-the minimalist-

I went to the Bank of America

to count my money

then to the banks of the river

to count my blessings.

the money, it comes and goes

while the river alters the weight of its depth

with changes in atmospheric pressure; looks like

steel to nickel, to nickel-plated copper.

but last week on a slow day

my parakeet was actively peculiar

telling its tale of a caged life in relentless song,

but I still don’t get it.

I’m a different animal, grateful that it sounds

healthy and has a good attitude.

It's inside the institute of the Bank of America

where young couples dreaming of a home, hold hands,

sit side-by-side, signing their names on the dotted line

committing to an interest rate they'll long regret.

after the parakeet died of who knows what,

a silent requiem was held for the repose of its soul,

a soul as real as my own, at ten in the morning the following

Sunday in the main concourse at the Bank of America, where

the demarcation lines between happiness

and grief, between beginnings and finalities, between

questions and explanations concerning the dotted lines, but

no one noticed me to offer their condolences.

-Brigitte Bardot in Fall River-

when Brigitte Bardot told me: “get rid of those

magazines under the bed!” I told her: “okay, okay!

Christ! Gimme a freakin' break"!

––but I was busy that afternoon and besides, Brigitte Bardot

had a photoshoot scheduled in Paris with Picasso.

––It took a few hours for the Express Bus from Paris

to arrive at the terminal in Fall River and I knew I was in-for-it

when she returned.

––when she did, Brigitte Bardot began spinning beneath

the soft, acquiescent material of her dress,

the same dress she had worn in the morning to see Pablo,

unfurling it like an umbrella opening to a growing threat.

––“so,... how was Paris?” I asked tentatively 

in an effort to divert her attention from her early ferocity 

in ordering the removal of the collection of magazines
stashed under the bed.

––but Brigitte Bardot just kept spinning like a pulsar,

faster and faster and soon, like the tigers of “Little Black Sambo”

(although without a hint of vanity) — Brigitte Bardot began to melt

beneath her own heat, fast becoming a puddle in sweet, salted butter

upon the hardwood floor and this is the way of my dreams, sometimes.

-one step beyond-

(the planets and the stars and the stuff in the middle)

"stuff" is a scientific term; well,
maybe not by the book, but
Carl Sagan said so on educational television.

he said: "star stuff".

––later, I questioned the reasoning behind colorizing the images.

I told them: "you know, the pictures don't always have to be pretty".

I'm informed by the precision of their instruments as to where

my house stands if ever I find myself far from home,

and under the everlasting skies I've fallen into the dark part

of wonderment with the best of them.

I've been scared out of my wits.

I've considered the visible planets of the neighborhood,

peered into the dark expanse where Neptune

hides its frozen face of hydrogen, its lick of cyanide
now data-brushed in a lovely taint of powder-blue.

but I want to see Neptune in its menacing form; chalk-

grey and lifeless, akin to the semi-erased blackboards
of the cold institutions which first defined it.

I’m one step beyond the spokes of the galaxy's wheel

revolving around the burning nucleus I can never reach.

I must be dreaming or dead, but better to dream.

-from the third floor piazza-

westward from the third floor piazza

the views of the river are top rate.

one can follow the angling

rooftops of the houses running downward

like steppingstones to the banks

and the balled-headed cars, too,

the sun-blanched paint of them

revealing cancers eating into metal.

even the sparrows fly beneath us.

from the piazza, we can peer

downward into windshields,

to the bench-seats where neighborhood

young lovers grope and cling

before going inside to have their suppers.

what goings on!

and all this before we begin
hopscotching to the river!

our restless house is at our backs

as eastward, the hill rises like an angry blade

into the fabric of the sweltering "Spindle City"
moving beyond the precipice towards the blood-
thirsty "City of Whalers"— but 

from the piazza we see clearly

that the river runs north to south

from Taunton to the Atlantic.

In the evening when everything

is cloaked in darkness beneath

the magician's cape, we go inside.

In doing this we will have traveled  

the few steps into the bronzed atmosphere

of incandescent lamplight and the blue

phosphorescence of the television.

-of February-

a poem by Margaret Atwood

which she’s titled: “February”
has much to do with commentary on her cat
which she refers to as “a black

fur sausage with yellow Houdini eyes”.

although the thrust of the poem
has to do with rejuvenation, the cat
is convincing in how Ms Atwood describes it

and for the daily peculiarities which it brings to the table.

February takes another beating, of course, and the poet
confesses her longing for the climate's turn to Spring.

In February when the blizzards come, we hunker 

indoors organizing the food-stores we've purchased

which need no refrigeration
in the all too logical event the power goes out,
lining-up the items on the counters, forming clutches

of cans and containers in precise menu formations.

we gather jugs of water.

we check the strength of the furnace pilot lights
hunched over on our knees holding
flaming matches in the drafty basements
as we consider the possibilities
of gas explosions re-sculpting the clay of our faces.

this February, a documentary on PBS,
(what we once proudly referred to as: "Educational TV")
was telecast,— an examination of prehistoric cave dwellers
in a land which will eventually become France
and the actors portraying them were convincing enough

and I thought of how miserable it must have been
for these earlier hunter-gatherers simply to survive
the 20 or so years of their existence, particularly in winter.

February, for example.

and there was another February, when a film was broadcast
during the time before the invention of incandescent lighting,
and going about their household routines in the dark,
chill of the evening, the interior's inhabitants,

according to current optical standards, would be
clinically diagnosed today as effectively blind.

  

-this is presumed to be just around the next corner-

at the time of this writing, in the northern hemisphere

where I was born and raised, where I learned the reasons why
the planets didn't lose their grip (fists-full of sky) only to fall

upon my head, the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn will appear to be

in close proximity as I look upward to see them.

of course Jupiter and Saturn aren’t actually “close” to one another,

but separated by a vast distance.

further, we’re not actually looking “upward” when we assume

our natural posture of observation in order to satisfy our fascination

with the unattainable. further still, we are not in fact “seeing”

the planets of Jupiter and Saturn as they actually are by their own devices,

but by the ways of reflected light and planetary atmospherics.

as for me, the fascination lies in the distance, not with solitary

dabs of reflected light, or ancient sprinklings from God's fierce

nostrils, or the fatalities of hydrogen, and cyanide.

but soon after the time of this writing I'll be standing in the backyard

close to the river, assuming I'm "close" to the river, presuming to

look "upward" toward the conjunction of the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn

which will "appear" to be in "close proximity"––– one to the other one,

and if you choose to seek-out an alternative conclusion,

it is presumed to be just around the next corner, if the next corner

is where I'm assuming it will be.

-Lovely-

When the time comes

To move to another place

Nearly as good as the old one,

Or when the time comes

To clean the old place up,

Get rid of all that stuff, or

When curiosity peaks

As to what’s in the water-

Stained corrugated box in the basement

Behind the dank, foul-smelling chaise lounge

Which use to be a pleasure to sway upon
On clear, cool mid-autumn evenings,

Someone may come to ask:

––"Do you know where

 That photograph of Mom is?

 The one taken before she was married to Dad?

 You know, the one from Loring Studio"?––

Of course.

The one from Loring Studio.
So you commit to the search

Because you remember it,

Remember seeing it someplace

And you don’t know

Where to start looking —

Which room, drawer,

Area of darkness,
Which deep, forgotten corner
Of stacked recollections

And you wonder why

A photograph such as that,

The graceful young woman

At the burgeoning of her life

Wasn't cleaned, framed and displayed

In a hallway with others of its kind,
Anyone's hallway, mantelpiece or end-table

And you agonize over finding it

Not because somebody

Asked of its whereabouts

But because finding it

Becomes an expedition to another

Piece of the puzzle, this singular photograph
Dedicated to someone unknown,
Penned in a delicate hand: "Always, Anne"—
An image of the lovely young woman

Who would one day come to say:

"Billy! Put those things in the hamper!

 Then go get your father some Luckies"!

 Quequechan

                                             

-our daily bread and other scents-

Inside the frantic kitchen

they don’t wait for you.

they’ll eat when it’s ready,—

when it’s on the table

or in some instances serve themselves 

from the pots on the gas-stove burners 

before the food reaches the table.

there, the bread is laid-out,—

a thin, crackling sheet of crust

direct from the ovens of Marzilli’s Bakery

sitting a stone’s-throw from the kitchen table
and I realize I've spoken of this phenomenon
on other occasions, but stay with me.

I'm talking about a ritual of a family
eating starch-heavy, sugar rich food at,
or in direct reach of, the kitchen table. 

from any open window, the sweetest

scent of the bakery is folded into the acid

aroma of simmering tomato sauces

layered upon the pungency of leaded gasoline

pumping into the neighborhood cars from the working

Esso station across the street

and by the way,
after a summer rainstorm, the scents

of metal and asphalt are added to the mixture.

mangiare!

                                         Quequechan / c.'53

-taste’s good like a cigarette should-

the cellophane-

wrapped packs auditioning for acceptance
stand as in a chorus line
upon the tabletop side-by-side
reading stage left to stage right

from the line of sight of the audience.

filter to non-filter types of the same brand
may be accepted to be included in the line-up,
although "low-tar low-nicotine" brands are non-participants
dismissed as experimentations in novelty, but —

each pack exhibited is beautiful, seductive,
swaddled in transparent glazing
containing twenty cylinders of full, rich tobacco flavor;

each smoke round, firm and fully packed;

each inhaling smooth and mild, one less irritating than the other,
all come to the line recommended by physicians.

and at the last pack standing stage right

from an audience perspective,

we find the testimonial dinner programed in his honor

with the wife and the kids in attendance front row center.

—— How I admire

the fiction novel readers,

admire them as I imagine them

in the ritual of preparation,

opening covers as if turning

a sleeping child to lay on its back.

look, as they slowly run

the palms of their hands across

the interior spine as if not to disturb.

The palms linger. The wine

is poured — dark and red,

always exhaling, resting on the tabletops

in front of the couches.

——How I admire

the fiction novel readers,

for the plane of oneness they’ve come to,

for how they seem to have forgotten
the weight of the book.

—— From the gallery at the green of the course.

  

-Roger the Barber-

Roger the Barber whose one-chair shop

is located on South Main Street just before

the downtown line of demarcation
to the southend of town,

cuts my hair while humming Mozart arias.

He told me that he and his wife,
a graduate of one of the conservatories

would regularly attend the Opera in Boston

when the great but cantankerous Sarah Caldwell ran the place.

But after his wife's sudden death at the age of forty eight

he stopped going to the opera.

From the chair, I asked him
how long he’d been a barber?

I asked him:
"Does the hair-cutting profession
have a history in your family?

How long have you been at this location?

Have you ever considered

the two-chair configuration"? 

I asked him:
"Have you petitioned the city to take

the parking meter away"?

But that ol' Roger, he just kept snipping hair

and humming Mozart arias

and I didn’t have to ask him:

 "was

       she
          beautiful"?

Fall River

-A click away-

It gets more difficult with time. 

I tell myself not to look

But each morning over tea and crumpets,

Over Bach Oratorios, and Oreos

Split in half like cymbals just after impact,

Under the canopy of stucco, two bulbs out, 

In all kinds of weather, I go to Facebook.

I see that someone has posted
A Poussin landscape with figures.

Two of the figures are seen in the foreground
As they carry the dead toward burial.

Responders to the post opine

With intelligence, emotion or by simple
But effective "likes" which allow for their inclusion
Albeit in the most fundamental opinion allowed.

I'm glancing out the window considering

The Portuguese guy across the street

As I have nothing to add to the discourse on Poussin.

It's the posters who drive the conversation

And each is driving a fast car, leaving me in the dust.

Across the street, the guy is yelling up to his wife
Who leans out of the tenement's third floor window

Just to the left of the pulley which holds a taught line.

He’s in the yard, it’s starting to rain
And the wind is building.

He’s aggravated and she’s imploring aggressively.

A bed-sheet has half-

Fallen from the clothesline and is tangled

Tightly around the top of the line’s pole.

She can’t pull the sheet in by the pulley
While it’s wrapped-up like that

And he's in no condition to climb.

He pokes at the sheet with a broomstick.

He slaps at the sheet with the head of the broom.

She’s screaming in Portuguese:

“Ir-para Casa! Sopish Caldene!”—

And it’s raining like hell.

The sheet’s too heavy, waterlogged
Like a genoa sail skimming a heavy sea,

And returning after a quick piss, I notice he’s gone.

The yard's empty and the storm continues.

His wife has closed the window

But the torn sheet’s a lost cause,
Its one free corner, flapping violently in the wind

Like a torn spinnaker.

Later, as the vinyl siding drips, I'm left to ponder

Whether or not they're eating together
In front of the television,

If he ever sees her as he once saw her,

If she remembers the man
Who vowed at the altar to always be there
And maybe this is why I can't spend time this morning
Considering Poussin on Facebook.

                                     Corner of Bedford & Eddy, Fall River.

                                             

            

-the iPhone-

With a dampened paper towel in hand,

I've wiped away a sticky,

brownish spill left on the kitchen counter

from last night’s bedtime snack.

It left a pattern resembling the Crab Nebula

the way it must actually be,–– a burned and nasty

trace element without the usual snazzy computerized

color enhancements from the inventive media labs.

I open my laptop to profound grief.

An Indonesian airliner's disappearance is reported.

It fell from radar into the dark vastness of the Java Sea,

–– Jakarta bound for Singapore.

Stark photographs are displayed on the front

page of the digital New York Times,—

people waiting for news of loved ones, a large private area

set-back from the unintentional cruelty of the terminal

where life is busily going on without them.

A young woman among the photographed
is sitting alone on a bench,––
her head bowed, her black, luminous hair 
falls in mourning across her face.

it's in her frozen isolation, the graphic stillness,
the inconsolable nature of her being, captured

in the indelible moment of her grief, which is palpable.

I'm drawn to linger there, to examine this photograph

above all others as though I have a personal connection to her.

At first sight she appears to be praying, but she’s not praying.

She's texting.

                                                  12/28/14