-Wisdom-

1.

Somebody told me Jews 

Like to drink

Manischewitz.

I know one Jew.

Joy Liebmann's desk was adjoining my desk

At the infamous grade school we both attended;

Her careful eyes wide-open to her books.
She was studious

And ignored me as she should have.

I'd drop pencils to the floor and then

Under the canopy of hard wood hinged in iron, 

I travelled northward from the tops of her brown & whites...

2.

I befriended Edward Meckelberg

At the face of harsh

Peer opposition in junior high school.

I know two Jews.

Edward was an outsider, socially funny-looking and brilliant.

Crazy Michael Joseph, the kid with two first names,

Informed me that Edward didn’t believe in the Virgin Mary,

Of whom it was drilled into me at Saturday catechisms,

Was the hand-picked mother-to-be of baby Jesus.

But it was Edward’s Mother who introduced me to Gelatin,

Which beforehand I had only known as JELLO.

3.

The Nazis (Let us all spit-up now) told us 

That Jews have long, convex noses,

Beady eyes and smirked hunched-over

Looking for cover 

As they counted their reichsmarks.

You've seen the illustrations. 

I know seven additional Jews. 

One has what seems to be a normal nose,

Dark-brown eyes, and works for tips as a waitress

At the Nite Owl Diner on Pleasant Street.

Of the other six, one has a nose like 

The Portuguese guy watering his lawn across the street.

Another has eyes for terra-cotta

And makes it into figures who nearly

Escape from their enclosures.  

Another is a bank teller. He counts money,

But it’s not his money.

Of the other three, one has a nose like Durante,

The "Schnozzola," substantial and crowd-pleasing.

His eyes seem normal enough.

The sixth of seven has one working eye,

A terrible accident, and I don't remember

Anything about his nose which is probably a good thing.

The seventh of seven slept late in the morning; 

Her eyes opened slowly like the lids of most treasure chests to sunlight

And of her nose, well, her nose was formed like that of the polished 

Marble-pink of the Renaissance Madonna long before

The mallet of Laszlo Toth struck. 

The Portuguese guy across the street

Would call it: “Belo.”

Me? I’d call it: “Jewish-Florentine.”

-a theoretical world-

from a storefront doorway the sign to passersby reads: "We're OPEN"!

street-side, the plate-glass window displays selections of its inventory. 

the street is busy with activity and gatherers of belongings are just getting started.

people greet one another presenting kittens from their hands, presenting images 

of accomplished work and images of the accomplished work of others;

some who are living, others who are dead.

curbside, a jovial old man introduces two small dogs in tutus dancing on their

hind legs to the music of an accordion amusing the children.

artists, poem-writers, bloggers, diarists and sports fans; idle gossipers, digital

self-portrait aficionados and lonely hearts fly through the arena's atmosphere

like ping-pong balls sprung from a field of mousetraps.

the variety store carries news of the plaintiff's accusations, of noteworthy adjudications, certain character indictments and exposés of the populated interiors;

it carries news of the evening's visible planets masquerading light, advancing

the proposition that false-faces will often intrigue us.

on the local front, the latest report tells of the 24 inch Schwinn's mid-morning

crack-up on the avenue near the cemetery.

it's assumed that this is the cherry-red beauty that has weight and occupies space.

two old-timers are standing at the storefront's window;

one is inside looking outward, the other is outside looking inward.

                                         

 The River

The river widens southward in its trek,

Greying as it runs from below the hill of the city

Driving as an arm to the sea by things which are measured
And by things which can't be measured — then

Drops to the mouth of Narraganset Bay.

The water's color is perceived the way it is

From particle absorption from certain minerals,

And by reflections in the atmosphere, greying 

From sediment kicked-up from the silt of its bed.

Testimonials are written above its banks

From the hill-clinging tenement houses where

My friends were living at my side, and where

Everything was written in indelible text.

I came to know the river with them, from the foot of the hillside

Where, before our time, railroad tracks were laid
Running north to south from Boston to Providence.

We went to the river to smoke forbidden cigarettes,

And throw harmless stones into the running water.

We rode bikes, played ball, disobeyed or mothers and fathers, and

Maybe I'll go down there tomorrow to hold hands with their ghosts.

Could be I'm doing that now.

                                   

                                

-Quequechan Testament-

1.

shawled in mourning

black out there, —  two Portuguese

widows speak with reverence across the fence,

the subjects of God, of laundry and bread.

–– and from the sites of commerce

gulls glide panting above the restaurant spoils

as homeward, lovers untangle the knot of sleep

and cats awaken to the same curiosities.

such is the city's opening vocabulary.

2.

how then to interpret

the language of one's own salt.
I'm not the proverbial fish-out-of-water
I once in defiance pretended to be.

but as it is, if my residence is questioned

I'll be ready with the answers.

                                        

                                        

                                                        

-one of those moments-

you weren't getting
anywhere, my friend
and neither was I.

the songs from the record player
spun ballad to ballad
as we assumed the positions

of standing outside the music
with our hands in their pockets.

but hell, my friend. somehow,
from somewhere in the distance
I found her

and we crossed the crowded floor
slow-dancing at the Anawan Street hall
on that warm summer's night.

you remember the girl, my friend.

you elbowed me in the ribs to notice her.

she's the one leaning on the parallel bars at the wall,
distant and planetary —

the one whose hair was back, the jet-

stone of the riverside housing project who

unfolded her arms 

from the buttons of her blouse

as if to say yes.

I know, my friend.
that was then,
and then was a long time ago.

but hell,

she was the one
slow dancing in my arms, my friend
and that still counts.

-let it be written-

in the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth.

and the earth was void of life

and darkness fell
upon the face of the deep.

but the corner

of Bedford and Stinziano streets
was populated

by the boys and their girls who

activated its atmosphere
and in the process

God laid as warning
a number of venial sins
at the doorsteps of their souls;

sins dropped at the Drive-In
over the burning naugahyde

of the darkened Ponta Delgada;

sins dropped
at the Waterworks of the Narrows

overlooking the fresh-water
Watuppa Ponds of the sweeping
Wampanoag Reservation;

dropped at the Plaza Theater’s

crazy weekend commotions
and the Empire’s muffled
balcony explorations;

dropped at the last embrace
by the entrance to the ballpark's

musty dugouts at twilight and behind
the blinds of the peeling billboards;

dropped across the sea-salted 
sand dunes of the Spindrift where salt-
waters of ocean murmured

under evening skies

and growing weary of pin-

pricking so many stars, and influenced

by what it was the boys and their girls were up to

God said:  "Let there be Light"— 
and sure as Hell, there was light.

                                       Quequechan

-M45 in 1942

1.

welcome the Pleiades — the young

seven sisters
softly veiled by atmosphere

barely visible, north by northeast
above the slowly inhaling streetlight.

seeing them, the vandal's stone
was reconsidered and dropped from my hand.

2.

tucked-in for the night
the Pleiades, young and volatile

are swept in light nearing brushed aluminum.

from the living-quarters

the incandescent interior was glowing
amber set against the ice-glazed windows,
and beyond them, the seven sisters were dancing.

2/15/12

-from the dark-side of the planet /  dancing with Loretta-

Harold's alone, slow-dancing across the carpet

and nobody’s there to put a stop to it

and to make matters worse the radio's tuned-in

to the harpsichord of the wrong Bach.

one slipper's heel is torn like a slit throat,—

bathrobe’s opened to twilight, while a Camel

burns-out in the ashtray, its clinging

hornworm of ash leaving in its wake the wet,

yellow stain of an old duck's-ass, and the night is young.

Harold's got five and a half hours to go.

maybe he'll talk to Loretta again in the morning.

he knows what he looked like

the last time they played their parts in this awkward
on-line romance and it wasn't pretty.

Loretta seemed to be longing

for someone unconnected to the acid-throwers of her life.

Harold's slow-dancing across the carpet

and nobody’s there to put a stop to it.

Loretta's waiting at the desktop on the far-side of town

for someone to play a different kind of tune.

                               

                      

-hitting the "nigger pool"-

the neighborhood was woven tightly

in a tough, italian-guy rhetoric

in attitude and language where

the mouth spoke rapidly and hand-

gestures accentuated

points of importance dynamically,

fast and furiously deliberate,

like a ten-pronged army at your face.

here was the place

where Italian women did for their men,

did for the kids,— where parents

and grandparents lived an arm’s-

length apart, where in our house a hand’s-

width would do.

the gas stove flamed by sulphur-

headed matches

and anthracite coal was down-chuted

to bins which fed the bloated plaster-

cased furnace squatting in the cellar.

later, heating oils from contained vessels

fueled the space-heater, saturating

the tenement atmosphere

in the scent of petroleum,

the interior's scent of winter, shingled

in asbestos.

here was a sense of propriety where

one toilet served the crowded populous

and the solitary television standing

in the useable parlor was enough

to set the parameters of the extreme.

street-side, folding money was the lifeline

and the wise-guys took pride in dropping

their hard-earned wages into the hands

of the neighborhood bagman working the small-

time hood's weekly "nigger pool."

in this place, food was a fresh-baked

fundamental bread from the baker's ovens

a stone's-throw away;

it was sugar, salted meats, potatoes and peppers

and LaRosa spaghetti, cracked from the box— 

where tomato sauces were prepared

as Mother Earth prepared for sunlight,

as grapes were prepared on the vines

tangled beneath the durable

cloth of the working-class, air-drying

on lines of rope pulleyed window to pole

and pulleyed back.

street-side, the rain-puddles evaporated

with the scent of metal rising from them

and the ballpark was active with the scent

of gasoline running through it.

later in the week, a lucky corner-dweller

would collect his winnings in cash money

and his name resonated across the neighborhood,

lofting his commonness to an exalted position.

"Tony Ambriglio won the "nigger pool""!
$150.00 is what it's worth.

inside, the hand-kneaded, fork-pressed

dough of the ravioli were laid to stiffen

overnight on laundered sheets,

their backsides flour-

sprinkled like pampered, infant italians.

                                                       Quequechan

   

   

-when she knew she was rich-

the girl at her desk
in front of his own,
the girl he knew as a friend
didn’t know she was rich

but she'd know soon enough.

then her smile would be different.
It would move backward.

he'd thought to let it go,
to leave it behind,

but who could have known
how to do such a thing?

when he saw her house
and he saw his house
for the first time in the same
cold-frame in his brain

on the day that he pedaled
fast above the saddle to the Avenue
and stopped from a distance
to look from a distance to figure it out

and all he could see
was the stone of her house
three columns to the doors
at the face of her house
its wrought-iron gate

her friends walking through
no more than strangers
a short time ago
now greeted
with laughter and hugs
in a dress he'd not seen—
a dress white as chalk—
from the front of her house
from the stone of her house

on the day when happiness
fell through the hole
in the midst of his world
when she knew she was rich.



                         up the highlands,
                         quequechan