-Road starts somewhere-

The potato has blind eyes

a parched skin

the scent of water trapped inside it

and laboring the few

crooked furrows behind his house, 

my great grandfather

from the northern provinces

pulled them out of the earth by hand,

sacked them and sold them in the central

marketplace in the town of Lucca.

In her city, my mother, his granddaughter,

had the hands of fine linen, an after-

scent of bleach and she pulled potatoes

from the bins of Maretti’s market

corner of Bedford and Wall,

third-base side of the park,

south-end face of the church,

walked them home in their dusty

brown-paper bags,

first-base side of the park

across the street from the gas station where

the scent of leaded gasoline danced

with the scent of simmering tomato sauce

inside the first-floor tenement where

she peeled them in the kitchen sink

under running water with the blade to thumb,
the cascading peels rolling to their ends,—

washed them-up, sectioned them

first in halves then in quarters

and boiled them in either one of two pots

deep enough to require the strength of handles

paired at their sides;

the same deep pots used to cook spaghetti,

to humidify the air atop the space-heater in winter;

the same deep pots her husband, my father,

removed from the gas-stove burners, transporting

bathwater to the tub and I’m closer to home

on the road from where it was that I began.

                                                  Quequechan

Remembering me.  (The sitcom)

What'll they’ll say when I’m as dead

as the Interstate 95 opossum?

"Good bunter" they'll say.

"Fast up the first base line" they'll mostly agree. 

"Couldn’t hit for shit" she might add.

–Cue the canned laughter.

"Hell-of-a slow dancer, though" she'll sigh.

–Cue the murmur third pew from the altar's polished rail.

I used to like the scent of burning incense wafting from

the rocking thurible serving at the altar of the Benediction.

I've driven a fast car passing the opossum laid waste on the

tarmac of the open road. — I've fathered one child.

"That's 19 short of the opossum" she'll add with a smirk.

 –Cue the canned laughter.

the procession begins with the organ's first note.

11 / 4 / 1918


So this morning

I’m reminded of

Wilfred Owen which

Leads me directly to

Benjamin Britten.

So if any music-makers

Out there have a few minutes
Which can be set aside
Before beginning those pesky requirements

Why not consider penning a tune set to:

The “Freddy Requiem”?

-when nothing much is happening-

walking into a room

I’d long ago dedicated

to be “the spare room”

which has become over time
a gallery of objects,
agonizing in a purgatory of plastics
and metals, things I presume

I might resurrect someday, like

the electrical apparatus which

no longer works,— well, it works,

but makes a high-pitched 

sound when it’s plugged in

until the internal rotating mechanism
gains momentum, then it smokes.

now I see the cat perched on the sill

of an open but screened window

looking out at a squirrel, plucking
and munching on currant-berries of the bush.

there’s nothing fluid in the motion

of squirrels going about their daily procedures,
those jerky moment-to-moment instincts of survival.

but the cat is frozen in its observation

much like her sleek and powerful cousins of the savanna

occupied in the detailed study of antelope, which reminds me

I've got a steak in the fridge.

so I'll find my way to the kitchen,
get the frypan out, the muscular
cast-iron beauty, sixty years if it's a week,

drizzle of virgin olive oil, pan to the burner's low, blue flame,

the sirloin strip seared to black with sautéed onions
and maybe a green vegetable, french-cut on the side,
a sensible meal, then I’ll type-out the masterpiece

running around my brain the last couple of hours.

    

-the "Nicotine Tree"
 San Marcos Requiem-

1.
He said:  "Let’s meet at the Nicotine Tree

And smoke a cigarette together".

At the tree she told him: "Tap the soft-
Pack hard to the heel of your palm.

Tamp the loose tobacco down".

They smoked at the trunk of the ancient tree,
The tree of folklore and countless suspensions,

By the street between two large buildings between the opening bells.

There, the studious and incorrigible,

Those slated for the great Universities

Along with those to be deposited to the Factories

And Filling Stations, spilled into the street
Like wrapped confections

Tumbling from opposing containers, where

The last of the spent-blue smoke is hung at her mouth.

He said: "Let’s go.

It's time to snuff our smokes
And enter the darkness inside their world".

2.
At the fabled tree, rooted near the street now drained of life
Between two buildings between the closing bells

She told him: "No.

Let’s be bold my love, and smoke another one".



                             

                           

                                           

-the soda-jerk at the drug store and so on-

I know of a soda fountain at the Oak Grove Pharmacy
on the corner of Bedford Street

and the Avenue for which it is named.

there, you can order hot

fudge sundays, banana splits,

malts and lime-rickeys.

when the pills are ready, the pharmacist

will call out whatever name is on the prescription.
It's a long walk from the counter to where
the pharmacist stands on-high, exposing only
his shoulders to his head, and he shouts out the names
of the sick who need their pills with authority. 

the soda-jerk behind the counter is an older kid we know
because his sister is a grade school friend of my sister.

out the front window is the street where we live.

across the street, the girl I like lives in the big grey

tenement house, third floor, with a washing machine on the piazza.

out there, the people are walking by.

men with tilted hats on their heads,
women with pocketbooks clutched under their armpits.

the cars parked on the street look heavy,

dressed in gleaming metals, fenders like dirigibles. 

new-styled "panoramic" windshields distort the landscape.

the school we go to is straight up the avenue towards the cemetery.
K through 6.

inside the drug store's soda fountain area, music is played

through portable transistor radios lying on their backs on the counter.

the music is convincing but constricted, circulating
inside the walls of the little, plastic transistors.
it's only the restlessness of early rock n' roll which finds its way out.

my older sister is with me, and my younger brother.

the pills are for our grandfather,

our mother’s father who has sugar diabetes.

I saw a black growth on the side of the little

toe of his left foot one night as his wife, our grandmother,

our mother’s mother, soaked and patted his foot in a shallow

basin on the floor of the parlor in front of the television.

later in the month his foot was amputated in Boston.

later in the year his sight began to fail and he died soon after.

I thought he'd be buried in the backyard

near the grapevine he cultivated and meticulously tended,––
laid to rest back there with the growing list of cats and parakeets,

but they packed him off to the funeral home

just beyond Marzilli's Bakery across the street
from DeSpirito Brothers barbershop.

but before all of that, the soda-jerk
is serving his paying customers.

my sister, my brother and me are spinning on our stools
at the slurping counter waiting for our grandfather's pills.

                                                                Quequechan

-Only you-

1.

Time waits for everyone.
It waits for us to finish our tasks at hand;

It hangs around as we clean-up the mess.

From the beginning, time records our names at its margins.

Working outward, it cuts-through the narrow openings

whenever it notices someone of interest.

The dance is beautiful, but time seldom lingers when

we deem it appropriate to do so, as in: "I wish I had more time".

2.

Upon calm, open water, windspeed is sometimes

calculated from the visual difference in color

seen on the sheet of the water in the distance.
I've known those who've made the effort to con the helm

in that direction, succeeding and not succeeding.

3.

There’s a perceived weakness applied to those of us

coached to choke-up at the plate.

They said: "Choke-up!

There's a better chance to make contact".

––It's true.
The bat seems lighter at the barrel
and it comes around with less effort.
The knees are assisted and the wrists,
and concentration on the pitch is enhanced

and when contact happens, it's only you

left running up the first base line, but it's time

which determines the outcome.

-getting the lead inside-

the last quarter of my 15th year and learning to drive

under the tutelage of my father.

behind the impossible circumference of the steering wheel

I negotiated his 1950 Ford 4-door sedan to the left

slowly crossing the middle of Bedford street then freewheeling

into "Whitey's" Esso station, positioning the utilitarian

pea-green beauty alongside the pump for a dollar’s worth of Regular.

this was gasoline possessed before it was sissified and drained of its leaded blood

and a buck’s-worth took you somewhere; on this day, across the street 

and with a fresh greenback in the tank we rolled to a break-drum's squealing stop

at the curb in front of our house, and after a Saturday's lunch of starch and sugars,

we’d head-out to the route 6 highway at the Narrows.

the oldman would drive there, pull over to the shoulder and with the engine running

engage the emergency brake setting the column shift to neutral.

he'd get out from behind the wheel as I slid across the benchseat

and from the passenger side he instructed me to release the emergency brake.

with a tight, left-handed grip on the handle, a slight but strong nudge upward

to release and a confident counterclockwise twist, the apparatus sunk to rest

beneath the dashboard.

“Next time keep your foot on the brake pedal”.

I made the same mistake leaving the gas station.

“You did the same thing pulling out of "Whitey's""!

It seemed to me at the time that if my oldman drove as carelessly

on his way to Buzzard's Bay in the morning he’d be killed on the road,
thrown from the pea-green 4-door Ford sedan to lay belly-up
on the pavement of old route 6 like a common possum, and if so;
who then would drive eastward in the morning on route 6

to sell the booze necessary to support the family?

certainly not me with my careless driving record.

christ, even the buck spent for gasoline at Whitey's came from his pocket.

                                                       

-the true rankings-

Looking westward toward the river

at the juncture of Bedford and twilight, the Sun

cuts into the greying horizon of Rhode Island

as if a circular saw cut a clean line through the Earth.

The tenement houses on the western hillside, exhale

one last breath against the weathered shingles,

exhausting the daylight from their lungs.

It doesn’t stop the dogs

from nosing around on the street,

or me for that matter.

But the dogs have their own self-centered plans.

The street's less active at dusk

with most everybody at home from work,

settling in, ready for supper.

Maybe they’ll go out to eat.

The diners are open late on Fridays

and the food can’t be an object of discussion,

being the same as it was forty years ago

and dinner interiors too, save for the kids

who nowadays spin less aggressively

on their stools at the counters.

Earnshaws Diner,

sitting as far west as the land allows

before reaching the banks of the river,

rates 2 stars out of 5 with its hash and eggs,—

but earns another totaling three,

after it was force-tucked beneath the new

95 West ramp, adding to its restlessness.

Sambo’s Diner

on Pleasant Street gets 3 out of 5,

not for its lack-luster menu,

but for the pleasure

of the crazy company it keeps,—

the Friday night parking lot, rich

with threatening Super Stocks

thirsting for a quarter-mile shot at the highway.

The little Nite-Owl Diner

sitting by itself like a lost shoe

on the wide-open corner

of Pleasant and Eastern Avenue burns

the flat-side of the tongue

with a hot, melted-cheddar cheese  

scooped inside a steamed hamburger bun,

earning an extra star to make it 4, but only

after two o'clock in the morning.

Al Mac's Diner

at the foot of the Seven Hills,

the one which pressed its meatloaf plate

into our throats after the funerals,

where the working waitresses called us “Honey";

Al Mac's,

glazed in stainless siding,

the hungry tin-knocker’s dream;

the gas station attendant's half-hour reprieve;

Al Mac's,

where the grinning City Council candidates,

glad-hand the lunch-time constituents,

who show-up in cuff-rolled dress shirts

ready to "get to work for you"!
three weeks before the elections

disrupting the diner's revolution of its perennial

population;

Al Mac's,—

which greets the sunrise

with the clatter of beginnings

and where the burgeoning

Moon will lift its weight to sing its tune

of late-night romance;— 5 stars, easy.

                                              Fall River

closing my survey of Priest Mezzatesta's reign

-when god looks like the guy on the ceiling-

1.
when I’m no longer engaged

either remembered or not remembered

but dead nonetheless;

when recollections end, when storytelling ends

and my early friends die as I die..

2.

Priest!

MezzaTesta!— the chosen one
waits in the sacristy by way of the ballpark

who, beforehand washed the sweat of the game 

from its balls in honor of little leaguers walking

through the narrow archway behind

the purple curtain — looked like a form of..some sort of..

3.
heavy, felt-like material, hung where time-saving stores

in pre-blessed holy water was shelved, (it's a natural thing) — 

the sour scent of nicotine wafting from under Mezza Testa's

yellow-stained fingernails and wait a minute !

I have proof ! I've got art !

I’ve got me a poem in a drawer around here somewhere...


                                                       

-storm front-

last night I watched a dramatization

of the “Wannsee Conference” on television

as its participants discussed plans for the 

“Final Solution” then I went to bed.

in the morning, all the initial necessities of beginning

a common day were completed with, if not speed, accuracy.

I settled-in.

the winter months here are hard

and as a community, we've planned for snow
forecasted later today at upwards of two feet,
calling-in the fleet of fierce machinery.

afterward, the junior high school entrepreneurs

with scoop shovels perched on their shoulders,

treading snow in groups of three or five,
will mount their campaigns, calculating
each driveway’s earning potential.

when the time comes, I’ll negotiate.

as of now, the heavy overcast is deepening.

last night the “Wannsee Conference”
went-off without a hitch.

one hundred thousand here,

two hundred thousand there...

the S.S. Major suggested shooting them.
he is mocked by his superiors as a young
officer of the Third Reich with much to learn.

the S.S. Colonel argued for electrocution.
his experiments at the "Institute" on the infirm
and mentally defective showed "promising results."

they plotted the route of the trains to their destinations.

they considered the problems of

            cleaning the inevitable soiling

            inside the chambers.

            then they paused for lunch.

over schnitzel, the architect of the "Nuremberg Laws" said:
“Sterilization”.

he said: “We simply cut them off at this generation”.

the S.S. General interrupted:

"Six thousand is an equation easily solved".

he said: "Six million and the machinery
must be set in place". 

he said: “Just get them on the trains”.

the snow is beginning to fall heavily
and it looks like two feet, easy.
It's not a wind-blown snowfall.
It falls vertically and silently

like a requiem.
the driveway is long.
when the kids show up I’ll offer them
forty bucks, flat.

  

-Abracadabra-

The low-lying clouds brighten

And below them

The asphalt is warming.

The street begins to waken

To its common activities. 

The cherry blossom tree

In front of the brown house

Across the street has flowered.

It will be that way for a few days

Until the blossoms fall,

Covering everything beneath them

In pink petals as if participating in a function.

As of now, the blossoms

Have the morning

Running through them

And the population mans

Its early machinery, cranking-up

The engines of rejuvenation.

The heavy factories flex their sweltering

Muscles in the distance and the sky seems

To suck the smoke from their stacks. 

They’ll cool to postmortem-

Grey in early evening

But before that happens

The interiors will grow hotter.

There was a time when

Not much seemed recognizable. Then

Everything showed-up unexpectedly

Like a knock at the door of the wrong house.

Now there are things to attend to

And stories to define or confess, you know,

In case the people show-up

With time on their hands, and me with the universe

Up my sleeves.

I enjoy the recurring company

And the best part is they seldom

Make excuses as to why they leave.

They simply vanish to be found somewhere else.

Abracadabra.

Anyway, having been there, after reading one or two,
I'd rather not stick around too long, myself.