-why did the poem-writer cross the road-

growing increasingly concerned with social distancing,
yet finding the work in progress pedestrian, I’ll cross the street
to ask the guy in the little grey house what his poems are about;

do dreams come in to play? what makes them tick?

I drew unsubstantiated conclusions from seeing him mowing,

raking and shoveling during the three heaviest seasons when

the landscape needs tending.

his interior lights go on toward dusk like clockwork, and
I've noticed, without being nabbed in the act, framed
photos resting on a mantelpiece with others hanging
on a wall like certificates of award to "the man of the month".

he hasn't been cooking outdoors, although the small, circular
barbecue grill stands waiting, its half-moon lid
locked-down to the cold ash. It's a dark, dark moon, and

once upon every week, large plastic bags are carried out;

black, opaque, arthritic-like nodules bulging from the innards,

listing unceremoniously at the curbstone, blood-red ribbon ties,

knot the openings, keeping the bags tight-lipped, their secrets stuffed inside.

I'll cross the road to knock at his door to seek the answer

to the age old poets' inquiry of:–– "what the hell's goin' on over here"?

-some time ago

I accompanied an old friend to a funeral.

deceased, was his former wife's mother,

the former wife, also my friend.

after the graveside service, those paying their final, final respects
filed into their cars closing the doors to the ceremony.

I expected to do the same.

after a burial you walk away
slowly, but surely and drive to breakfast at the diner.

but my friend stayed behind,
walking the pathways of the little cemetery
considering gravestones while I tagged along
biding my time to reach proper closure of the experience

over a utilitarian diner-plate of eggs over easy and home fries. 

then this:

he stopped to look at a stone.

he looked more intensely here than

he did to any of the other stones.

as to this stone, it’s all in the name etched thereinto.

this is the grave of someone he knew when

she was young and so was he.

he spoke her name aloud to the ether, or, 
to something other than me, questioning
if it was her or somebody unknown with the same name.

but reasoning soon found it certainly was her.

lo, these many years and suddenly there she is
(could be dressed in blue chiffon and slingback pumps)

showing-up dead to an old friend's reunion.

later, I ordered a short stack under a generous spiral
of “Vermont Maid” maple syrup and coffee.

                  Of Carolyn Dziok (rhymes with kayak)

                    

                  Carolyn Dziok lived throughout her youth nestled in her parents

                  house seated across the street from my second floor bedroom window

                  in the semi-pastoral district of the city known as the lower highlands.

                  It's where our first (and only) residential, single-family (three bedrooms upstairs)

                  house sat, tucked neatly into the neighborhood of avenues, manicured frontage

                  and calmer attitudes.

                  ––The highlife up the lower highlands:

                  With the summertime sun, my young father's sale's ledger is filled, page after page

                  by each month’s end and mounting commissions mean money in the bank.

                  He’s selling booze from his traveling Buick by the truckload across the Cape

                  from Buzzard’s Bay to Wellfleet. We're living high on the hog.

                  Stick a three cent on the envelope to Easy Street.

                  ––Paparazzo:

                  From a steamy Saturday morning’s secret window, Carolyn is seen washing

                  her farther’s sleek-finned Chevy Bel Air, hosing it down from the soapy street-

                  side of young romance.

                  ––The glitterati:

                  Tonight, she's at the front door dressed in a rare sighting, perfumed and spray-fixed

                  for the dance downtown, as my sister (three years my elder) skips down the staircase

                  to greet her slicker than Loretta Young.

                  I’m in the recess of the hallway keeping my mouth shut.

                  They’ll go to the dance dressed like the porcelain dolls who sit atop the glittering

                  bedroom dressers.

                  My father will drive them to their passions in his Roadmaster, the top liquor salesman’s                            heavy-footed rite of passage.

                  Tonight, they’ll sweep them off their feet across the dance-floor; the floral scent of Wind                            Song perfume with a Buick's lingering hint of Narraganset Lager Beer and Seagram's                              VO whispering through the blonde, near imperceptible filament of their arms.

                  ––Dolce:

                  I’ll be sleeping when he drives downtown to get them.

                  I’ll be sleeping when he brings them home.

                  In the morning I’ll be watching from the window.
                  Winter will set upon our good fortune soon enough.

                  1956? / 1957



    

                 

                 

-Thermo King 53-

The refrigeration unit of Thermo King 53

is humming along in tune to its somber mission.

The trailer, like other loads in past perishables
has no emotional connection to its current cargo.

A full load is but another full load for Thermo King 53.

The trailer in need of refrigeration is staying put.

Clipboards hung to a post on the loading dock

chart the path toward capacity for Thermo King 53.

New York, New York. 2020

-virus head-

Dateline Fall River:

three members of the Amaral family died

within a few days of each other due to

complications stemming from the Covid-19 virus.

the small grocery store which they owned

and worked tirelessly for–– and where I occasionally

shopped for emergency bread and eggs has closed its doors.

It won’t recover.

I’m scrambling my brain to remember the last time I was there,

carrying the little red plastic basket around the narrow aisles for

the staples I need in a hurry and for a few of those wonderful

spinach and broccoli flatbread sandwiches, individually wrapped in cellophane.

flowers wrapped in cellophane and teddybears are set at the door's foot.

Swain's Requiem:

forty-eight hours after Thanksgiving day.

inclement weather. cold outside and inside

like to chill your bones.

5:20 AM and I’m "up"..
as my grandmother would say: "with the chickens".

out there, the same dog's barking at the same nothingness.

two cognacs late last night long after an early evening snack of sliced turkey

with mayo, leafy romaine, and thinly sliced vine tomato on Canadian White

then bed at 12:15 AM.  / sleep-aid necessary.

a place beyond the borders:

admission to the little "professional" art school which long ago sat inside
the belly of the "Whaling City" was need-blind long before the term
"need-blind" was a thing to be debated.

missive to a classmate / life after life drawing: 

do you recall the image: "nude on all fours" 

crawling across the newsprint beneath the snout of my heavy-
handed compressed charcoal stick?

Sigmund Ables criticized it as not having "even one clean line".

nine years beyond a half-century in time and I remember that moment.

–– well, so long for now.

-The World Clock-

––Fall River:

Today, 8:25 AM.

Making adjustments.
There are possibilities beyond the margins.
––Los Angeles:

5:25 AM. Today, minus 3 hours.

Close relations are stepping out of bed in Los Angeles,

activating the commonness of morning rituals.

They'll shower and groom themselves

to a ready finish, topping-off the travel-mugs on the run.
It's justifiable. They're young enough to be in a hurry.

––Paris:

2:25 PM. Today, plus 6 hours.

The brunch crowd drifts from the Champs-Élysées.

I hear the French have a passion for their pastries

to go along with their firm distaste for Americans.

––Tokyo:

10:25 PM. Today, plus 14 hours.

What could the madding Japanese be running from now?

During the countdown nearing the end of World War 2,
long before the arrival of the heavy-footed fire breather,
Tokyo was burning beneath the bomb-bloated bellies of American B-29s.
The date was November 17, 1944.

––Madrid:

2:25 PM. Today, plus 6 hours.

In time for the bullfights!

We see Picasso in the arena with Jaqueline
and Paloma–– and there's Jean Cocteau in a surprise
guest appearance!

Christ, how the lance thrusts

downward for its blood; shaft wrapped in ribbon.
There’s got to be a reason for the pomp,

but I'm too lazy to make inquiries, and besides,

the World Clock moves at its own mysterious pace, not mine. 

-periodic muse under the cover of winter-

the pressure's on.
my back’s against the wall
and me, without a sombrero
retrieved from the dust to offer comfort.

expectations are high, but doubt lingers.

girlfriend came flying in
from the land of the over-exposed Sun.

she showed-up at the door to the northeast wind
under a cold, driving rain at high noon, unannounced,
due to a pathological finding of: "death by malfunctioning smartphone."

we went out to eat and drink.

we had a good time.

in the morning she took-off on a southerly heading,

first class on a snazzy aeroplane.

the pressure's on.

I gotta pen something that’ll send her swooning 

within the fragile domain of warmer weather, where

she offers comfort to those in need and croons some tunes
to the highball set in rooms of low light and soft licks.

from this poem-writer’s point of view

something beyond the two-of-us has to show-up

in order to avoid repetitions of  "just-we-two;"

(a lonely-heart at the end of the bar on the edge of despair;

a seagull gliding over the Newport dumpsters, panting for a drop

of Duck á l’Orange;  I say,
a weathered boutique at the head of the wharf, pushing

pricey bath soaps fashioned in the shapes and pastel
frostings of fancy french pastries)  but––

in the end, this outing had none of that. but––

from the beginning, this outing had the two-of-us and that was enough.

       

-looks to be around 1949, 1950?-

1.

during the installation of officers

at the Sons of Italy Hall, John Vickers leaned-in
to whisper something close to my young mother’s ear.

the image was captured across the folding banquet table

by a mutual friend who took the snapshot with a Kodak Brownie;

the document finding its way to my hands after six decades.

I’m presenting this photograph in the rare chance

that someone still among the living or roaming the aether,
shed light as to what the hell's going on.

this isn’t a pleasant whisper of best wishes, nor

is it a whisper asking if she would like

another slice of cake.

I think John Vickers wants to advance his standing
with my young mother.

his Chevrolet coupe is warming-up in the parking lot

behind the wood-shingled building on Covel street, a short,
densely populated roadway connecting Bedford to Pleasant.

It’s the street where Louie Samph’s oldman had a small variety store.

It’s the store where we bought our "peggy-balls" and stickball "pinkies",
also offering a sweet array of gummy candies crowded into a fishbowl on the counter.

In time, Louie would  become a well known hairdresser in town,

sole proprietor of “Mr. Louis Hair Salon” and was reputed to be a good dancer,

an honorarium later authenticated by my older sister Janice, the one who'd know.

1b.

"Annie, Would you like a ride home after the vote?" whispered the cad, John Vickers.

"Annie, What a lovely dress you're wearing." his beer breath closing-in fast
                                                                         to her pearl-spangled ear.

"Annie, Did you cast your vote for me tonight?" asked the eventual vote winner

                                                                              for "Treasurer" later that evening.

                                                                              

contact information:

D’Elia
C/O Bedford Street Consortium

Eastside hub of the district.

City.

-Evelyne deMarco is among the living-

Antoine deMarco,

the great and terrible classroom nuisance,

sat in the last row, the chair of his desk leaning
against the wall on timid rear legs

challenging the laws of gravitation
as well as the laws of physics and yet
he placed far below the fundamental
grading requirements in both math and science.

the obituary was written in the terse manner

with which it should have been read:

"Antoine deMarco was an employee

of “Troy Refrigeration and Heating Co”.

He leaves behind his mother, and his wife, Teresa Pacheco deMarco"

says here, Antoine was a "faithful congregant

of Saint Anthony of Padua Church"

which I find to be a hard sell, –– but in all, 
the obit was a fundamentally believable read.

also listed as a survivor, one younger sister,

Evelyne deMarco Mello of Brewster, Massachusetts.

(Evelyne is remembered here as shyly following Antoine

through the school system, 2 grades behind, studious

and reserved, and it does my heart good to know that she is living.)

a guide to riding home at twilight on the 24" Schwinn D-12


destination:

1.
twilight, and homeward.
junkyard south-by-east return.

point to Quarry Street horizon.

con the grips to hold-fast
against lateral drift toward the Flint
at Pleasant where "Carmella's Coney Island"
makes its living.

coast Healy downwind with pedals
aligned to the running wheels.

begin the starboard run
across the rusted hulks cloistered behind
the barbed-wire fence.

full to starboard.
steer from the weather-helm.

pump the break slowly.
the gate to the backyard's open.

It’s always open.–– destination.

kickstand if you have one that works.

2.
the interior:

the science of the interior tells us
the galaxy's center has a lingering
scent of raspberries and rum.

sure, the chemical menu
at the galactic hub is abundant
with scents of countless elements
recognizable to earthlings, but

for the ghosts of poets who long went before me,
helm's hard-over and I'm buying-in to rum and raspberries.


Quequechan

-random harvest-

the phone rang last night; It's Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue".

a girlfriend is calling.

she’s busy. she’s always busy.

lots of things on the fire; writing books to give people
a lift in need of one, jazzy front-girl in the manner of Peggy Lee,
on the move to strange-sounding places like Boca Raton and

Delray Beach where palm trees make their living.
then, on occasion, northward to where I sit, an old icicle

for poetry and haircuts.

she’s a whirlwind, that one.

even over the phone she gives me boner.

I liked the idea of the old land-line rotary telephones

during the time when standup comedian George Carlin quipped:

"when you dial, do you keep your finger
in the hole for the free ride back"?

there are no free rides anymore.
time was, "talking over the phone"
was a true sense of connection for the voice of man;

simply follow the wire.

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-the three-deckers ran to the clouds-

from the pavement the three-deckers

seemed to run to the clouds.

the four-deckers broke through

like inverted meteorites.

(meteorites are a better metaphor
than mountain-tops here because
there's a lot of action to the workings of meteorites)

still, that’s a tough climb.

Norene Ferreira

lived on the backend

of one of those.
four decks, two
apartments per deck.

that’a a small planet. 

It’s the stairway to heaven, boys

and I'm going up.

the ballgame’s over.

I'm one for four,

a dribbler in the gap
between

third and short.

I’m stranded at first.

now I’m climbing

the stairway to the stars,

a full nine years
of life under my belt.

no answer after three knocks.

a pause, then four more knocks
and still no answer.
I tell you, men, Norene Ferreira's
worth a minimum of seven knocks.

the long climb down
and I leave behind 

a column in knock arithmetic
lingering at the door without its sum.

it's a step to the corner

of Bedford and Johnston,

that’s one block from the ballpark

where the game was lost
and my house, a three-decker siting across the street.

submitted for consideration
on this day, Thursday,
August 15, 2019 to the canon
of countless unrequited love poems.

-the accordion lesson-

––they were held on Saturday mornings in a vacant,

oversized room in an old, redbrick building on Second Street.

on this Saturday, I’m there with cousin Paul, an accordion student

three years my elder, whose hair was an Italian wave of glistening

black in its sea of Wildroot Cream Oil. 

cousin Paul was in the early developmental stage of knuckleball techniques,

and I was beginning to notice something was going on with the girls;

something intriguing. 

metal folding chairs were meticulously placed in a circle such so

that even Leonardo might’ve assigned his name to it.

––seven mothers walked in with their kids in tow, each kid

struggling to carry his accordion at rest in its bulking case.

––the instructor, tall and lanky in his mid-twenties began the session

by impressing everyone with his rapid rendition of “Lady of Spain"

a tune I was familiar with and remembered singing as:
“Lady of Spain I adore you. Pull down your pants I’ll explore you..” 

––but ending his proof of qualification, the lanky specialist

pulled his accordion's intriguing bellows outward from the straps

making a sound only an accordion would dare to make.
the kids in the circle followed along in this learning procedure;

bellows out (shriek)  bellows in (shriek)  and so on.

––I sat quietly against the wall with the smilingly proud mothers, then
closing the session at one hour to the second, the exhaled accordions
were packed-up inside their cases like exhausted iron lungs

and everyone walked out without making another sound.

Quequechan

-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.