The early years with the passerby, Jake “Skinnyhead”

Jake "Skinnyhead" lived just beyond the billboards to the east,

then northward toward the city's landfill called "the dump" and a half-

mile or so west of the cemetery where famed acquitted axe murderess

Lizzie Borden is surely remembered, dead and buried.

I recall Jake as having a compressed, tubular-

shaped head with big, protruding ears, and a flat sort-of nose

like that of a seasoned welterweight.

Jake was short of stature, slumped forward,–– a foot-shuffler,

maybe in his mid forties. He was a real person, not one of those

character participants made-up for the sake of a story.

Jake was seen regularly, walking passed the ballpark, the Esso station,

and my earliest house, the only house in the neighborhood which stood

directly over the sidewalk behind the sewer that ate foul balls.

The drawing:

Charcoal pencil with brushed-white conte crayon highlights,

on a sheet of Strathmore grey, 14" x 17" lightly textured drawing paper,

completed long after art school, but long before now.

I might know the original date of the drawing, but I might not.

The fun part, in part, was my journey through the process

in cobbling fragmented images gleaned from the bowls of memory

to make a face for Jake which I could live with and maybe, hopefully,

Jake "Skinnyhead" could live with, too.

Quequechan

                   -of beauty and a recollection of distress-

the midwest, and the night was clear and you were cranky.

you went out with the girls,–– a night on the town, but

beforehand, I watched you dress, curious as to why

you consciously chose to be with me.

I was mesmerized by your attitude in not realizing

the beauty of your reflection, brushing your jet-stone hair

with a smoothness as if you were brushing a measure of silk.

I waited at the face of the television for your return,

and when you did, the evening and its anticipation lost its clarity.

we went to bed at the same time. it was late. you were drunk.

you stank of coney island wieners with meat sauce, and extra onions.

the sour stench came from deep within your stomach, upward,

beginning at your wormy intestines, and outward as you snored,

wheezing through the coagulated interior hairs of your oily,

coney island wiener, meat-sauced infested exhalation.

I wanted to be Laszlo Toth, bopping your nose with a mallet just to keep

it quiet so's I might get some shuteye, but even under such distress,

I cautiously went to sleep believing your beauty would return to me

in the forgiving light of morning, and it did.

the coffee perked electrically, the eggs crackled in their olive-

oil bed, and as the turned-milk was poured into the sink's open drain,

the romance came back to me,–– shuffling through the kitchen portal

in pink fuzzy slippers, yawning, and yelling.

   

                   -The citizen-

last night I wrote Pablo Neruda’s “The citizen”.

the dream didn’t portray me in the process of writing it down,

but somehow implied my authorship of "The citizen".

at one point a gang of three came to me representing

a certain authority asking about “The citizen”—

of how I came to write such a poem.

one aggressive young man pulled-up a chair and sat

at my table, his sharp elbows indenting the oilcloth

and his little polished fists with their scrubbed-red knuckles

pushing into the sides of his face waiting to hear me address

the meaning behind the carpenter's implements of “The citizen”.

this happened as I sat waiting to be served inside a small beatnik-type cafe

at a table beneath a large wall poster of Nina Simone,— her full face, black

on-black, mic to the mouth, her eyes lidded in song, and at the base in slim 

blue type: "NINA".

it was as if she was being introduced, as the juke began bopping:

"Mississippi Goddam"–– and when I woke-up, the vision of that poster

hanging inside the small cafe, and that voice from the back of her throat,

and the true purpose of "The citizen" had me agonizing over what was real,

and what, but a dream.

  

-Corrina, and a universally understood line from John Lennon-

“Please Sign the Book of Condolences”

reads the little note which is elegantly printed

on heavy milled paper and carefully folded

like a pup-tent upon a glassy desktop.

a long, tapered pen matching its heavy base is provided.

the book is open, and the last signatory 

to the solemn event has skipped a space

before she entered her name.

I’ll skip a space below

and sign the register having recognized

her name as somehow meaningful.

I’ll hang-around the desk for a moment

scraping a saucy-beef smudge from my necktie

with my fingertip, waiting for the elderly gentleman
behind me to sign his name into the Book of Condolences

before I move to the parlor to pay my respects.

earlier, I slipped a generous tip of folding money

partially below my coffee mug on the diner’s counter.

to be successful, one has to move deliberately,

adjusting for the right moment so she can see you do it.

maybe then her smile will mean something,—

something beyond the quick acknowledgment with the prompt

delivery of the steamed, saucy, meatloaf plate.

( It's a: "Go to a show, you hope she goes.." sort-of moment. )

ah! the gentleman has signed directly below my name

and "Corrina" glistens like a winding blue river between its banks

on the approach to the gateway of purple-scented Parlor No. 3.

                   

                     -Raga-

                    Translated from "Learning Experience" / Chloe Martinez / "Ten Thousand Selves"                                       "The Word Works", 2021                               

It’s the mad push from the slow rolling train which caused you

to hit the concrete platform which broke your jaw.

The densely occupied car is probably replaced by now,

all new with better doors and appropriate warning signage.

At the least, one raga should be penned in honor of the occasion, but 

during the crack of your bones did you come to see your short life in review,

or fantasize the beauty of your unborn daughters? With what, did you throw

your dislodged tooth to the dirt of the tracks, pure rage?

And in the moment while cursing the mad hand of God, didn't you simply hate India?

I may have found the answer

I'm walking in the park leisurely

to look around calmly to see the birds clearly

to hear the kids at play to stay in touch

to sit on a bench thinking about lunch.

maybe I remember something while

piecing together the fragments of a dream

seemed broken and senseless the long night before.

now there are kites flying nearby colorfully zig-zagging

on currents of air conned by the grace and guidance of man.

they soar and dive as if possessing an awareness of self––

make tactile sounds of their papers

stressed and strung to the armatures.. call them ribs

call them lungs–– they have tails.

interlude:

the birds climbing for altitude often fly too close

and into the suck of the intake engines of jetliners

causing unimaginable grief among the families.

end the interlude.

it’s a pleasant morning with layers of light and natural calmness

amid structures built with bridge and river views at the northern face,

the cool-blue womb of home which within the hour could hold the answer.

 

                   a food-centric poem inspired by Sandra Beasley's delicious "Biloxi Bacon" poem                                         

at the vegetable bins at the Stop & Shop

on the corner of Plymouth Avenue and Rodman;

Rodman street where the old water-stained bus terminal sat,

the cucumbers were puny; they looked like the offspring of basque peppers.

I asked the young fellow who seemed to have no more

than a fragment of life left to himself when away from his apron, why.

he said "I dunno".

his apron was stained in red like you’d see at the meat-

cutter's station where it’s cooler.

but the kid in the apron said: "it’s the strawberries, not blood"

and I said sarcastically: "well, I hope the strawberries are in better

shape than these puny cucumbers" and he was right. they were.

juicy red and plump with just the right-sized indentations.

for another take on basque peppers locate my poem about Napoleon’s

embarrassing, well-travelled postmortem pickled penis inspired by Sharon Olds'

"The Pope's Penis" and steer clear of the cucumber bin at the Stop & Shop

on the corner of Rodman and Plymouth Avenue.

  

My No.2 brush with soft synthetic bristles

and Eleonora Pucci’s No.2 brush with the same

type of bristles is coincidental by comparison.

Hers is equipped with a utilitarian hole running through

the handle at the northern provinces same as mine, except

Pucci's handle is rounded off like a decimal to its nearest whole

number, whereas mine comes to a point which is considered to be

a hazardous implement when used around the kids.

It’s true I could take my brush to an expert woodcrafter

to round-out the handle's tip, but then my brush would become

a mere copy of Pucci’s brush, and that's something I don’t want.

Also, another minor difference is that my brush is used to clean

the fissures running across the keyboard of my ancient MacBook

as it sits in Fall River, apartment 503, whereas Pucci’s brush cleans

Michelangelo’s “David” standing in the Galleria dell’Accademia

in Florence, Italy.

 

                   a short poem recounting the first step in the evolution of a baseball cap

in May, a Saturday morning of anticipation prior to choosing-up,

a black kid came to the park unknown and unannounced while visiting relations

at 1041 Bedford Street, third floor, where whacky "Nicky Nazone" once lived;

a right fielder like Jackie Jensen, fast like Gene Stevens, but

black like "Pumpsie" Green, and the brim of his cap was flat as a pancake

like the Ethiopian lip fashioned that way hellbent for romance.

the following day, he slipped out of Fall River to parks unknown.

mind you. this happened in May of 1953. ––– and I was there.

  

 

                   The opening of an exhibition of our stuff at the time of our demise

1.

We’ll be extinct someday.

There’ll come a time when our goods are displayed
inside controlled atmospherics, with cool, blue-

lighting, high ceilings, and reasonably tight security.

Gawkers will question how it was we survived the elements
surrounded by such meager shelters, and behavioral ridiculousness.

On display:  The heavy tools of our blood-centered medicine,
the oily mechanics of our politics and our industry, and

our blockheaded, insistent struggle for steam.

What cartoons they'll make of our digital expressions, standing 

alongside our loved ones and our pets,–– nearsighted, stubborn, clumsy.

2.

Against the far wall behind the last display case exposing

our battery powered "clap on, clap off" lighting instruments, 

hangs a curtain with a red neon sign above reading: "Adults Only"

                    -Honorable Mention-

The universe is far too vast to consider in totality overnight.

My neighbor agonized over this, failed, and went crazy.

So I’m considering the home galaxy, the “Milky Way,” the one I live with.

It’s a disk-shaped object, spiraling around its nucleus, crowded

(but not really crowded) with stars, gases, nebulae, dark matter, and whatnot.

Don’t get me wrong, the galaxy’s holdings are precious, and

there's plenty to consider in its grab-bag of wonders, and there's this:

It's big. traveling from one edge to the far edge at light speed

would take some 200,000 years,–– unless you book the local, in which case

the journey would be substantially longer.–– I don't advise it.

Also,–– by now you're probably aware that the center of the galaxy

would have the scent of raspberries, and the taste of rum.

Chemically, there’s some truth to this, which is why I’ve decided

to consider the home galaxy for exploration this morning.

I just want a quick sniff, and a little taste of the stuff.

I know. I know. ––That's the kind of thinking that killed Lenny Bruce.

But I'll take reasonable precautions employing established standards

in moderating consumption.

sniff some raspberries, slurp a lil' rum, and fly back home

before my crazy neighbor's let loose upon the world again.