-a dream's passage-

As I stepped away

from the mocha-metallic

Porsche 911 Turbo

arriving at a black-

tie function 

celebrating 

the accomplishments

of a Nobel prized

bio-geneticist

accompanied by her younger sister

an instant lottery- 

ticket winner

in turn, accompanied by her girlfriend

a somber-looking 

teenager clothed in a frayed 

high school cheerleading jacket

with “Sherri” sewn into the sleeve

whose dark eyes could slice 
lesser flesh with a glance

like the barbs strung at Bergen-Belsen,    

and who, 
the day before, stood convicted 

of multiple thrill-seeking, rural

Gas Station robberies
while hot-rodding through Kansas

near-senselessly murdering

the jerky attendants

as her boyfriend, (not in attendance
at the formal ceremonies)

a real whack-off with pimples

who once told me

that he enjoyed the scent of his grandmother
smirked in the background,—

and my bow-tie tightened its grip

into the apple-like lump of my neck

as if the love-whipped Adam 
wanted it for his own dry throat 

but across the street, the Burger King's
neon brightened and the faded-blue

1998 Volkswagen Jetta, well, it sits impatiently
in the parking lot with its missing grille

and a rust-hole just below

the trunk the size of a closed fist
anticipating my return
like a frantic, tail-wagging schnauzer at the door

reminding me that the Sun is up and everything

was the way it was the day before the night of the dream.

city

-admittance-

when the needle slips in,

not like the pop at the point of morphine 

just before it rushes in to fill the crowded

cerebrum with laziness,

but more like a tuesday afternoon’s attitude

when nobody’s saying much of anything,—

or the crazy blitz of the highway

after the bomb's dust settles and you realize 

you’ve had it anyway, — then 

zig-zagging the dead metals

feeling the rapid
lunacy of machinery's pistons

firing sparks under your ass,——

more like the day 
before the cells struck-back with an ex-
wife's lick of vendetta ——

and the florescence biting sharply 
through the ward’s bleached eyes,

and you want to sleep—— but

the saline drips so loudly you hear it 
dropping from the greying back-
side of the brain,——

and you lie there...


intravenous antibiotics is like standing water
rising to take its first steps into blood,

and you're on the blacktop,
the blotter of everything that’s useless, 
waiting——

still crazy for morphine.

                                        rash 3 / city

-from Lucca-

The slow romance begins at its table.

There of wine, of cheese and bread; a relevant cloth,

heritage cutlery shared in the swift

break of bread and skillful slice of cheese. 

Perfume of atmosphere.

The scent of everything wanders always through laughter.

Old people and young people at one in the moment.

The wine is expressed in the presence of its community,

gleaned from the vine twisting overhead

where they eat and drink in the afternoon light;

the table as old as the grandfather who listens and slices,

who eats and drinks, looking at everyone, momentarily lingering,

slump-shouldered, head down, eyes up, quietly assuming.

The table has the strength of its wood.

Wood cut from the crag of trees not far from where it sits.

There, the line of family continues etched in its living procedure 
from the rough,

hand-plane of the wood. 
Hearts, souls; its drops of blood.

The wine is poured from bottles whose history reflects 
the warmth of the wine inside them;

press of the grape once pulled from the wandering 
vine of the yard, intent on shading the long afternoon’s 

relaxed conversations.

I’ve been told the wealth of cheese was offered to the table 
by friends who lived down the road, a short distance in walking;

that the bread they broke was baked 
in the calm of the village morning; 
that they knew the baker well, 
through years of active friendship.


Then the communal breaking of bread and a wine's 

sweet sincerity.
A deft slice of cheese;


life's warm procedure, drawn at the table 
set in the yard of an afternoon's light;

the yard in the shade at the weave of its vine.

                                               for papa piccolo

-piece of earth-

1.

Life is good through the run of its day,

Daydreaming while the river flows,

As Lorraine Hunt Lieberson sings 

The Bach Cantatas.

The ocean ranges near limitlessly just east of here.

Farther east and southerly, lies the land of my grandparents, when

Their piece of earth was fertile, then parched and terrifying.

Here, overhead, 

The clouds—— Substanceless, 

Save for the saccharine romantics, 

Adjust their subtleties like virgins at the first 
Drenched kiss to ecstasy, and as quickly 

Find themselves shifting properties to another latitude.

Yonder, the parks lay softly green.

2.

Autumn moves in its atmosphere intent to keep its breath —— 

The color procedures falling prey to an icy destination.  

But that moves on.

And too, this day.

And the river flows ——

And Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is singing  

The Bach Cantatas.

                                                         Fall River

-for Justine Carrelli in Philadelphia-

phosphorescent

grey —

the dance drifts leather-

flat as rare smiles cracked

to move your mouth.

phosphorescent

grey —

tuned-in
to perfumes of gentle
stone.

does it melt in your

eyes

phosphorescent

grey —

is your hair spun-

blonde

still

    city

        sweet? 

-what's in a name-

Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head belongs to the ages now.

Across the refrain of Sophisticated Side-ways Ponytail 

spun in skirts of steely-green—  metallic sort of emerald  

bleeds its white-girl's legs like sticks in dropped 

porcelain.

Voice sings in sharp vocal strains,  

testing the measure of the chord’s extremities, 

searing like strings of Solerno-Sonnenberg, 

splitting the sinew of its matter in half. One half is yours.

Her half is radium.

Like ironed-blonde shimmers in the face
of her atmosphere, 

luminescence as sweet and funny
as moon-stuff.

                                                         8/19/09

                                                         

  

-Jezebel-

1.

The elective would have been 
To speak of jazz standards

Whose closing syllables extended

The red-lead

Fire of her mouth ablaze at the mic.


This is when pneumonia 
Squirmed in the distance

Impatient for the flush of stainless-

Steeled hypodermics to shut you up.

But they couldn't——

Could they?

   

Mouth to the mic

Moves through the greying

Lyric of heroin.

2. 

Sing closely, 
Narcotic young Jezebel

Into my ear as I ask you ——

Dance with me?

                           for Anita O'Day

                            

-of Neruda Songs-

Mezzo——
That which is dropped to the lips 

Which is drenched of the river will come 
To carry its verse,

Dark Alto——
To which day's clay?

Mezzo——
To sounds in burnished amber, fatality struck  

In its grey neutrality.   

Dark Alto——
To which horizon has light advanced 
From its clusters?

Which lands?

Whose lands?——

Once known to love, once known to living. Drop of songs

Drop to all rivers.

Mezzo. Dark

Alto——

Whose lips?

Whose lips?——

                           11/25-26/2005, Boston

                          07/03/2006, Santa Fe

                          Fall River, 2010

  

-one summer night-

intro-

how many miles reflect

life's depth——

how many roads?

will time define the blood of its mood discretely                             

in sweet reflection?

dolce-

the wind maintains its breath, and through 
life's cold indifference continues to claim the movement 
of its residence.

her fingertips are windy sensors— 

at a glance, sweeping the granite- 

city to soften its stand. 

digress-

what was it of her young possibilities that covered            

the flowing footsteps of the dance through her eyelight?                                                 

coda-

it is only now that I know

the heart’s clear plan is not to die

but live within this crowded life. 

finale-

how many miles reflect

life's length;

her smile who ranged in its silent 

longitude

an infinite

geography? 

                         

                          for Joyce McCoy 

                         Fall River

-parishioner's psalm of the un-indicted-

1.

notice the enigmatic firmament—

the black 

dome of the city—

the blue

night foliage drop among its stones—

the green-

blooded apprentice on the march—

the red-

knuckled fist of substance at its cheek—

the violet 

night's-wave weaving its way through the brittle

wood-sided tenement houses— 

the grey-

brick stacks blowing 

from their nostrils a terrible

smoke.

2.

how at once one drowns to empty

penance:

through my fault

through my fault

through my own most grievous 

fault.

                           Quequechan