extreme unction

anoint the sick, the cancer sick, the sick and tired.

anoint the sick of heart, the sick joke, the sick of-this-place.

anoint the sick of industry of politics and the call-in-sick.

anoint the sick in-the-head, the sick bastard and the bone-marrow sick.

anoint the sick voodoo of Church and the sick sonofabitch across the street.

anoint the sick old-timer in 903 who's never been seen

and never been heard, save for the scuttlebutt of the hallways.

anoint the intestinal sick and the sick of the here-and-now and

anoint the anointer of the sick to be anointed. amen and amen.   

 

               of community standards and the new objectivity

It's been determined that my community

will be offended by my remarks.

there’s a photograph attached to the text which

is also found to be something to object to.

I’ve canceled my invitation to mister objectionist

for a midnight supper at my place.

this, after a thoughtful room cleaning, and a thorough

accounting of matching dinnerware. everything was in order.

history tells us there’s a man, lynched within the bowels

of the deep southern reaches of the middle latitudes of the continent.

the gathering there look to be content that justice

had been dealt to satisfy the standards of its community.

something about the hanging man intrigues:–– the neck

stretched like so much saltwater taffy. the tattered overalls

smeared with traumatic evacuations attest to his station in life, but

from edge to edge the stillness of the photograph made dreadful sense.

it had to be so still to make such sense of its stark otherworldliness.

the table is set. the lighting remains dim. the chamber players

are trudging up the stairs with the heavy loads of their instruments, but

there'll be no supper for you tonight, mister objectionist.

 

                   I don’t see them

portrait of a man in glass

grandparents and parents

before them old potato

farmers grape cultivators

cobblers of leather / the light-

skinned tucked

beneath the southern border of

blonde-headed Switzerland

and from the center-west boot kicking

Sicily into Tunis as they say

in Lucca to ward-off demon Cosa Nostra /    

then navigating the glass, the pentimento

of my skin barely reflected and even with

all that blood I don’t see them.

                   

the friend

he’s visiting.

he’s talking.

he’s sipping coffee.

(the best. Gëvalia dark roast)

he’s telling a story

of which I have no connection

but I’m listening.

he says he’s dying;

an internal issue which

can not be resolved.

suddenly his skin is anemic 

suddenly his voice

is granular and his eyes

blanch the streaming sunlight

darkening the room.

he’s pushed himself

a thousand miles into

a foreign distance,

this stranger before me.

I've never known him to be dying.

I ask if he wants

a second cup.

he says no.

I pour myself another

this time to the brim.

it has to last the balance

of a lifetime.

                   treetops

inside, music is playing during a cool,

drizzling morning in May.

overcast skies but the light is translucent

and from the 5th floor balcony in a moderate wind

the treetops are swaying.

they’re in full bloom, dense with

maple leaves (mostly) and it seems

they’re keeping time with the music

like ten thousand kinetic conductors

each with their own interpretations, and

the remarkable thing is, it doesn’t

seem to matter what form of music is playing.

the trees know Bach and Cage and

jazzy-fingered Petrucciani and cool-keyed Jamal

and they know the shave-and-a-haircut knock

across the hall at door 504 and the roar

of the back-thrusting tractor trailers on their fierce

approach and during the intervals, silence.

they know silence.

                   did Antonio Salieri offer his chastity to God for a little recognition?

who knows the answer to this question?

but I’d bet he thought about it.

I'll tell you this: if I was in his shoes I'd do it.

I'd do it in a freakin' second.

in the meantime, the libretto of my one act operetta

languishes in the ozone of the unknown

while hyper-sensitive Puccini gets another record contract

with a real tearjerker. sure I wept. I'm as human as the next guy.

but in my operetta everybody dies!

the diva dies and even the mop-pushing stagehand gets it in the end.

how tragic. how utterly human. how perfectly operatic!

but,–– I dunno.

did Antonio Salieri offer to God his chastity just for a quick personal looksee?

well, why not?–– don't all drowning men grab at weeds? 

It's a crowded field out there with every Tom, Dick n' Henrietta

jockeying for limited prime positions.

but in the end there's little room for: "live and let live" at the opera.

It's just the way of it.

here’s how I see it

1959 at Uncle Octavio’s wake with the stench

of floral perfumes wafting into the atmosphere of those

in attendance and the Grim Reaper, the omnipotent determinator

holding court with his rusty blood-centered scythe like a conqueror,

like Napoleon before his fall at Waterville, or Water View Heights,

or whatever it was,–– to the smirking shit-head holding a queen-

high straight before a jack-high flush hits the table diluting his pride,

to the incomparable Maria Beva L'Agua as I drove her

around town to all her places of interest, uphill, downhill,

turning sharp corners at her command, stopping to buy her

a scoop of chocolate ice cream atop a sugar cone at "Frates" on rout 6 east,

then to the one stop she "had to make" before telling me "take me home"

and all this without payback, not a touch, not a quickie look-see,

playing me for a sucker and in the oldman’s brand new Pontiac Chieftain

for chrissakes and that’s how I see it!

  

                 the march of time

darkness had set its face across

the outside of life so I guess I was sleeping.

but this much I know; I know I wasn't screaming.

I don’t scream in my sleep, not that I’d be aware of such a thing

and besides, no one has made accusations.

anyway, I'm certain that’s something to be reported to the authorities.

alas! my bedroom door flew open, and it got hot under the covers.

I asked of the intruder: “who the hell are you”?!

ashen-faced he cried aloud about the suffering of humanity,

so I surmised it was an angel sent to me to report the skinny

on the goings on of the neighborhood.

nope. y’know who it was? It was Herbie Oglevee Morrison!

and man, I gotta tell ya,–– that’s a guy who knew

how to belt-out a story!

                    introducing the greatest love poem on this page with a running critical commentary

––in you I feel the miracle of a day’s beginning

(the poet reflects on an early morning experience in self abuse.)

 

––the birth of two worlds, one of grapes, one of cloth

(he's talking about the freakin' backyard at 1017 again!)

––in the scent of obsession; the fragrance of irresistible perfume

(he's drunk. that's it. he's fuckin' drunk!)

––and why did you call my name when I had no right to be there?

(he realizes that another guy with the same name is the target

of her affection and retreats to his apartment alone, and repentant.)

thus ends the introduction of greatest love poem on this page.

Last lunch with Leonard Dufresne

––Historically memorable are 8 with the works to travel

at “Moby's Coney Island" from the steamy troughs behind the counter,

4 for me and 4 for Dufresne, in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Art students in 1966. We knew how far our stomaches could run.

––Most recently is the first stop on his "farewell tour" which

found us at the “Cove Restaurant” in the city of our births set along

the running Taunton below the hill of Fall River, Massachusetts

in the shadows of sweltering textile mills, and the lingering 

echoes of Sarah and Andrew Borden when on August of 1829:

               “Lizzie Borden took an axe

               and gave her mother 40 whacks

               and when she saw what she had done

               she gave her father 41”.

––At the “Cove” I ordered fish and chips;–– haddock,

the sweet, flakey catch-of-the-day gathered

from the nets of the stern-fishers out of the "Whaling City".

Leonard ordered cherrystone clams followed by

oysters on the half-shell; slimy little delicacies 

which made Dufresne moan in the ecstasy of a man in love,

and the best way to say “goodbye" to a life-long friend is don’t,

and simply let the man eat.