantic, a light as much of steel as translucence, its blade of dissent

At the throat of my eye.

With Ferlinghetti's "San Francisco Poems"

A reading in December
He sings of its light, I read:

"..is none of your East-Coast light

                   none of your  

                               pearly light of Paris.."

Of the light he sees and sees nowhere else ––

    Ferlinghetti's singing as if ordained the warm-

Throated, love-

Sick 

    Bearded 

         Canary.

Wellfleet, Massachusetts

                                

-Kansas Samaritan-

to take a piss

I'll pull-over to the breakdown lane on Interstate 35

North to Olathe, where a short walk across the shoulder

toward the blind of the woods shelters the sensitivities of passers-by.

but what’s a dead newborn opossum doing all the way out here?

it's got the snout.

it's got the grey skin.

it's got the pink dot

at the end of both ends.

not long dead;

no infestation, and in the palm of my hand it feels pliable, 

as if death excused itself at the moment of my intrusion.

I'll lay the lifeless newborn opossum in the high meadow-

grass far enough away to avoid splattering, enjoy a quick relief

at the tangle of the sassafras then carry it to the center lane markers

of Interstate 35 North to Olathe where it belongs in the company

of the spirits of its own kind.

                                             

                                     

-first love-

––they told me: get out from under the porch

be quiet on the stairs

be careful

be careful

watch the cars

don’t get bumped.

they said: bring the change home

stay away from the ledge

she said:

if they jump will you jump too?

they said: don't drown at the ledge.

he said:

bend your knees

close your stance

choke-up

choke-up

go get me some Luckies.

she said: clean your plate

there are kids in China

put those things in the hamper
she said: what are you doing under there?

she said: go get your father some Luckies.

they asked:

is this yours?

is this yours?

they told me:

pay attention.

they said: pay attention.

––her name is Bernadette

her hair is yellow

the miner said gold

the poet said meadow

her hair is yellow

we sat on the quiet edge of the stairs

to the porch to her house.

––her name is Bernadette 

the setting sun drapes

a violet's tint across her dress.

she said it's late

she said we shouldn't

her hair is yellow

she said let go

she said let go.

I said:
read my poem.

Quequechan, c.'53