vignette / what daylight brings

I'm drawn to the commonplace for reasons clearly defined

but not issued in the form of a directive, and I'm free to be

cantankerous if the opportunity presents itself.

this happens within the space between the chasm of deep sleep

and full awakening, the space where I find the pour of coffee,

the cat’s mellow meow, the reporting of annoying politics, and the occasional

appearance of something which changes its attitude with time and distance.

this morning the common sparrows daydream of a better station in life

which never comes, but the trees appear to be better served by sparrows.

what is not better served by morning's arrival is last night’s pronunciations

slathered across the illuminated screen panting for my blessing or pleading

to be forgiven its faults. –– as in.. every fucking morning.

                   Vignette / disbelief in God is an addendum to the persona of God-

                  The crooked ways of my early indoctrination: / Does God need a cat?

God don't need no Zuckerberg's pal.

He don’t need no aeroplane glue to go uptown.

He don’t need no freebase to fade his brain, and

He don’t need no apparatus to fry him some eggs.

What he needs is a chicken.

What God needs is some kick-back sippin' hooch.

What he needs is bare-ass Eve on the back bench of his Eldorado.

What he needs is Alice Kramden in his face when he acts the fool.

What he needs is..well, I ain’t got nothin' for "Zuckerberg's pal"––

But yeah. He needs a cat.

    

                   -the influence of Uncle Milty on the resurrected Lazarus-

there’s a New Testament translation by some modern-

day biblical scholars that takes into consideration

Lazarus, entombed, dead and bound like a mummy, that suggests

when Lazarus is called to “come forth” from the raspy

throat of Jesus, who loved Lazarus, or so some biblical scholars claim,––

that when the resurrected Lazarus did "come forth" as commanded,

the fact that he was wrapped in strips of cloth from head to toe,

required him to “hop” from the open tomb, or

as others deduced, “shuffle” his bound feet in little baby steps

toward the mumbling rubberneckers gathered there with the always

hyper-anxious Nazarene, playing his trump card.

If true,–– and why not,–– I wonder if anyone bearing witness to the scene

chuckled a ‘lil bit.  I sure know I would’ve.

            which, of my long lost loves?

1.

before the rooster crows

I wonder if those who

knew me in life will deny me

three times like the Nazarene

prophesied to Peter.

and it doesn't take much effort

to recall the scenario my

junior high school sweetheart

laid on me before third period

in the sweltering stainless steel cafeteria:

who was it she trapped on the roof

of the burning house that fateful day?

oh, yes. my mother, my father,

and the sweetheart herself, strategically placed.

she asked: “who would you save first, then second

and who would you leave on the smoldering roof

to burn in a most agonizing death?”

she didn’t make it easy.

sassy girl.

look at that sweater.

she knows exactly what she’s doing, peeling

pleated paper beyond the stump of her cupcake

in the manner of a slow, devilish pantomime.

go ahead. tell her what she wants to hear.

I advise myself: singe your mother to permanent

disfiguration, and burn your father to an eternal crisp.

she leaves little choice but to bend to her will,–– but

in the fatal backdraft smeared with the scent of Ivory soap,

she scampered-off in anger to Home Economics.

ahh, the lithe Azorean beauty, Anna-Maria Bento Souza,

that foxy kale-haired olive!

I left her to burn on the smoldering roof;

the roof, I should say, of her own making!

2.

so, that's clear. now, let’s see...

who else is on the three-time denial list,–– and

beyond them,... how many others?

  

                   Gone man

I should stay in touch with my chosen funeral director.

I have questions.

For example: on the approach to the chamber,

will the "temporary” container’s lid be labeled

"HEAD" at one end to avoid confusion?

Will printing on the sides of the container be offered

as an option for advertiser promos, or a listing of my experiences?

Will there be a “cooling-off” period?

And how can I be assured that the remnant ash of the last guy

has been meticulously removed from the retort?

It’s doubtful that I’d know the guy.

I probably wouldn’t like him.

I bet he’s an asshole.––

These and other concerns as well as general inquiries

have crossed my mind lately, and

I’m rapidly beginning to understand the reason why.––

If it quacks like a duck…

 

                  -on the beach with Jean Cocteau-

see how he struts his stuff across the sand

smeared in saltwater, sporting a flat-

top fedora, stylishly suited, but bare-footed in the way

he makes it seem how it should always be done,

his flat-top skewed toward the sea.

but of Jean Cocteau?

It's the zaniness of his Dada which makes me aware

of his persona even after decades of its side-swiping

introduction in 1963 art school. 

the elegant "King & Allen" single-breasted beauty flutters

in the wind, pulsating across the seascape of Jean Cocteau,

and although the wind blows also upon the flesh of onlookers,–– 

one would never know it.

today, the will of the wind knows only the name

of Jean Cocteau, walking the edge of an incoming tide.

now it happens that among the hovering gaggle of gulls

there appears to be one who knows what it means to be a seagull

who seems intent on dropping the remains of its intake upon

the shoulders of the flawless "King & Allen" suit of Jean Cocteau,

but it doesn’t and I don't know why it doesn't.

but this much I know:

beyond my shortcoming knowledge of the salt of his life

and regardless of seagulls, moon-tides and the sewn cloth of man,

I obviously enjoy the sound of the name: "Jean Cocteau,"

and as far as the sightline of this poem is concerned, that's enough.

 

 

                   January / the early years

7:47 PM / meet with me, friends.

the backyard is open to our preferences.

It’s cold, and the space between objects is clear.

come with me.

I’m traveling through a challenging

distance.

look.

the waning moon is a sleeping eye!

we’ll get away with murder.

look.

Jupiter hangs its bulb on the front

porch of the firmament.

It’s a sign of welcome meant for us.

It’s cold.

the atmosphere stiffens the flesh.

the heavy materials crack under smears of ice.

look.

the tangled grapevine hibernates from its early

autumn labors under the cover of winter.

behind us

our cloistered families have abandoned the frantic

supper tables

and televisions are warming-up.

7:48 PM / It’s late, my friends, and there’s trouble brewing.

I’m called to the indoor part of life without an offering of terms.

Inside, the dry heat of burning kerosene will surround me.

wait here.

I’ll return when the galaxy’s pinwheel comes back ‘round.

 

                   the woman in the dream

I’m in a hurry.

It's the top of the 5th

knotted at four.

I need eggs and milk,

and approaching the register

our eyes connect as if wired between

both ends of an electrical extension.

I slow the pace down to a cowpoke’s mosey.

…oh, and bread.

three people at the register become six

as others close in with their goods.

I don’t know what the dream would’ve amounted to.

I woke-up instead.

this was three weeks ago, with time wizzing

by like a tsetse fly late for lunch.

It’s now the bottom of the 7th

with Boston and Chicago knotted at three.

I’m fresh out of Lay’s potato chips,

low on Narragansett lager beer,

and the nasty White Sox just scored another two

in the top of the 8th.

It’s three weeks into the rest of my life,

and except for the score, as fulfilled a life

as any man could hope for, and yet I've got

a recurring urge to know if she’s still dreaming.

something far too big to become something far too small

1.

I began the drawing with delusions of grandeur,

ensconced in the bowels of the printmaking department.

below me, the foundation of the building.

below that, serpents and dragons dwelled.

the preliminaries seemed plausible to the undisciplined mind,

but more than a few onlookers gathered around me.

I smeared charcoal over the surface and went

‘round and ‘round, and up and down across

the plane this way, and that way, from middle-tones 

to the darkest edge of reason.

those gathered soon began to drift to their upper level studios

two by two, then three by three they followed, until my time

of reckoning had come, standing alone and naked with what

was thought to become the singular image of my young artistic life.

2.

the picture plane was a misspelled word, irretrievable;

an indelible ink spot and not the crooning kind.

 

the picture plane was the old man jitterbugging at the reception

to the joy of revelers before the crack of his bones and his awkward

fall from grace.

It was neither one way nor was it the other way.

It was the winding road devoid of light, where

the road was the wrong road to begin with.

the SwizDee / 1963. 1964?