-relative measurement-

all my young life

he did what he did.

she did what she did.

all my young life.

all my young life

I see them doing

I see them adjusting

driving up and wiping down

exchanging barbs

exchanging smiles

enhancing the daytime racket

enhancing the evening’s dynamic

all my young life.

all my young life

the music
is moved from room to room—

I hear her humming
in day-dress and apron
wiping the oilcloths
wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

I see him enter,
tie and fedora
trenchcoat and ledger
car keys and weariness
all my young life.

all my young life

at the pots of boiling water

where spaghetti
is broken with a powerful snap,—

pot after pot from the flaming stove
and the tub is filled;

once washed and the tub is drained
and filled again.
not all of my life,— but

all my young life.

not all of their lives,— but

all their young lives.

                            quequechan

-schoenberg’s romance-

Before he drove head-long into it

sticking his neck to the twelve-

tone row, 

Schoenberg turned a tonal phrase.

Schoenberg was young

when they lined the walls

waiting their chance to dance with him

and dance with him they would.

The spine of the cactus was later to pierce

the wall-flowers in their ears.

But earlier, Tovelille listened to all of it.

Schoenberg danced with Tove,

one on the one-way road;— one to the twelve-

tone row.

                          

-let’s hear it-

father

at the wheel

exhaled smoke

to the windshield

hits and veers

through the cracked windows

like ghosts on the run

or death's angels
to return another time

mother

as close to the bobbin

as eyes can get
conning the material through

at the tuck of the laundered
sheets

at the sink

at the oilcloths

in and out of the narrow
pantry
to the kitchen's great expanse

sole attendant to the strainer
decides when and where
to stack the plates resting therein

father
at the day's labor ended

sits at the bean-
bag ashtray's arm of the easiest chair
the exhaled smoke is rising now —

mother
at the day's labor ended

sits at the nucleus
of everything of the inside completed now.

-From Last Night's Read-

Checking the pillow’s
Smear of drool for the profile
It makes —

(Time was they all

Looked like Ho chi Minh,)

Early in the morning

With last night's sensations
Of being trapped
Under water or

Under sand— as increasing weather

Turned against the house
Throwing a wrench into

Tomorrow's planned preparations —

When the neighbor’s deep-

Throated basset-hound

Intrudes through the open
Summer windows,

Long after television,
Long after consciousness,

And after a couple of hours
Of late-
Night

Bukowski poems

Tucked beneath my sheets

I'm thinking it's best to temper
Complaining.
But christ, another

Night of that baritone-
Howling lunatic across the yard
Broke the last

Strand of reason and anyway,

When all I can do in the darkening
Is remember the last poem I read that night,-

I'm doomed to live inside it in the light of morning.

                                 

-during the term-

the wisecracker was too big for his britches

and the others of his kind with their seat-backs

tilted precariously against the far wall were no better.

cut of the same cloth.

chips off the same old block. nobody
against the wall lives up the Highlands.

a new pack of cigarettes was the price

of this morning’s admission

and a hot pack of Lucky's was moved
down the row hand over hand,

each nuisance of classroom decorum pulling a hard-

packed beauty to be tucked behind the ear. 

but the old one in front with the chalk in his hand

and clouds of chalk-dust drifting to the legs

of his corduroys to rest there all day,

and the next, is scribbling

over the blackboard as if they didn't exist.

he thinks he shits ice cream.

I was somewhere in the middle of the blonde-

colored desks, not of the back-rowers, more in-line

than out-of-line.

but to crack the code, to enter their narrow corridor

of rebellion, of differentness, of dumbness and denial

for even a minute or two became an obsession.

I’d be busy looking around to find the knees of the girls,

the sweetness in the studious sets of eyes lurking behind

the bird-winged glasses, the tops of their curious heads

as they wrote down the fragments leading to conclusions,

those eraser-tipped lips,— and over the mountains

the row of the doomed behind them snickered at the world.

Their girls were someplace else. outside,

they’d meet-up at the hoods of their cars.

The fastest cars in school. But

on my tepid way to meet my own kind

I glanced inside the old one’s empty classroom

and there he was,— chalking the blackboard, smothered,

suffocating,— nervous in the service of anticipating

the horror we'd make of his morning's occupation.

                                            

                                                      JMMJHS

  

-First light-

Pulling the chain opened the floodgates

Inhaling wastewater from the bowl.

Then the evening incandescence
Was orange-tinctured as the skin
Of the white girls

At Horseneck Beach in early August.

This was the place

Where the 78s turned 33,
Turned 45 and the doors blew open.

In this house the sweet
Scent of leaded

Gasoline from the ESSO station

Folded layer on layer into the simmering
Pot on the gas-stove burner
Attended to like an infant.

In the dark early morning

Under deep snow-cover

We wake-up to the news of the school
Cancellations.

It's a different kind of dark
Than the darkness of night;
The window's blue at the bed's wrinkled foot

And the light of the lamps is filtering through.

Now the early morning rooms glow orange-
Tinctured from the incandescent lamps;
Different than nightlight;— opening not closing

And I hear the cornerstones of family speaking
Softy in the kitchen.

                                        Quequechan

-another side of the interiors-

There was something exotic

In crawling under the bed

As deeply into the corner
As the wall permitted

During those rare times when

It wasn't necessary;—

Something otherworldly

To the explorations, crouch-walking,
Enclosed by spider-webbed lattice

Under the porch which smelled like
A primordial muck where the first

Forbidden discoveries were made.

There was something in realizing
For the first time that I had the ability

To purchase the things reserved for adults
Over the counter inside the corner variety store

Without being questioned about permission;—

An enormity of consequence
When the first night fell

And my younger brother

Was told to go to bed

As my older sister sat stunned
On the rug at the television anxiously

Staring in my direction

As they passed me by to get to him

As they once passed her

To get to me, ignoring my pleas

As they now ignored his;—

There's something in the covert invasion;

The first exploration through the drawers
Of her crowded dresser, finger-tipping layers
With unanswered questions. Everything,—

Every thing adding its piece, connecting
The puzzle, navigating distance;
The destination through uncharted,

Silken waters.

                                 Quequechan

-the Bride-

Loring Studio.

    The place in town
        For the best in bridal portraiture.

There, she'll sit as still
As a knick-knack in porcelain ––

The fold of a gown drapes

To barely touch the floor.

Her hair is tightly fixed with decoration
And she sits quietly, unaccustomed to the rigidness
Of portrait studio photography.

She knows only the captured
Activities of the snapshot

Documenting the vitality of life on the run,

Life on the fly,
    Life for laughs,
       Good-times at the beach,

A life for running
Fast with the boys
Behind the tailgates of the drenched
Summer trucks for a chunk of ice.

Loring Studio paints
    An air-brushed rose
        To her cheeks;

Moves her natural beauty back
For the sake of tincture.

The day will come
When her eldest son Will come to speak of this image

Posting it to an over-populated
Social space of his own time.

-the first one from long, long ago- 

read it again
the way you used to

quick and young on a bench of wood, the sunlit

window warming the goldilocks

at "Mark's Coffeehouse" twixt State & Maynard, the blood-
colored sleeve at the palms of your hands. who was it said
"porcelain"? certainly not me,–– pious 
hipsters unravelling hair and attitudes all around you.

read it again
the way you did

inside the barroom on West Liberty

those early Saturday mornings
before we opened the door to madness.

read it again
from the back of its sleeve blood-colored

nearing the banks of the Huron, the quiet

end of its winter; "within you without you"

beginning from your mouth warm-blooded.

'69, '70? (1997)

-League-

It’s beautiful when it’s right and it happens at the beginning.

That’s when you whack the dirt at the circle from your spikes

With the nub of the bat and draw the Cross in the dust, lingering

there so Jesus won’t miss it.

So what if you’re small of stature?

So what if you can’t hit a liner over the infield?

Coach sets himself off the third base line, drops a glove

on the right side of his box;

Pinches the brim of his cap with his fingers;

Touches his nose with a graceful fingertip,
His chin, both sides of his cheeks;

Sweeps the Holy Rosary name across his jersey

From left to right with the palm of his hand,
Rubs both his sleeved arms down,
Flashing signs like the Big Leaguers do

And through it all, through the lightning

Subterfuge of the active signs,

His right foot stands like a stone behind the glove

Directly at your line of sight from the plate.
Glove, then foot. That’s bunt. It’s what you do best.

Nothing else matters. Glove, then foot behind it.

Gino Dinucci, coach of the Holy Rosary
Baseball team of the CYO League of Fall River
Cuts a beautiful figure at the box on third

As he flashes his signs.

So what if the skin of his face looks like sandpaper?

So what if his belly drapes over his belt?

So what if you're small of stature?

So what if you can’t hit a liner over the infield?

It's you and coach in the poetry of baseball
Where the sign says bunt.

And maybe if Jesus sees the sign in the dust
From the on deck circle, you'll beat it out.

Quequechan