-the Poem of Common Experiences-

Traveling by car from the borderline

of the north-end of town
to the borderline of the southend of town
takes a measurable amount of my time,

impossible to calculate to a proof due to

annoying last-minute calls for critical eggs,

emergency pumping of five bucks worth of regular,

and stops of longer duration, like post-parade street-

sweepers or shift changes at the Sagamore textile mill.

I’ve never timed a trip from the north-end to the southend of town

nor do I remember driving the distance between these borders on purpose;

the Municipal Airport to the new “Dairy Queen”.

Mostly I’ll pull over somewhere along the line for a Coney Island

hotdog lunch, or a supper of take-out chow mein, or to pay my respects

to the recently bereaved.

Inside, from the table where poems are instigated,

a walk to the bathroom takes longer to navigate

than a walk to the coffeepot;
the measurement in time and distance this morning.

Scriabin at the banks of the Oka River with Tatiana

Intrada:

Sunset, and the Taunton River is washed in violet.

1.

This morning the Taunton

revealed a greying palette, its natural weight in heavy elements,

a more accurate account of March.

––Hopscotching the planet and at rest on the banks of the Oka,
we find Alexander with his love, Tatiana.

2.

I don’t play a musical instrument

but if I did I’d be a piano player.

Honky-tonk.–– Well, maybe a smattering

of Scriabin when nobody’s around. 

We'll see.

Now playing are his piano sonatas in sequence,

recorded by her eminence, Ruth Laredo.

As to the selected reading tonight,
I’ll absorb as much as I can handle of the fierce

American showstopper and poet, Daphne Gottlieb, who,

as I hear her, has the voice of an incorrigible nightingale.

3.

Bedtime.
Let's review:
We have Scriabin, Tatiana, Laredo, and Gottlieb.
We have two rivers, the Taunton and the Oka.
We have the introduction of heavy elements
replaced by the lighter closing atmosphere in violet.
A good grouping for one day's experience.

So, a lot of name-dropping here you might say.
Well, sure. But you know, if it's all true, why the hell not?

                                          

                                      

-Rebop the cat and 1017-

when “Rebop” the cat was called to stiffness,

we put her in a shallow grave dug by our father

at the far end of the grapevine.

same with “Schnozzola”, a short-lived blue-feathered parakeet,

but this time the planting was closer to the vegetable garden where the green
hornworms inched their way upward with an acid taste for tomatoes.

shoeboxes from “Thom McAn” were employed

for the funeral services, pulled from the bin in the basement where

shoeboxes were stacked for such occasions.

the goldfish were simply flushed overnight.

from water thou art and unto water shalt thou return.

the rapture:

the house smells of peppermint and "Raid" because

the Gleason’s are coming over for a visit
with their uninhibited daughter, Lizzie, same age as me, in tow.

during snacks but before television, I'd play my ukulele for Lizzie
as we swayed on the musty old chaise lounge under the sour-apple tree.
inside, colorful mints in milk-glass saucers cover the surfaces

under a settling veil of commercially endorsed fluorocarbon aerosol insecticide.  

my parents and the Gleason's enjoy
the "Ed Sullivan Show" on television.

the men will smoke Lucky Strike and Chesterfield,

the women will puff Old Gold and Viceroy in an effort to keep-up.

my sister, near three years my elder
will dance for them to exhaustion; theirs, not hers.

my brother, near three years my younger
will perform an encore of magic tricks pulled from a colorful box.
Lizzie listens to the thumb-picked sounds of "my dog has fleas"
as I fine-tune the ukulele for another performance.

once inside, apart from the virtuosity in strummin' the ol' ukulele,
I offer-up my latest pencil drawing for the company's consideration
of Jesus hanging crucified, as seen from hovering above the cross,
same as Saint John sees him, same as Sal Dali sees him,––

but the guy on Ed's television show who spins dinner plates
over his head at the tip of long thin rods, looks pretty good.

I'm mostly intrigued with the dancing packs

of “Old Gold” cigarettes because ladies legs

draped in fishnet stockings are poured

from the base of them like gifts from the gods.

I’ll remember the imagery in bed after my prayers.

for the record, Priest didn’t feel me up after my confessional
or blow me in the twilight sacristy like the older altar boys deemed ready

and If you enjoy stories such as these, but with enhanced detailed development,

you may also be interested in: c.1952.


                                                                    c.1953



                                                         

-pictured- (from the death notes No.6)

––with the unmistakable scent

of Pond's Cold Cream flooding her skin, she thickened

the Junior High School homeroom oxygen, her hair,

spray-fixed to form a sort-of helmet.

––the local newspaper is a landscape, rich with news

of the recently deceased.

––we picture her "laid-out."

we picture how her family dressed her for the viewing;

the powder blue chiffon for the occasion of dust to dust.

––she’s laid-out,

her hands fold stiffly across her frozen lap;

fingers like strands in cold porcelain,

her wedding band pressed into her stubby finger

inflated beyond the parameters of its ring of gold.

––a photograph sits on a table as she was

sixty years past, slightly smiling, her torso

skewed forward at the requisite angle.

she's remembered here simply as being among us,

scribbling assignments at her desk, quick-stepping

between classes, her books held close to her chest,

––her knees pressed tightly together, sitting behind us

in the graded auditorium as if she instinctively knew.

she always seemed filled with cement.
––and now it comes to pass that she surrenders herself

to the column of her notice.

––she leaves behind everything that has ever been.

her name is: "departed wife, mother of two."

     

-far from home-

––when I was very young, the target of required bedtime,

the early years of being adjudicated as always "in the way,"
I was keenly aware of the glistening black Buick parked

in front of the house, of how something so heavy could glide
from the curb with such power and grace, only to disappear

eastward into the distance, the route 6 sunrise as if by instinct.

sometimes the driver's attitude indicated a general weariness

at the end of the day which indicated to me that maybe I had it coming.

––when I was young, but old enough to ride my bike across a surface
other than dirt, my father tripped and fell in the kitchen, hitting the hard

linoleum, snapping the little finger of his left hand at the knuckle,

forming the shape of a hard left turn, but rose again slowly, reaching

for the open pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes laying-in-wait on the table

without missing a beat.

––this happened long before his first stroke,–– although

upon reflection, lacking a medical diagnosis at the time,
maybe the fall in the kitchen was a result of his actual first stroke,
which would move the medically diagnosed first stroke
to second stroke status and now that it comes to mind,
it might have been during the time
when he was smoking Chesterfield and driving a Pontiac.

-Wellston plainsong-

He walked into his house
A good two hours after midnight

Looking like Dorathy's Tin Man, exhausted,
Silvery, clinking like metal.

(might have been house keys

 pulled from his pockets)

His young wife is sleeping.

He peels his clothes away
Coated in Paint-Fine Aluminum,

The dense agitator of detonation.

He has the scent of Urea, cross-linked

With Fumaric Acid running over him.

He's a sticky mess,

A frosting of Guar Gum and Ethylene Glycol.

He's nearly a food product,

Closing-in on the ingredients,
A producer of Nitro-Carbo Nitrate,
The slurry of high explosives,

A non-cap sensitive second-trick working man
Entering his house
A good two hours after midnight, where
His young wife lay sleeping.

Ohio

 An open letter to Josh D’Elia /  March 11, 2011

The tsunami quenches the quiet dryness of life with a terrible water.

The shockwave of the tsunami left Japan like a mad tourist, arriving

Where the next edge of land lies passively trapped in its own mitts.

News on-a-loop runs film of the tsunami rolling over Japan this morning;

The bobbing sheet-metaled heads of automobiles, the sinking Buddha statuary;

The enlightenment temporarily out of service, and the always fleeing-from-something

Japanese people trying their best again.

Now the aftershock races eastward across the Pacific toward your apartment.

Compose a song about this adventure at another time, and I look forward to listening.

But —for now, grab the love-seat from the corner room, and put it on top of the heavy

Desk in your study.

Get on the love-seat standing on your tip-toes, maybe raising your arms above

Your head to make yourself look bigger like crawdads do in the face of threat.

I’m here to help you.

Bring your bass, unplugged from its amp,— or better, the acoustic twelve-string

Leaning in the corner near the bathroom,— also, a big container of status water,

Or if necessary, bottled water trucked-in from Arizona,— and canned-goods, and

A manual can opener, a flashlight, sixteen of my poems, and a revolver.––

And it might be wise of you to get Jenny on the love-seat, too, because

You could be up there for quite-a-while, and I hear it gets chilly beneath

The nighttime stars of Los Angeles this time of year.

Your father

                                                       

                                                    

-Another moment in Kansas, and again on Interstate 35 North-

Interstate 35 North to Salina

And the sleeveless arm protruding

From the shattered window

Of the crumpled cab, crushed beneath
Its jackknifed trailer, postures its lifeless hand
Gracefully into a cool night's rain.

It’s all I can manage to process of death's finality. 

Kansas Highway Patrol
Draped in rain-gear,

Campaigns wrapped in plastic cover

Protecting their rigid authority,

Signal with sharp-

Violet flares of light

Directing me beyond the great

And broken Autocar diesel

Hissing and dripping its fluids

Glazing the Interstate.

Strange, how the rain

Taps quietly upon the Beetle's roof

As the AM radio is quickly silenced.

Instinctive, how my hand

Reaches for the pack of cigarettes

Pressed into the headliner
Above the windshield's visor. 

Otherworldly, how the drenched

Cops motion the living forward,––

The living and their living machinery,

Passing the new dead in solemn procession.

I'm moved by the watch strapped to the delicate

Form of the wrist;
Could be Adam's wrist.
Inverted, could be God's.

Strange, how out-of-place the wristwatch seems.
Otherworldly, how the simplest of things still work.

Interstate 35 North to Salina.
I remember this moment.

I'm driving North from Wichita to Salina.

I don’t remember the part which would tell me why.

  

-remembering three dreams and the nature of my involvement in them-

the first dream, which is specific to me:

deep cold.

behind me, the vast frozen landscape is unpopulated.

I’m standing at the crest of a great and violent sea.
I want to retreat to safety, but the dream anchor's me
to this location for its time remaining.

the second dream, which is specific to me:

I’m leafing through a portfolio of large drawings

which the dream authenticates as accomplished by my hand;

drawings that in my life were never drawn, which appear to be
so captivating that when I wake-up, a passion ignites within me
to see them again, but alas, they're never to be found.

the third dream, which is not specific to me:

this dream has to do with the perceived recurring dream almost everyone

seems to have had, the dream portraying themselves to be flying to the clouds

far above the landscape.

I'm proposing that this dream might not be recurring, but is one dream
on a singular night's plane, perceived in times of semiconsciousness
to be recurring,–– but

I may not be the one to propose this supposition because

I don't recall ever having had the dream portraying myself to be flying

to the clouds far above the landscape in the first place.

now, falling;–– that's a dream worthy of repeat performances.

-Miss Wardell the music teacher-

Miss Wardell’s wide girth

served her stability as the beam of the boat

serves the boat in turbulent waters.

from her pitch-pipe

stains in stale red lipstick pressed

selected pitch

as each hole produced

its unique note of sound.  

the lower registers resonated

within the human breast.

the highest pierced the ears of dogs.

Miss Wardell sweated profusely

and the space between her nostrils and upper lip

where a stand of little black hairs grew stiffly

was dotted in beads of moisture resembling dew-

drops found on rose petals, but not as sweet.

from the Hugo A. Dubuque School archives,

 Fall River / c.1957

   

-for Robert Walley in paradise-

1.
"Who Put This Here?

I Want an Answer Right Now!

Who Put This On My Desk”?!

It wasn’t me, but I knew who did it

And old Miss Sykes was tenacious

At getting to the bottom of things.

I was told she once tracked-down

A kid who drew a comical penis
Complete with wire-haired scrotum

And the words "Eat Me Raw"

Ballooned over its circumcised head

On the wall over the urinal trough in the boys room.

Her investigation was masterful

And the artist was soon emasculated

Before the entire class.

It wasn’t me.

2.
Death at the Austin Powder Company:

When the heavily bunkered, labor-intensive building
Designated as "Jelly-Stuffer No. 2" exploded,
(The building where finicky nitroglycerine
Is stuffed inside sticks labeled "Dynamite!") 

Rattling the walls of the "Slurry" facility,
(Bunkered half-a-mile from Jelly #2)

Where I worked, in deepest southern Ohio

Mixing Nitro-Carbo-Nitrate for the coal mines 

Of Kentucky and West Virginia, the team of assembled

Forensic investigators mapped the stages leading to the event

Starting at the farthest evidence found on site,
Far beyond where Jelly #2 was once located,

Then backtracking inward toward the crater's center

In order to determine the initial point of detonation.

Investigator #1 

"This here shoe belonged to Tom Johnson.

Tom was working the big Jelly-Stuffer

At the time of the explosion, so the shoe,

With half of Tom’s leg attached, well, it should be

Way the hell over yonder, but it’s way the hell over here.

That means it travelled like this from the "Stuffer",

Then curved that-a-way, then up in that direction like that,

Was pushed by sympathetic explosion shockwaves in that direction, yonder

And landed all the way the hell out here".

Investigator #2

"Watch your step, fellas. This here is Leo Fenstablaugh’s thumb.

Leo was Q.C.ing the dynamite crimper casings

At the time of the shot, so his thumb should be

Way the hell over there, but it’s way the hell over here.

Now that means there was one initial shot followed by
Four separate sympathetic explosions because..."

3.
Well, anyway, old Miss Sykes was like that,—

A forensic determinator and I knew she’d get

To the bottom of the dirty-little mystery laid upon her desk.

It wasn’t me but I knew who did it,—

And I knew she knew that I knew who did it.

To this day that grade school experience

May be the foundation of an occasional

Tinge of paranoia on my part.— But

You know, sometimes they actually are out to get me.

But the perpetrator behind the caper

In Miss Sykes' classroom wasn’t me.

I’m just the rat-fink who knew who did it.

                                   from the Wellston notebooks and 

                                   the archives of the Hugo A. Dubuque School

-An evening in Boston-

I had plenty of time before the performance

of Sofia Gubaidulina's "Offertorium" –– 

so I drove northbound on Massachusetts Avenue

toward the bridge, but stopped short of crossing it.

I wanted to park for awhile on the banks of the Charles River

overlooking Cambridge where Harvard and M.I.T. are seated.

From my sightline, Harvard was too far west along the river

and set too deeply into the landscape to be seen clearly,

but M.I.T., up-front and imposing seemed to be staring me down,

curious as to what business a working-class guy like myself

would have in the "Athens of America".

I argued that although I was born and raised

in the "Armpit of America" to the south,

I had as much a right to be in Boston as anyone.

After all, I just wanted to look,

not being interested in touching anything

or engaging in a futile attempt at confronting

the complexities of its crazy equations.

Later, I found the performance at Symphony Hall

to be first rate and although my earlier encounter with M.I.T.

remained unresolved, I had my hands full with confronting

the complexities of Sofia Gubaidulina's "Offertorium".

-The Greasy Pole-

The purpose of the Greasy-Pole is singular:

to prevent a challenger from reaching its top.

Holiday—

and the Greasy-Pole stands straight-up

at 30 feet or thereabout

and near its peak hang from their anchors

tantalizing meats in bulky form—

a rounded cheese of the provolone strain 

housed neatly in its safety net

and assorted trinkets tacked on the pole

nearly half-way up

defined as "grab-bags" as consolation

to the weak-of-heart, muscle and determination. 

But the Sun and Sky and Dreams align 

at the greasy-pole's tip, for standing thereon

is placed a starchy little American flag

and tightly wrapped around its staff, a crisp 

one hundred dollar bill,—— 

the staff dramatically pierced into a fat, tubular

whole salami.

                                         -Columbus Day Celebration

                                         -Columbus Park, Fall River

In 1959, Dominic Petrucci scaled the greasy-pole,

seized the salami with its flag and one hundred

bucks in tow and triumphantly descended the heights

to great celebrations, and quietly moved-on to continue

his only life.

Mr. Petrucci, known locally as "K.O."

resided alone 

in a third-floor tenement across from

the Marconi Club where his father

took near permanent residence,

graduated from high school,

served in the United States Navy,

was medically discharged,

returned to his hometown,

took menial jobs here and there,

hung-out at the neighborhood's

active watering hole which

his father bequeathed to him

and in October, went to the Park,

worked his way through the madding crowd

to center field and there, struggled to hold on

but ascended the Greasy-Pole, then descended it,

arm-locking the great salami and clutching

the little starchy american flag with its C-note

wrapped tightly around its narrow staff.

Dominic Petrucci briefly drove
for the "Vet's Safety Cab" Company 

and died soon after at thirty-two of chronic

liver disease directly attributed to alcohol abuse

no more than half-a-block from where

the Greasy-Pole once stood defiantly before him,

there, where the people cheered in great celebration,

the man who'd die in the room where the whole of his life

was soon to vanish from the mouth of the city of his birth

along with his singular accomplishment; all to vanish save here.

                                                    Fall River, Massachusetts