-hand-me-downs-

a permanently stained pair of pants

but she said the stain’s at the crotch

so nobody will see it,

two thread-worn, button-up sweaters

woven with images of bears

with side-pockets so shallow and weak

they couldn't hold anything and

sneakers without space inside for another

drop of sweat.

the shirt's too big and yellow as nicotine.

these items, and others, were stuffed inside
a damp corrugated box

carried by my aunt Olympia, called "Lee"

from next door, through the yards and

into our kitchen, then plopped

upon the table's oilcloth which is where we’d eat.

my brother, near three years my younger

will have to wait for his hand-me-downs.
this dank, dreary box of goods is mine. 

to be fair, my mother would soon sort through the items

and with a keen eye, preserve what was decent
while disposing of what was wretched.
this triage was performed with speed
and adroitness and the procedure with which she
trashed the un-reclaimables was noteworthy.

my sister, near three years my elder

will be driven downtown to the fancy
"Cherry & Webb".

It was a neighborhood of hand-me-downs.
my older cousins and their friends

handed the ballpark and its corner

of Bedford and Stinziano down to me and my kind.

they handed-down the spoils of Rachlin's Junkyard

waiting for us through the backyards

beyond the grapevines to the fences on Healy Street.

they handed-down their surplices and cassocks,
freshly laundered and hung inside the sacristy's closet
waiting for the young, naive new shipment of altar boys .

leaving the great department store

with a bundle containing sundries and a new dress,

her hand slipped neatly into her mother’s

and with an appearance and attitude handed-down
from someplace in the distance I could never reach,
my sister walked briskly toward the open backdoor
of her father's Buick,–– yes, that Buick, waiting at the curb
with its mighty engine running, ready to go home.

Quequechan

-Poem to extend the lives of our early dead-

1.

We weren’t among the faithful departed.

We weren’t among the heartless living.

From the writing table's point of view
I've determined we were simply lucky.

Sixty years past and nine years into his life,
Angelo Taggllio  "got bumped”–– which is to say,
Run-down by a fast moving Nehi Grape Soda truck.

Soon afterward, Delores Smiley, too, "got bumped."

From the darkness of the years to come,
Thomas Imbriglio would drown after diving
From the precipice of the quarry's ledge, and Sandra D'Adamo,

5th grade, one row to my right and two desks down

would be vandalized by leukemia.  

These early dead should have received more play;

One more day. One more breath.

Sure, the poems would be proportionately longer, but

I’ve learned to make those adjustments.

A longer line shortens the column, but

The column widens at the beam.

2.

There’s something to be said of you

When the Nehi Grape Soda truck runs you down

When leukemia suppresses the innocence of your blood

When the granite ledge leads you to final water

Whenever I show-up to fill-in the column reporting your death
With the only part of you which is living.

Quequechan 

  

-good morning-

did the passion for deviant sexual behavior 

drive Priest to his priesthood?

It’s okay with me if it did.

after-all, it was deviant sexual passion which

drove me to pedal fast toward Angela DiConcini’s house.

it’s always some-thing or some-one which

drives us to our callings.

first, it was my father who drove me.

then I rode my bike

then I took the bus

then I drove there myself.

with Priest?

It's every kid for himself.

In Italy, the elders of his kind rode girls' bikes

because their cassocks were as long as dresses.

baskets filled with freshly baked breads

were strapped to the handlebars

and the Priests rode with their backs

in near perpendicular to the length of their bikes

like wide-brimmed, black-sheathed planks of wood

bobbing over the cobblestones.

they always seemed good natured

when riding their bikes from the bakeries.

Priest drove a black Mercury sedan.

he kept the motor running at the curb

as he looked out for our best interests

whenever we played basketball in the little park

across the street from the rectory, three-on-three,

shirts against skins.

Quequechan, USA

-At the Hugo A. Dubuque School-

1.

The turtle is turned on its back

Upon the asphalt of the schoolyard.

The turtle inverted has four useless legs

And its time is running out.

This is the age of death's exploration.

The killing of small creatures

Was a rite of passage for the boys;

Grasshoppers to the webs of the poisonous widows,

Toothpicks through the ladybugs,—

Squishing caterpillars beneath the soles

Of our sneakers,— tossing

Hornworms into the wacky throngs of red ants

Climbing over one another for a taste,

Tattle-tailing, waving their antennae
as many a breadwinner kneeling before the god
of phosphorescence, knocking heads,—

Displaying their intelligence.

The wackiest kid

Got his hands on a magnifying glass

And any slow-mover

Was doomed to the needled-ended

Spike of the Sun.

On their knees at the carnage,

The boys laugh like lunatics

Elbowing each other at the first

Crackling spit of bug-smoke

As the girls, their delicate arms folded

Just above the waistlines of the crisp

Day-dresses, lean against the high

Chain linked fence, separating the schoolyard
From the sharp-edged meadow,

Blank-faced and anticipating the end.

2.

There’s a famous 1940s photograph

Of a drowned man sprawled on the beach

At Coney Island, surrounded by a semicircle

Of grey-faced onlookers in high-waisted

Bathing-suits as a few attendants fail

In their struggle to release him

Back into the sea of the living.

His young wife, kneeling in the sand

Next to his dead head,

Realizes the still-shot camera at the ready,

And smiles broadly as the shutter clicks

To document the scene.

She smiles because it’s instinctive for her to do so

Whenever a camera is poised in her direction.

The schoolyard girls observing the brutality

Of death at the fence near the tarmac

Are as engaged, but colder;

Austere at the moment of the truth.

3.

The Maypole stands for the school's

Mayday festivities

And the alternating boys and girls,

Dressed-up,

Starched and serious are walking

In a slow circle around it.

They hold in their hands, pole-attached strips

Of crepe paper;

Red white and blue, marching like benign

Circus creatures,

Corkscrewing the pole, delighting the audience

Of parents and teachers in attendance.

From the open doors of the red-brick building,

Down the granite stairway, each flight worn in the middle,

The electrical extension cord winds its way outward

To where the appropriate fanfare trumpets upon a folding table

From the portable record player.

                                                    Quequechan

-Interstate 95 North to Interstate 93 North-

I've allowed myself more than enough time,

Considered the impossible traffic congestion
On I-95 North to I-93 North on the approach
Toward the great “Corita Tank”, eyes right,––

Clothes laid-out at the foot of the bed; trousers,

Chino-type, nicely creased, button-down collared

Powder-blue dress shirt, no starch, please, cranberry crew-
Neck sweater, black socks, nearly new wedding to funeral
Perfectly acceptable, brown suede lace-ups, freshly laundered
Boxers and tee-shirt and the final elements,–– 

Concert tickets, Orchestra / K-25, and K-26 laid upon the neatly

Stacked items of clothing in forget-me-not attitude.

It’s been noted that Dmitri Shostakovich composed his 7th Symphony

In Leningrad during the terrible Nazi siege of 1941.

It was also interesting to note that Shostakovich, along with

Other “major artists” were to be evacuated

From Leningrad and other war zones to reasonably

Safe areas throughout Stalin’s Soviet Union.

Bakers, shoemakers, lesser composers and sidewalk-sweepers,––

Those hunch-backed women shawled in black, brushing pavement

With straw-headed brooms, would have to fend for themselves
In starving Leningrad.

But Shostakovich volunteered to serve the beleaguered city as a fireman
Alongside brave Russian soldiers and civilians defending her against

The metal-headed Nazis and it is further noted that Shostakovich “scaled-down”

The great symphony, structurally, so that it could be more accessible

To the common people;–– the bakers, shoemakers, lesser composers,
And sidewalk-sweepers who, against all odds, just might get out
Of Leningrad alive, gather and sack their few remaining belongings

And head-out to the 7th Symphony’s premiere engagement

By the Bolshoi Orchestra in the city of Kuibyshev in March of 1942.

So, of course, yes. We're going to Boston. 

With Josh D'Elia, Symphony Hall, February, 2017

-Around and through the days of other lives-

1.
In the space of time,

Hart Crane revealed the sweltering rivet-

Catcher then leapt from the stern of the churning

"Orizaba."

2.
During my Plath campaign, "Ariel" strained:

         "Something else

          Hauls me through air –––

          Thighs, hair;

          Flakes from my heels."

3.
It was Emily, who alone
Set her back against the fig
Tree at Amherst peering into her authority.

4.
It came to me one night

While listening to the music of "Blood On The Floor"––

(the title leading me by the scruff of the neck into its nightmare)

To question how it came to pass, that

The fatal hypodermic's delivery through the vein of Andrew Turnage 

Advanced to his brother in a jazzy dissonance.

5.
Call me: name-dropper,

Navigating the stuff in the lives of others

Much of the time from their landscapes in fatal curiosity.

Words quicken their pace when saying

What there is to say through the clicking of keys
While alone in a room.

Ephesians said that Jesus said:

"Let nothing come out of your mouths but that
Which fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who will hear it".

                                                                                      Ephesians 4:29.

As for me,–– I wouldn't go so far as to say such a thing in mixed company
And frankly,
I wouldn't wander so far from the path as did all or any one of them.

-the horror and the bliss-

from the backseat, so young that my feet

couldn’t reach the floorboard, to the advanced age
when the floorboard had risen to nearly reach my feet,

a ride in the car evoked in me meandering questions
anticipating the journey's destination.

from the window, the same kinds of landscape passed by,

the same sort of people walked along the chain-linked fences.

If I was told where I was being taken,

it usually meant to a place of my liking,––

the amusement park in Westport,
a family outing at the pine-forested Reservation,
cousin Celia's house in Providence,

or Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford to see the animals.

my favorite exhibit (beyond the vision of cousin Celia)
was that of the great American Plains Buffalo,
with its massive horned-head, black, vacant eyes,
and ever-present benign attitude of submission,–– locked-up,

innocent of wrongdoing,––  and like myself, forced to eat

whatever was put in front of him.

if they kept their mouths shut in the front seat,
a sense of foreboding would come over me;

some type of check-up, an extraction, an inoculation
to ward-off the communicable disease of one sort or another,

or a slow drive to Freetown and the kid in the pulsating iron lung...

everything and anything and all things great and small,

but always with a sense of dread were on the table from the backseat

when they didn’t tell me where I was going.

Quequechan

-Hopscotching-

The Information Super Highway

is busy this morning,––

what with the annual get-together

over coffee, early evacuations,

and getting the kids ready for school.

Post-It notes on the fridge point the way

to prepared sandwiches.

Old friends scrutinize the pact they’ve signed:

The "Articles of Mutual Un-Responsiveness".

Church bells ring the calling to the faithful,

Mayoral proclamations are read on the steps

of City Hall and at the Gates to the Junkyards.

The skies open.
Google wills it!

––And the Saints come to harmonize, shaking the hands
of other Saints: “Good to see you lookin' so well, Armand.."
––Now come the dead Priests begging for intercession,

lurking without torsos through the crowded plains of purgatory.

––O' ye Priests!! The Virgin's got plans of her own and she's lookin

real, real sweet. 

-On visiting Manny Medeiros at suppertime-

Below the Hill, the landlords

Were beginning to dress the tenement

Houses in vinyl.

Tony's boss said:

“Cheaper than shingles and it don't need no paint".

Inside, the scent of "soupish caldene"

Cooking in the big pot on the stove

Is quickly realized,— the simmering

Potatoes and Kale and other garden vegetables 
Watering my mouth.

(At my house, my mouth would be watered

By the scent of fried salsiccia and peppers)

Tony's boss said:

“Look, Tony..I jack-up the rent a few bucks.

They’ll appreciate vinyl in the long run”.

Inside, Manny's older brother is gone,

Living on his own.

The girls living Below the Hill
Seem to stick-around awhile longer.

Her name is Maria, a Junior at
Diman Vocational High School

Learning the trade that will keep her close to home

For the rest of her life.

Sitting at the table, she looked like
A perfect green olive with brown eyes.

It's more than a safe bet to assume that

She might have been the reason I was there in the first place.

“Tony’s got a good job! He's alright!

 For chrissakes she’s almost 18”!

It was as if she wasn't herself.

She was just the person at the table who was "ready for Tony".

And it's not as if the rest of her family disagreed.

And it's not as if I liked Manny Medeiros all that much, anyway.

Tony's boss said: 

"Listen, Tony..rain, snow,— It don’t matter none to vinyl".

                                                 Quequechan, c.1958

-watching the olympic figure skating competition on television-

say what you will of initial motion;

without inertial motion it would

only amount to a sickening thud.

costumed in powder-blue, skating backward

across the icy rink gaining speed, she bends

forward for the power she needs then leaps

from the ice, closing in on herself like a neutron star

spinning in space then nearing the landing she thrusts
a powerful leg backward while the leg reserved for ice, bends
gracefully at the knee preparing the skate, also reserved for ice.

but then

at the critical moment of contact,

her ankle yields under her weight, she loses control,

and falls on her butt and here’s what happens next:

she commits herself to momentarily glide across the ice

in the beauty of inertial motion.

the crowd sighs along her way.

poor child, they sigh as she glides across the ice

smiling softly in sweet resignation like a hero doomed at the wall.

her arms search for balance through the unresponsive atmosphere,
gliding there, gliding over ice,–– her legs make an abstract

cadence through the emptiness of nearly an entire lifetime of effort,

her powder-blue butt, frosted in glistening crystalline particles...

4.2 / 4.3 / 4.0 / 3.9 / 4.4  is a cruel arithmetic,

and not nearly high enough for this observer.

-An addendum to the comprehensive history of violence- 

After a sensationalized tour

I told them: “It’s a very nice house.”

It's their first house, a newly renovated split-level ranch

sporting an expansive basement rumpus-room

complete with enormous screen television,

pingpong table and flashing replica of a 1950s

pinball machine with bathing beauty back-glass

and intriguing sound effects.

My hosts, childhood friends, appear overwhelmed

with owning their first home,–– a home where the dining room

is separated from the "parlor" by an archway.

She said: “Let’s have coffee in the living room.”

There’s a framed reproduction of Francisco Goya’s
plate 15, “The Disasters of War” series

hanging in the bathroom above the low-slung

powder blue toilet tank which I found disconcerting.  

Freetown, Massachusetts
                                             

-early february of 2017-

the presidential election didn’t go the way of my vote

and small patches of snow remain on the ground,

most with widening rings of water circling them

on the pavement near the grass of the front yard.

as a curious kid, living across the river who talked to himself

on a daily basis, I’d get down on my hands and knees,

crouching low and zooming-in on the little islands of snow,

pretending to navigate the north pole.

this happened on the sidewalk in front of the house

and I remember it as being convincing enough to be repeated.

I don’t do that anymore.

but I did the same thing in warm weather, peering into

the sharp yellow shoots of meadow grass at eye-level.

an insect happening by was a miraculous sight,

feeling its way through the tall blades, clinging, slipping,
moving onward, the antennae of its head dancing like two
crazy jitterbuggers.

this happened in the overgrowth of the backyard’s vegetable garden.

I don’t do that anymore either, and if I did, 
I wonder how the neighbors would perceive me?

would they see a loony old-timer crawling on all fours

along the road in winter, or along the backyard in summer?
would they be inclined to call the cops?

I think so, and who could blame them?

It was during the time when the bathtub
lost its colorful playground
and washing became what the tub was to be used for,
that I stopped exploring the outdoors alone on my hands and knees,

and instead, utilizing the outside world to bond with early friends,
expanding the geography.

so, the presidential election didn’t go the way of my vote
and although this poem makes mention of this frigid fact,

It pleases me that the body of the poem has nothing positive to say about it.