-reaching for a star-

I've come calling at this early hour

for no other reason but the lightning
thought you this morning.

I'm once again traveling the road
which has one direction.

but one direction is all I need.

I won’t be presumptuous.

the mailbox is empty.
It's me who put you here.
nobody called.

nobody suggested anything.
nobody else has a right.
it's only this.

but I'm making this thing nonetheless.

I think if you're young, I'll be young too,—
when your blonde-hair is blazing on the shale-
grey plane of a Brooklyn rooftop,

as bright in your passions
as I was foolish in mine.

you'll be young enough to ask
what it is I’m saying,— 

which is only that I'm old enough now
to say hello.
will that be you when the door is opened?
what is it you'll tell me?

will you say once again,—

will you tell me again, as when long ago
you said goodbye,—
I made it.

You made it.

We didn’t.—


will that be you when the door is opened?

will you say hello?

-heehaw requiem-

the experience

is held to my face in the morning

over coffee and cereal and the occasional
thought of a cigarette.

then when the Clippers beat the Bombers

and the Comets beat the Jets

the Comets played the Clippers.

maybe the break of morning

will be fruitful

and the experience fulfilled.

the green-trimmed Clippers

black trim of the Jets

blue trim of the Bombers

and the Comets trimmed in red.

the Comets trail a dirty ice over the infield,

it bleeds from the crack in the sky.

but the Clippers sail fast on the sea,

cut the salt-water to a fine mist at the bow.

but closing the distance strains the tense rigging.

destination!

but the experience cracks.

it’s raining heavily.

the shower’s the Comets shower.

Clippers shuffle in their spikes

over the outfield grass toward home

sounding hard by the bow

on their drop to the locker.

Comets fly fast enough.

I’m speechless.

cracked glass, heavy rain, an empty park.

"gloom, despair and agony on me,—

deep dark depression,

excessive misery.

if it weren't for bad luck

I’d have no luck at all.

gloom, despair and agony on me."

we blew a three

run lead in the ninth.

                       columbus park little league

-justifiably obsessed-

she asked what it was that drove our obsession.

one born from many years past,

recalling the girls of the city’s Academies;

the Schools of the Catholic Church

who were rooted to the walls of the earth
like diamond

across the city where they were mined,
polished and readied;

what this obsession was for the jumpers

falling straight to the hem,—

the blue-grey plaids of the pleated skirts,

the crooked knee socks, the glance

in the eye-light if we passed inspection,—

the scuff on the toe of the saddle-shoes
called brown and whites, along with their sisters,

the black and whites who drove us crazy.

these obsessions are fixed and linger

because they performed
the way the city performed.

granite and cotton.

the planet without makeup,
without jewelry,

without the stiff,
spray-net of hairdos.

those things, those enhancements,

came latter in the week,

after the wind from the river
sparked the fire

of the girls from the schools
who rendered us helpless.

I’m weak-knee’d at the thought of it.

                                      

-in the heat of the game-

A woman is driving a Dump-Truck

Down Bedford across from the park

Where we are heavily engaged
In a field-game of Peggyball.

Our team is challenged from a deep strike

By the team headed by Frankie Santos

Who lives on Haffords Street,

And Lionel Morais, our designated “Leaper” is readied

To take-up the challenge.

A Peggyball is formed of hard wood,

Painted bright red,

Is a little smaller than a golfball,

Is smooth all around,

With a flat-spot planed to prevent rolling

When placed on the lever over the fulcrum

To be tapped. The gracefully ascending  

Peggy is hit at the apex of flight with broomsticks
Sawed away from their working heads.

The opposing team is then challenged

To choose a Strider to reach the ball in as few

Leaps as possible.

The logistics in choosing the “number of strides”

Is complex.

This is not the place for a reading of the rules.

The woman driving the Dumpster is seen

Only by me as I walk to the chain-link fence

Separating traffic-fast Bedford Street

And Columbus Park in order to grab my stick.

We all had our own, mined secretly

From the kitchen closets.

After the necessary surgery,
Some sticks are wrapped at the base
In electrical tape for a better grip,

While some of us like the feel of the wood.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m curious about her

Because it’s 1953 and it seems out of place 

For a woman to be driving a Dump-Truck 
Through the city.

But before I can turn to tell my friends

Of this rare sighting,

Lionel is already striding long and fast

Through the dirt of the infield to the Peggy

Laying in the sunlight

Of the centerfield grass a good 300 feet away.

Take everything you know about beauty and effort;—

Take all you know of desire and passion,

And that’s the image of Lionel,

Striding long-legged to reach a Peggyball
In the heat of a game

Across a kid-saturated Columbus Park

In the face of a challenge

By the kids who belong

To a Park that was somewhere else.

The woman driving the Dumpster is no longer in sight

And the sound of the game is screaming at my back.

I have the stick of my own making in the grip of my hands,—

And Lionel Morais, with our neighborhood on his shoulders
Is leaping in a cloud of dust toward the Peggy.

          

                                                    Quequechan










  

-the last days of the earth-

Looking eastward when the cold
Sweat takes hold,—
When the blade of the Heathlands

And the North Atlantic’s volume and its weight
Load a potent ammunition to the restlessness.
Drenched sheets and the cliffs
Slicing sharply into the great

Outer beach of the Cape
Give-way at our feet

And the clay-pounds move,

Rolling slowly, then sharply snap

As the world cracks at its own face.

Under the weight of water before us

An earthquake happens.

The whole ocean pushes over its own skin

Like the dark angel exhaling a boiling breath
Then sinks in a whirlpool into itself

Far below its waterline.
There’s nowhere to run.

The eyes of the boy fall gently
On the face of the girl
pulling herself up, dusting

The sand and clay from her dress,
Reaching for her crayons.

In the distance the great tidal-wave builds,

Pushes upward and landward as the air
Is stripped of its breath.
December’s freezing stiffly.

The gulls are screaming, veering westward,
And she colors the purple atmosphere.

No souls but our own

Can be seen on the beach which elongates

As far as the eye can see to the south,

And as far as the eye can see to the north.

She colors the full page.

He pleads for a few more spikes driving outward

Projecting from the face of her waxen Sun.

That’s what happens inside the recurring dream,

Looking eastward over the ocean from the blade
Of the Heathlands.

                                        for Josh and Jenny,
                                       Wellfleet, 12/20/11

-looking to the dandelions-

the piss-in-beds

nod yellow-headed this morning

and the slivers of their petals,
light of the early flower,

the bloom of the weed, fall fast.

october drives on its avenues,

looks impatiently for its overcoat.

this is happening on the east-

side patch of lawn near the porch.

the furniture’s been folded
and put in the basement.

inside where the dandelions are ignored

the light moves carefully and october

relaxes its fist.


late afternoon brings a lazy rain
deepening grey values of the rooftops,
tapping the sidewalks, drenching the grass
where the piss-in-beds drink.

                               10/7/11

-straight-edged-

it happened years ago.

so long ago.

once upon a time ago.
a job to be done,

the Artist is a painter of advertising signs.

signs to buy this thing and eat over here.

drive this way and put your dough

in our capable hands.
we’ll treat you right,

like a neighbor and friend,

we’re hear for you open nights ‘till 9.

the friendly bank.

the laughing bank.

don’t let us down.

we’re the Pancake House with whipped-

cream n’ strawberries poured all over ‘em,

serving all your route 6
pancake needs for fifteen years. sign says:
we're China Seas, plenty msg to fill you up.

eat at Zeaks, but the smell

of counter Joe’s pits’ll drive you to the street,

and it’s out on the street where the sign-painter

bolts ‘em up,— high over his head for all to see.

drive by and see the the signs the Artist paints,

he’s painted them for all to see.

colored, global positioning devices locked on the land,

give directions for everyone

to get to everyplace he paints on the signs,

bolting them high above his head

with strength and effort to send the people
happily on their way.

but the pretty young women look-up at his signs,

signs with big letters and small ones too,

the truth and not so much the truth,

and the pretty young women

gather at the ladder, the message be damned,

look-up at his signs, and he flexes his muscles
at just the right time,

the way all the working sign-painters did,

the same way the Artist has done this day.

                                                11/8/11

-Ragonesi’s house-

Off Linden, the craggy dead-end

Found Ragonesi’s house.

Rags lived with his mother.

We never asked him about his father,

The circumstance remembered as being

Out of life’s character,

In that families stayed together ‘till death did they part.

So maybe he died.
We assumed his father had died.

Maybe this house stands as testament

To something not finished; not realized;—

The house whose living architecture is incomplete.

Maybe. I don’t know.

Ragonesi’s house was half a house.

It was built that way.

Take a small, old two-decker.

Saw the thing down the middle,
Save the side with the toilet,
Put the wall back up

And sit it down on a short spit of gravel

Peppered with snapping weeds.

This is Ragonesi’s house.

Half a house on half a street.

Half a family.

“Chico” Johnson had a new 1959

Ford Custom 300, six-cylinder

Four-door sedan, light blue, three-

Speed stick-shift on the column

And when we piled into it, six or seven guys

Were screaming “Shotgun!”

Except for Rags.

Albert Ragonesi liked sitting

In the back seat.

Back there, it’s every man for himself.

We'd drive to Sambo’s Diner on Pleasant

Where the fast cars congregated and revved-up menacingly,

Daring to be challenged.

The Custom 300 was understandably ignored,

Tucked innocently behind the metallic screams
Of four-barrel carbs,

Fuel injectors, and Ram-inductors.

It was all about getting a lot of gasoline fast to the pistons.

But Albert's mother shuffled slowly across the linoleum

Of half a kitchen in half a house on half a street,

Preparing a platter of Oreo cookies
Late at night when the Diners closed because she knew
We’d be on our way to Ragonesi's house.

                                                  Quequechan

-Sun-

The Sun will explode in five billion years

But I’ll be very old and ready to go.

I'm looking into a more stable environment for the dog

Get him out of the city before it's too late

Maybe a quiet cattle ranch in southwestern

Oklahoma where rumor has it that the Sun

Allows for certain exceptions to its inevitable end.

He can run around chasing the old pickups

Delivering farm-fresh vegetables,

Spare parts for a neighbor's cranky machinery,

And the doomed, crate-stuffed chickens
Traveling fast in the dust 

Along with the breakfast eggs they made.

The dryness of the narrow roads

Link the small distant farms with a frayed hand,

Dry planet to dry planet. Murmur of bloated tires

And the muted, throaty calls of four-

Legged animals in late afternoon are the tread-worn hymns —
The songs of rural America, lucky dog.

The luckiest chickens are the few who get to stick their beaks

Between the wire-looped slats to the rushing air for one last breath.

When the cool-blue Moon rolls over the silos everything moves

To the front porch and to stillness.

Songs of vibrating crickets harmonize with the slow

Creaking wood of the rockers under infinite skies.

Dog sleeps at their feet in southwestern Oklahoma.

As for me, I’ll be very old when the Sun explodes.

writ in 2011