-what is it you want, poem-writer?-

early morning music leads to

sightings of intermittent bombings and shootings.

over there, the ergonomic chair
sits at the table without concern
over the recent goings-on and all-the-while
I grow old along the way.

my son won’t be old until he occupies
my space within his own frame of time, but

it's only the very old who dare not scrutinize
beyond their immediate circumstance.

as for me in the meantime, the walk
to somewhere is accomplished with minimal effort.

but only by taking my place at the table
will the distance to reconciliation be travelled,

to a crowded, often unhinged existence 

waiting for its daily resurrection, where
the done-for will be done-in all over again.

-the Bay is the Mount Hope, the Taunton is the River-

1.

they’re excavating to lay a foundation north of the Mount Hope

at the banks of the Taunton, the high northward of the river

toward its beginnings.

I can hear the sounds of industry distant enough to haunt,––

all for the sake of development;  an Erechtheum on the Taunton.

could be housing for the multitudes and I guess that’s okay.

since we the people necessarily live someplace we may as well

have a river view.

the busses don’t run like they use to,

and the taxicab companies are broke, their cars so beat-up

they look like welterweights at the bell closing the 9th.

the churches are near empty; the priests,

cloaked in their collective guilt are still seen driving around..

2.

my son called from Los Angeles last night.

I told him when I croak he’s getting some damn good poems

for a quick look-see when his daily vocations are concluded.

I advised him to be on the lookout; ––to keep his eyes peeled

like a Crow scouting for the 7th cavalry. a terrible analogy. meanwhile,

  

3.

time advances toward my place of standing in the world.

––all's fair when everything's considered from the middle.

northward, the machine of industry distant enough to haunt,

is laying the foundation for a structure.

City

    

               -populating the interior-

               It was the rarest of moments

               entering an empty “house” at 1017.

               father’s working his drive through the eastern route.

               mother’s visiting a friend and who knows who?

               grandmother and grandfather are seen

               walking beyond left field toward the church
               for yet another funeral.

               it’s the time in life when they’re dropping like flies.

               my sister’s expected home from spending time
               at the "house" of the fascinating Edwina Mello

               and my brother’s temporarily ensconced in the dark,
               North End of town accompanied by the little lunatic
               who goes by the name: Douglas "Dougie” Bear.

               but here, there’s nothing to look into.

               there’s little if anything to make my own.
               the bedroom doors are open to rooms of fading mysteries.

               the closed dresser drawers are of little to no interest;

               I’ve seen the insides of them; the dry,
               tangled guts of common cloth.

               the sink and gas stove look dead.
               linoleum looks to peel away at the corners by the sheer force of nature.

               my friends are cloistered inside their own “houses”
               which form a perfect circle around the nucleus of the world.

               there’s a note on the kitchen table left there for my sister,
               written in our young mother's delicate hand:

               “Janice,

               I'll be back soon.

               tell Billy to stay in the house”.

               I’m the only one in the “house” left standing to read the note

               and I’m the only one singled-out by name to "stay in the “house”.

              from the first floor tenement, called the "house" /  1954

-Only you-

There's a lot that can happen at the plate.

You can stand on either side of it with a 3 & 2 count,

with men on 2nd and 3rd, behind by 2 in the 8th,

waiting with nowhere near the patience of Job.

You can strike out at the plate.

You can slide into it feet first, head first, hands first.

You can squat behind it flashing secret finger signs

while the pitcher bends his torso and stares you down like priest.

Consider this: the stubby fingers of the catcher, often the most

unkempt player on the field is held to the same artistry as one

would demand in the performance of a ballet.

You can observe the goings-on standing behind the catcher,

bending your torso so that everything's on the up-and-up,

and when all this seriousness is over, you can have a lot of fun

at the plate, jumping up and down on it like a gang of dusty

lunatics whenever somebody hits the game-winner. 

Watch out! You'll certainly get beaned at the plate

if you approach it as if it belongs to only you.

I once knew a kid who played second base

for Immaculate Conception (called: “the I-macs”)

in the old CYO League of Fall River who

seemed a little crazy when he marked

the cross of the crucifixion in the dirt
with the knob of his bat at the edge of the box
before stepping to the plate.

At about the same time, Jimmy Piersall,

centerfielder for the Red Sox was doing the same thing
before stepping-up and Jimmy, well, he seemed to go a little crazy, too.

So, yeah. There’s a lot that can happen at the plate.

          -certified alternate-

          
          you may have inadvertently knocked at the door to the wrong house.

          'could be you've run into the wrong man regardless of poetry.
          even so, I'll accept your arrival as a positive response to an invitation.

          nothing said this early in the morning will urge you to sit at the edge of your seat.

          there’ll be no revelations or titillations and to be clear,

          even a spritz of truth gleaned from the institution is enough when

          counter-storytellers of the subject matter are are either

          dead or uninvolved or nincompoops.

          they should've written their own damn poems.

          sure, there'll be deep-throated grunts of disapproval and

          sure, the antagonist will demand peer review documentation

          but goddamn! I'm just daydreaming for christsake. 

          2014

-a summer morning-

Saturday and the early church

bell tolls as the ballpark opens to sunlight.

It’s a measured knell, the muted
clapper inhaling between each strike to its metal lung.

It’s the toll for the dead
as we gather at the plate to choose-up
the sides who will play the game.

we're waiting on Petrillo who's standing
across the street as the slow procession rolls by, a true
stone's-throw from the red-brick facade of the church

whose bell calls the solemn bereaved to someone's end-of-the-line.

(there’s an awkward silence at the plate

brushing across the shuttered mouth of the game)

Petrillo's young temptation is to cross to the ballpark
jolting between the broken links of the murmuring transport
and he's fast enough to do it, but–– he waits it out.

behind us at the bakery's door, the ancient
Italian widow respectfully signs:

one touch for the father, one touch for the son.––
the holy ghost gets two.

from the heavy four-footed print of his house, Petrillo
crosses behind the final car of second cousins, passing through
the gate at the towering backstop and we start to choose-up.

the death knell sounds in the name of one whose time has come
and the last kid standing in the dirt at the plate is taken by force.

Columbus Park, 1953-1954? 1952.

when listening to notables of stage and screen, or

famous writers of fiction far from the hot stove leagues,

touting the “beauty of the game”,–– the subtlety in its movement,

the silence in its complex communication, the heartbeat in its hesitant lead

off the bag at third, the tense isolation of the outfield, the game's last stand,
all as beautiful as, well.. something hard to define, but –– consider this:

-the lengths to which we’d go-

it wasn't hard to resist playing the game with Hank Casper’s new baseball,

the lathe-rubbed jewel from the mines of Diamond Company.

a D1-low seam is what it was;

cadmium red, its stitches strained across the cowhide cloak.

the chosen one was game-tested, more than once retrieved

from the sewers or cajoled from the slop at the playful jaws of intruding dogs.

this time, it’s caught in the wire mesh of the backstop, wedged there
from a looping foul ball, a good ten feet above Tom Curry’s head.

(I’m exhibiting the imagery of a small band of ballplayers

gathered behind home plate looking up to the wire of the backstop)

sure, we needed a climber, but the mesh was unstable

and besides, we'd been warned not to climb the wire by Ray Parrese,
a pal of my father, the boss of all things prescribed by

the "Columbus Park Rules and Regulations Committee". 

then this:

Casper’s new bauble in leather waiting in the wings

too pretty for the rough of the game, not a venial

sin pinpricking its virgin hide,–– not even a hint of ash,
but the weathered old-timer's wedged in a purgatory of chicken wire.

“why the hell don’t you guys throw something up there

to knock it down”?

so Henry Casper threw his new beauty upward

and on the first try, knocked the old ball free from the wire's trap

and that’s the baseball we used to play the game that day;

Henry’s brand new Diamond D1-low seam.

you see, when it knocked the battered old ball down,

well,–– it was a baptism of sorts, the welcoming to the game.
you know, something beautiful for the beauty of it all.

so that's my story.

so let ‘em talk about that.

-the third in a series of love stories devoted to early baseballs-

this is the third story.

it’s the one about the sewer

squatting at the gutter in front of my house; the house
across the street from the corner ending the right field line.

there, the sewer waits in perpetual attitude, inhaling
baseballs run afoul, its breath exhales of everything

once belonging to something from someplace else.

our neighborhood law states intently that

this sewer will never hold our baseballs within its putrid belly.

it wasn’t always, but sometimes I was called upon

to crawl inside its granite-heavy maw into

the stagnant drench of the sewer squatting at the foot of my house.

grab hold the backside of my withered belt, my young brothers.

hold tight to the riven denim at its cuffs and the looping

knots who bind the hightop sneaks.

hold fast to this slender body, loved-ones, for I’m going in.

               -The immediate family-

               Incidental Preamble:

               I grew to enjoy my standing in the classification of “Immediate Family”.

               It meant I could push my way through the crowds of well-wishers
               and walk directly into the Intensive Care Unit.

               Of my early immediate family, my young sister, three

               years my elder, seemed blessed with talent.

               I say “blessed” without knowing who it was or what it was

               which blessed her with talent.
               Call it the Holy Ghost.
               Call it her tenacity.

               Call it a forced critique from the morning
               egg man delivering farm-fresh, still warm,
               dotted with chickenshit and little strands of hay
               as he stood at attention at the screen door of the kitchen.

               (she’d tap for anyone at first notice)

               or it might have been the result of

               enthusiastic reviews from Uncle Joe, a cool guy

               who smoked kingsize menthol and had a calling...

               Talent is defined here as: dancing,

               singing,–– performing on short notice 

               for relatives, parental friends, or
               the Encyclopedia salesman, as my little brother,
               three years my younger, watched with curiosity

               from the wings of the hallway

               while I hid under the bed until the coast was clear.

               As for me, my parents did make an effort

               by shelling-out for saxophone lessons

               taught by a neighborhood nightclub Jazzman.

               I don’t recall my little brother

               taking lessons of any kind, but

               years later I drew a penciled portrait of Joe,

               my father's younger brother from memory
               long after he died (too young in life) by "undisclosed means".
               the local paper's obituary section wasn't ready with an exposé

               for the likes of Uncle Joe.

               The belching saxophone was short-lived, too,

               but as things were I had no complaints.

               Most of my cousins were forced into taking
               accordion lessons.

               Quequechan / early in the fifties

-Almost zero / a Requiem for old Miss Sykes-

Almost zero.

Not the outside temperature in winter, although

Here in Paradisum it wouldn’t have been an outlier.

December classroom’s hot with steam.

The third aisle in from the door is sweltering

By the grace of Bernadette Baker.

My head will come to rest upon my forearms, draped

Across the lid of the desk regardless of season.

Who knew the limits in the span-of-attention as I did?

Nobody, but for the grievance of old Miss Sykes.

The report cards delivered by my hand pushed my parents
To the precipice of exhaustion.

It’s probably 1955 and "Almost zero" confronts them

Like a blast of wind from the throat of Carol.

Backyard tree's uprooted in September 
And roadways are flooded, knee-deep.

They asked: “Is Rebop in the house”?

They feared the loss of reception and the pains of Hell.

Widows were stripped in masking-tape to ward-off the wind

Like old testament lamb's blood brushed at the doors
Upon the edict of Pharaoh.

Then the cursive scrawl in blood-red: “Almost zero”
Writ by the withered hand of old Miss Sykes adds to the pile

Of frantic goings on confronting me and my earliest house.

Finito

-including certain observations-

I am not now, nor have I ever been a professional painter of pictures.

having said that, I have painted a few pictures in my time and some

were actually palatable to the naked eye.

a few might remember: “Novitiate at her Bath” called:

the “Nun Painting” by its admirers, whereabouts unknown and

lost to history.

also, there's the little Chardin wannabe: “Items on a Table”

immortalized in a poem addressed to long past love, Isabella Howsenauer

and is assumed to be in Howsenauer's possession and considered lost.

I want it.
I want the lost little Chardin wannabe.

I want the lost “Nun” painting, too.

I want all my lost stuff.

I want to gather all of it in my arms

like Vincent was gathered by Paul,

like Jesus gathered the other Paul,

like John gathered his own Paul while skiffling at the Woolton fête.

I want to sleep with my stuff lost to the aether,

to smell the crooked paint of it,–– unfurl
the rolls with their hairline cracks at my loins.

they're every woman I’ve ever known or dreamed of living or dead;

It'd be like sleeping inside the Pleiades, all seven of them;

young and burning with a new kind of fire.

––Ah! but for the stars, I’m too old for any of it, and don't you see?

I'm soon to be lost to history myself, don't you know.

          -breaking bread with the common birds-

          5/16/19

          in the morning they glide in, then it's a wing-flapping

          approach toward the empty feeder.

          it’s a natural touch and go.

          but the feeder's refilled and the birds fly back,

          land, commence to pecking seed and soon

          the base is laden with birds wing-to-wing, holding on
          for dear life, pecking seed like a bunch of lunatics.

          the standard double-feeder, purchased at Walmart

          for twelve bucks, is emptied of its morning’s seed

          by mid-afternoon.

          say what you will of the fierce-feeding piranha,

          they have nothing over the group of sparrows at my feeder.

          if this continues I’ll be broke by December.

         “breaking bread” is a common phrase,

          now free of its old and new testament shackles.

          on holidays, groups of friends and relations tend

          to gather and eat together around a festive table.

          the breaking of bread.

          three mornings past I was biting into a toasted

          Portuguese muffin glazed in raspberry jam,

          standing at the window as the birds feasted
          on seed at the freshly-filled feeder, and as I see it,

          and for the sake of early morning poetry, that's close enough

          to be considered the breaking of bread with the common birds.

          

               -the temporary residence- WORK ON THIS !

               the temporary residence is unrestrained,

               what with intrusive friends and relations,

               the spacial availability to house visiting dogs,
               residential cats, common bird varieties
               gorging themselves at their feeders and me.

               I occupy a corner room with my stuff.

               I’m allowed free access throughout the house,

               its in-ground swimming pool, the shed out back

               for the storage of questionable items assigned to purgatory

               and lounge-chair relaxation on the property with a morning cup

               and a westward view of Mount Hope Bay which is first rate.

               it’s too soon for me to become an adjunct curiosity,

               but I’m ready to hang-on by my fingertips.

               I have a sweltering girlfriend who lives inside the Sun
               among a clutch of coconut palm trees,––

               an ex-wife who’s become understanding of my short-

               comings and a parakeet who seems to recognize me.

               I don’t eat very much, but

               I’ll eat what’s put in front of me
               like the dogs and cats do at their stations,

               and the birds at their feeders.

               inside the joint, Arnold enjoys swinging in his cage after a meal.

               but none of 'em write no poems,

               a double negative I can live with.

  

               -Rose and Pietro and a soundbite from Lennon in typical form-

               "what happens when the bubble bursts"?
               
               1.
               history's finer plateaus are revisited
               now and then, so

               some of the early characterizations

               cling to the current nature of things.

               but I’m less easily distracted

               and my span of attention has increased.
               even so, it remains a short crossing.

               I've cultivated an ability to zero-in.

               so this is the way it is.

               I do more than just look around.

               I consider my findings and tell short stories
               (stacked narrowly at the beam)
               of occasional interest to a small audience.

               but my prints are all over the place.

               2.
               an ancient Italian woman introduced to me
               the two-knot system of securing my laces.
               she struggled against the tenacity of my left handedness.

               she brought a husband and her knowledge of the old world

               to the new world long before Mussolini's inversion at Mezzegra.

               it was Pietro, her husband, who introduced

               the measure of peace to an otherwise frantic interior.

               he had his peculiar easy-chair set-up with its fixings in the kitchen

               with an occasional chicken or two, also inverted, bleeding-out,
               hanging in the entry

               and still,–– after all these early goings-on and other things,
               I'm reminded of Lennon's lament from the backseat of his limousine
               when he came to answer:–– "I'm still waiting for the bubble".

              

            -the confessional and the young woman on the run-

             1.
             the steps to the church are forged of chiseled stone
             quarried from the city's ledge of granite.

             I've climbed them.
             once inside, I looked things over;
             used the holy water to dab the trinity.
             I'm church legal.

             I'll choose a back row pew to better sample the fickle
             confessional line, (the mortal sinners make me wait)
             side-stepping into the pew, dropping to the kneeler.

             I've knelt there. babbled a prayer.

             not a very good one.

             2.
             someone’s speaking,
             one to another one.
             the sound's muted,

             a strange kind of resonance.

             (Jesus to Judas?
                     Judas to Priest?
                            Quavers of the early drowned?)

             finishing, I'll use the required right hand.
             you know, the hand of God.

             
             (here, proximity is close enough)

         

             father

             son

             the holy ghost gets two.

             

             3.
             during the un-enlightened ages on a Saturday afternoon,
             I lifted the kneeler to slip to its waiting position.

             I'm next to confess and then,

             she draws back the curtain with a fury
             fleeing the box as she would the scene of a crime.
             (she's young and warm-looking, like a pane fresh from the bakery)

            

             I’m in.

             blah my sins.

             so sorry. so sorry.

             

             It’s a penance of 5 “Our Father’s” and 5 "Hail Mary’s” for me,

             but I've learned to do the time in little more than a minute.

             an "act of contrition" more or less to tidy things up.

             the "act of contrition" is like a feather duster, clearing away

             the flotsam left behind by the venial sinners. 

             now homeward through the ballpark
             hopping the left field fence with time on my hands
             enough to covet my neighbor’s goods all over again and build
             erotic fantasies over what in hell it was she'd said she'd done.

             c.1952 / Quequechan