-on this day before I was, but at the precipice to, becoming a man-

1.
there’s a 1949
factory pea-green Ford coupe

in the backyard near the vegetable

garden's fence, but it doesn’t go anywhere.

it was my father’s car, running booze to the Cape's

bars and restaurants, until he bought a used Pontiac

followed by a nearly new Company-owned Buick.

2.
sitting behind the wheel of the coupe, and before

the slickness of lamination was introduced to the local
Registry of Motor Vehicles, I make a study of my father's

old driver's license, thumbing the face of it, releasing its scent,

still clinging to perfumes of ink and pulp.

a beautifully sculpted Ford two-door coupe

that can't go anywhere, sits as silently as anything

painted in pea-green should.

3.
from behind the wheel, a Popsicle,

expertly split in two from a curbstone's
right angle is bitten into and its syrup sucked-

out forming a crystalline ice, the blood-

red elbow protruding

from the open driver's window,— the sole

of the right foot's sneaker resting on the gas pedal.

a dimming light lingers after supper

when the park across the street is deemed too dark

for baseball, and the backyard becomes the place to be

during digestion and blissful isolation.

but the '49 Ford coupe,
its battery long removed, its tank evaporated
of gasoline, its scent of naugahyde less that a breath,

sits on deflated tires, stripped of what it takes
to make it move under its own power.

machine and man die when their inner fixings

abandon them both.

4.
but still, the tactile three speed column shift operates
under my command when the clutch is engaged.

sounds emanating from the back of my throat

mimicking a transmission winding tight through its gears,

with the exception of its poetry, would seem inappropriate for me now.

                                                       

                

Notations from a photograph of Annabelle Pieroni

-Auntie-

Annabelle,— your red hair’s so hot

it makes the young men pant.

you said the “colored boys” gave-way

toward the gutters on your approach as the steamy 

linen skirts of summer clung to your skin on the sweltering

sidewalks of Memphis.

this is the way it was, or so you told me from the parlor

of my father’s house and it all made sense to me back then

because the heat of your hair beat in me like the lick of a piston. 

take me to the Seekonk Speedway, Annabelle,––

pay for my ticket third row from the track's first turn.

there, we’ll watch the racing majigs go 'round and 'round—

and when they crackup in their violence
you'll scream bloody joy through the particles
of sheet-metal and gasoline beading on your skin.

with its soft-hats stained in sweat at the band,
with cigars in its teeth, clenched at the tension for speed,
the teeming grandstands pressed the turbulent cycle around you,
the burn of the track in your hair of fire, Annabelle,

hot as Memphis at the outskirts to the city of granite.

  

-almost famous-

upon completion, I transferred
the new poem to my facebook page

so that any number from 91 friends
would have the opportunity to read it.
that's 91 friends and holding.

It was soon after the posting
that I noticed the notification

of a response from someone I assumed
was a friend or family member, the bright
cadmium red No.1 ballooned over the brushed,
cobalt-blue circle of the Earth.

I’m always happy to see this
as it's perceived as a modicum
of attentiveness being shown to my poems.
but when I clicked on the notification

It appeared to be posted by Sharon Olds

and my heart skipped a beat so intensely
I might have been rendered near death
due to cardiac arrest same as when I sneeze.

but it turned out to be a standard

informational notification for followers

on the recent goings-on of Sharon Olds,
(where she's reading tomorrow.
where she's reading next Wednesday...)

and not a personal response by her to my new poem.

all of this happened well over an hour ago
and I’m still palpitating in the same ways
the cardiovascular systems spiked to dangerous levels
with other poem-writers in the neighborhood 

the moment they believed Sharon Olds showed-up.  

Bumblebee

while sitting at the table I noticed

a bumblebee flying around the room.

I got up to open a window in order to allow

the bumblebee to fly outside from whence it came
thereby reducing the number of bumblebees
inside the room by one to equal zero.

but as the window opened

the bumblebee inside stayed inside

while another bumblebee from the outside
flew inside through the open window's invitation
increasing the number of bumblebees

in the room by one to equal two.
now, I may be more accommodating to the bumblebee
than the bumblebee is to me 

but bumblebees are certainly smarter than I am

in calculating their own crazy arithmetic.


 (the idea for "Bumblebee" is derived from
  the poem "Arithmetic" by Carl Sandburg)

-Thursday 4:15 PM 40 years ago-

when it rains its effects are felt indoors.

there’s nothing to watch on television in the wetness
of this late afternoon although the "Springtime Fresh"
disposable douche commercials are instructive.
the parakeet’s lifeless body is discovered belly-up.

still caged, it lays there among the droppings of Tuesday’s

equally weightless news.
I've decided to wait awhile to be certain and to mourn its passing.

the twelve year olds across the street

consider last cigarettes while approaching

their homes from a day at school.

It's a close call, but they say no, and for whatever their reasoning,

run the rest of the way home.

let's take an uneventful drive in the rain to clear our heads.

returning to darkness, we engage the lights.

we’re motived by rainfall,—
how it taps upon the pavement expanding its patterns under streetlight,
how it beads upon the bulbous roofs and barn-door hoods of parked automobiles
releasing the pungent scent of metal,
how the work-a-day weary

men and women drop their heads along the street,

contorting their expressions, confronting the water

as if its acids burn their skin.

disposition is a two-for-one chore tonight.

the articles of Tuesday's newspaper

roll the parakeet neatly in place among the weather reports,
the market closings, the arrests, the scandals of city hall and obituaries,

where a short walk through the backdoor

to Friday's trash bins lay this Thursday to final rest.

                                                      Fall River

-the Sacred Heart Academy girls-

I was too young

to go to the dance. 

but the girls from the Academy

tucked into my sister's bedroom

prepared themselves.

the door was slightly ajar,

never able to fully close
no matter how hard they pushed

in order to shut me out.

my gait from the kitchen through the narrow
hallway to the parlor slowed to funeral steps

as I hesitated before the intriguing goings on
through the narrow breach at the door.

in there, they examined their skin —

pressed the upper eyelashes

with an implement designed

to do only that and nothing else.

they primed their hair

in sprays to hold it down.

they dabbed

the backs of their ears

with Wind Song perfume 

and the backs of their knees —

rolled deodorants, sniffing

the hairless armpits to sweet certainty,

listening to Elvis and Fats
crooning from 45s spinning 

and slipped their legs

into nylon and crinoline.

earlier, two of them took baths in our tub,
(my tub as I saw it) heating the cold porcelain.

all too soon I could hear the lot of them

giggling with anticipation, leaving
the hems of their skirts in their wakes on the run

through the kitchen door leaving the early-evening
light of the house, and me, behind them.

                                         1017 Bedford

ladies and gentlemen,..the jiggling, oiled-up Mitzi!

my early preference in listening to rock & roll

above other forms of music was well established

by the age of 14.

in my lifetime, the 78 rpm

gave way to the 33 1/3 rpm

which gave way to the 45 rpm

which blew the doors open.

watching the earliest of Elvis on television in 1956

was akin to the primal, observational curiosity of man,
of how far we could take the planet whereon we lived. 

watching the earliest of the Beatles on television

in 1964 was simply witnessing the articles of surrender

being presented to the elders for their weary signatures.

but it wasn't the 4 mop-tops who caused international furor,

consternation, and charges of lasciviousness from the Holy See.

'twas the sweat-drenched Mitzi, singing and dancing her way

across the Ed Sullivan stage, tucked between two sets of Beatles,

like the burning innards of a hot tamale. 

remembering Mitzi Gaynor's

performance, 2/16/64
                               

-breaking the chain at the Stations of the Cross-

the tricks in the altar-boy trade

were passed down

from cousin to cousin,

older brother to younger.
1.

pull the hem of the cassock
away from the heel of the sneakers
when kneeling at the steps of the altar.

2.
a little less wine for Father DiCantino.
a little more for Father Mezzotesta.

3.

after the performance of the mass,

unfasten only the top three buttons of the cassock

then slip the cassock over my head, and hang it neatly

in the closet.

this coming Sunday, I'll need only

slip the cassock back over my head

fastening three buttons rather than the row

of a dozen or so as in a coat.

In an instant, I'll be ready to serve.

then the day had come to council my younger brother in these techniques,

who later found himself on the duty roster for the agonizing performance

of the Stations of the Cross, who panicked and quit the vocation flat-out

before putting the learned tricks-of-the-trade into formal practice; a gutsy move.

I don't fully recall what his explanation was at the supper table that night,

but if it was because of an unwanted advance by Father Pannoni in the sacristy

he would've inadvertently fingered the wrong priest.

whichever, I remember slurping my spaghetti, and otherwise keeping my mouth shut.

  

-Norena Requiem-

Romance:  the sharp-

edged meadow-

grass cuts into my feet

the hot
asphalt leaving little

red indentations

on the skin of my heels. the sun

blisters the back of my neck

and I’m just now beyond the billboards.

I’m running to Beatti Street,

to the house where Norena lives.

the game is lost.

I struck out twice

once swinging once looking.

a lazy dribbler in the 8th

found its way
through the hole at short, but

I'm left stranded at first.

It's a bad day at the ballpark.

I can run fast
but “no stealing no bunts”

was called by slowpoke Don

DeSoto before
the first pitch was thrown.

I should’ve known.
I should've seen it coming. 

but the call must be honored.

same as “no chips”
      same as  "trumps"

            same as “shotgun"—

Affettuso:  I call Norena's name

from the space between a shout and a whisper

from below the open second-floor window just above

the angled roof of the stairway's landing
where the warm June

breeze cons the green, opaque,
quarter-drawn shade of her room to pull away
then drift again inward.

Agitato:  from the landing, her grandmother,
long from the Azores stands strictly,

scolding with a wave of her saucy ladle:

“You go home! Norena no likes you”!

and it's a bad day on Beattie street.

-here, there and home again-

old Miss Sykes had a ridiculously full set of teeth
and although they clacked when the uppers met the lowers,

at the time, I assumed they were real.
my butter-up compliments to her on their size
were taken in a way they were not intended.

but I wasn't the only trouble-maker

to be nabbed in the act of incorrigibility.

I sat waiting my turn on the long bench where

I wasn't allowed to speak.
I was guilty and out of excuses.

the old lady behind the chest-high gate,
the intriguing gate of heavy, lacquered wood
with the tactile spring-action
where no spring could ever be detected,
stared me down with her standard facial accusation of shame.

but the young one near the bloated cabinet of inactive files
flashed a smile which caught me off guard.
I always looked upon the office typists as tapping-out
psalms of the dead to the parents of incorrigibles:

          "we regret to inform you that William
          will be detained for the rest of his natural life".

I longed for another smile from my new-found love,
but she carelessly carried-on with her typing duties
as if nothing had transpired between us.

hers, was a closed-mouth smile, ascending half-a-cheek,
coming to rest just beyond the hint of smirking.
I'll meet her after school out back near the dumpster
and she'll drive us to "Mee Sum" Chinese Restaurant
for chow mein sandwiches and icy orangeade.

but after an hour's standing-room-only detention
and half-an-hour wandering the tarmac
in the lonesome territory of the dumpster,
I walked home through the tall, lancing meadow
behind the billboards after taking a shortcut through the cemetery.

  

-down on 8th street.
 the "Pier 14" barroom is ground-zero there-

1.
we,— and by “we” I mean my family, as well as
just about every other family in the neighborhood,

referred to ourselves as Italian, and by “Italian” I mean

anyone with an ancestral link to mainland Italy,

like say, a grandparent or two.

our parents were working class (and by that I mean)

our fathers and oftentimes our mothers

worked for wages in order to “make ends meet”—
were paid by the week with Company checks
quickly endorsed at the kitchen tables, the money represented
vanishing as fast as a sly magician's ink.

In the early 50s, black people were living

in a small congregation someplace else to the west,

but they lived among a sprinkling of white people
same as the Italians did to the east.

we (my friends and I) had a standing curiosity

of the blacks living "down there", mostly due
to the perceived, mysterious ways of life down on 8th street,
off Bedford, shadowed by the "Pier 14" barroom between 7th and 9th,

(and I say that simply because there was a 9th street)
not many small city blocks from our neighborhood.

the blacks seemed formidable, or so we imagined;
invincible, as we fantasized to justify our deliberate romance of them.

as for the environment down on 8th street,
we saw it as a notch in status below our own.

our houses appeared to be in better shape,

the cars of our fathers changed positions
at the curbside from time to time (on four inflated tires)
and we had a ballpark close enough that a foul ball 
would break the window of whomever's name was on it.

our neighborhood had an immediate church
and by "immediate" I mean nearly indelible,

within eyesight, nearly inescapable, its tall stained-glass 
windows lit-up like kaleidoscopes during the incense-
burning fragrance of the nighttime benedictions.

God was on our side,— the frantic,

animated side of the crazy, wild-handed Italians.

2.
In time, the haunting mysteries
down on 8th street would vanish
along with the otherworldly "Pier 14" barroom
as would the neighborhood of Italians

as would the "one true church", erased of its congregation
through inevitable non-compliance
as would the ballpark as we knew it
and the cars parked at curbside down on 8th street
began running, leaving on four inflated tires, returning by nightfall.

    

the Carnival

at the nexus of the Narrows, the great Watuppa,

as her eyes drained of atmosphere like the hanging

moment after a socially vulgar joke,

the oil-drenched paper tray

of deep-fried clam cakes sat before her untouched

growing cold upon the redwood picnic table.

near two bucks, those clam cakes cost me.

the homebound traffic was heavy on route 6 west

as the salted populace returned from the beaches

to their collective realities, and sunlight continued dimming

in its introduction to the clear night-sky's routine.

she didn’t raise her voice in cold accusation,

utter answers to the unanswerable questions,—

try to coax an apology or in anger throw

a now inedible clam cake at my head.

she was simply distant,— silent and distant

in the manner of an outer planet.

twilight, and the Carnival Drive-in sits emptied of its contents,

the traffic dies-out over time and soon enough, route 6 west

is left to itself like a strand of linguini assigned to the wall.

blanketing the windowpanes of the Carnival, the mayflies

cling to the dying of the one day they have.

-from the first step-

the great Chilean poet lingered
inside the tool-shops where hardware

exposed itself openly for consideration; the skilled

walls displaying the naked strength of metal.

In the here and now, implements of the trade

are packaged for sale in snazzy blister-packs

dressed-up for immediate recognition.

the bakeries exist

on the slower side of commerce,

where the scent of confections,

of flower and water roam free of fierceness.

even the ovens take-on the scent

of the sweet, the pliable of form.

the pane crusts, warm and earth-colored,

linger like the poet lingered at the altar of iron,
at the mouth of their singular languages,–

the abrupt attack in the metal of tools,
the organic activity of sugars, the stringent salts,

the moistness of the cooling pane,

the common sense in the fierceness of crowbars,

from the anvil through the distance to the oven's peel,

from the Chilean's atmosphere of nickel and copper,

to the crusts of the pane belly-up on the shelves, waiting
across the street from the third base line ready for the tables,––
all of it and more and now even this.

-This Day-

I woke-up considering

The foolishness of not smoking cigarettes,

Soaped-away the curious scent from my fingers

And looking into the mirror

Surrendered to an aging landscape.

In the News, a Congressman 

From Brooklyn and Queens, New York,

Is reported sticking his penis into his cellphone,

Transporting the image to a less than receptive young woman.

  

This morning, that's the News.

Bathroom faucets produce a fierce

Water which I splash to my face, as if water

Was on a mission of immediate redemption.

Aerosol shaving cream lubricates my skin,

And anticipating an early encore to yesterday's performance,

I assume the Congressman from Brooklyn and Queens, New York,

Might have lubed-up, too.

 June, 2011 / Fall River