-The twilight zone-

The crazy mathematics goes this way:

If two locomotives approach each other on the same track

But only close the distance by half, then half of that,

Then half again and so on, the locomotives will never collide.

Two young women held hands.

A man clasped his hands behind his head

To cradle it from impact.

The "Windows On The World" busboy made a parachute

Of his smoldering shirt and stopwatches were locked

At eleven seconds.

Had the fallen closed the distance by half, then half of that,

Then half again and so on,––

Had the two young women holding hands applied

The benefit of this calculus to this day they’d be falling.

                   Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize didn’t change my life, but

I was watching the game on television in the top of the 5th

during a rain delay when out of nowhere I was informed that

Bob Dylan had won the Nobel Prize for literature.

my thoughts immediately turned to my friend, unknown, unpublished, starving

in Cholula, and writing the best poems of his weary life in postwar Mexico.

here’s one José sent to me last month:

"the sun, she sets

over the pueblo

and the donkey,

he drinks

from the shallow

pan where

the broken

tractor, it leaks

and my dog, he howls

at the sun

too stupid to know

it isn’t the moon."

now there's a damn righteous poem right there if you ask me.

anyway, I like that Dylan won the Nobel Prize.

I was there, in Newport in '65 when he moaned, electrically charged:

"I ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more."

I neither booed nor cheered being too drunk on yards of beer, but

what it says is.. I've got skin in the game. but, christ.

It’s been over two hours and damn!

the tarp still covers the infield at Fenway.

          -Lady Madonna comes to Newport-

           she lives in southeastern Florida where it’s warm ––

           in December.

           sounds like a long distance.

           but she visits me on Thanksgiving weekend because, well,––

           what the hell, she’s visiting her family up here, anyway.

           so I book an early afternoon lunch in Newport; a dining room

           at an Inn of outstanding repute overlooking the North Atlantic.

           the afternoon skies are overcast, but the light’s translucent here in paradise.

           the seascape is stepping into its winter portal.

           the frontage to the water clings to a rolling green and the rocky cliff's

           at land's end seem stable enough to hold us for another few hundred years.

           but as we sit at our table (by a window with an ocean view)

           she tells me: "the atmosphere up here is bleak”.

           I'm more than marginally annoyed with her assessment

           but find it common among people who dwell in warm climates.
           maybe they should just stay put. but–– she's a loved one.

           so we lunch in Newport under overcast skies without enough outside sunshine

           to please her and after lunch we have drinks at the bar.

           she's fucked-up with her regional findings,–– but

           she shimmy's like the bushy head of a watered palm-tree.

          (I have the needle-tipped whiskers of an old harbor seal)

           I should count my blessings in good fortune.

           Lady's a jazz vocalist ––

           the front-girl with a band.

           and ––

           she's a board-certified, published "Healer".

           the broken-hearted are drawn to her and.. 

           And –– she heals them!

           become unbroken my lovelies.

           she’s Lady Madonna in Newport and she tells me paradise is bleak.

           

birthday blues / pianissimo and languendo /  8.22.

Damn.  was it birthday time already?

my son!.. mea culpa! mea maxima culpa!

sure, I can be faulted, but in my defense

time zips along without hand-written notifications.

and wouldn't you know that on your special day

the orange-tinted lunatic was threatening the airwaves,

Los Angeles was under fire and needed a drink,

Afghanistan was a bloody, dusty mess, (unlike last year,

you know, all grassy, fragrant and cheerful)

and I hear through the grapevine that republican

knuckleheads were scheming an initiative to pollute

the atmosphere of Venus!

what a whacky buncha cocoanuts. I mean,

the place is pretty much screwed as it is, right?

well, what's left for me to say?.. guilty!

#birthday #piano #languendo #pizza

                   Bruegelville

there’s a blue, red-trimmed chancery cursive

neon sign high above the curtain. the sign’s perfect;

a perfectly glowing neon sign which would look good

hanging behind the bar in any downstairs rumpus room,

not one intermittently flawed, buzzing letter,

the first clue that this was going be a bad dream.

the curtain opens to turmoil.

dense, frantic crowds fill the arena, and

protruding from the water, a fish-head swallows

what appears to be the mechanical leg of a whole man!

below, there's something which appears to be pole fishing into

what could be interpreted as the iris of an eye, filled with horrified folks,

and toward the upper left of the arena there’s an ornament of sorts

stuffed with tortured, naked figures hanging from an inverted cone

bending by the weight of it, and this mesmerizing unpleasantness

sits atop a huge goo-goo eyed head regurgitating human and animal life!    

the dream’s soundless, but I’m sure there’s screaming.

a central figure of a woman is seen running, stage left,

who has sacked what appears to be kitchenware, which

could be classified as: "her own", "looting", or "the spoils of war".

most disturbingly, near dead center, a bare-ass woman,

bends at the waist, carrying a boat upon her back–– 

she's grasping the port-side top rail with her left hand and in her right,

a worrisome type of what is later defined as a constipation tool. 

the boat's a sort-of smack, keel-less, perhaps a small troop carrier, four combatants

on board, and all four tucked inside a bubble sitting amidships,–– and she's pooping                                  with the aid of the intrusive constipation tool, dark, defensive waist-matter upon

the townsfolk below, who are storming the gates of the stone fortress!  meanwhile,

toward the right of the arena, we find a 16th century colander (no holes, yet) of armed

soldiers, who appear to be fending off "we the people" under a flaming sky, then

upward still, the burning's complete with frightening Whoville-type creatures,

and one of them is doing handstands upon the skeletal remains of the fortress!

I’m at the edge of reason, but

I awaken to 21st century aroma therapy and the scent of pancakes.

     

                  

                   the visitor

departing on the westbound train 

I remain noncommittal

so there's not much to unpack.

they’re old friends,

now on South University, first floor,

higher ceilings, and easier access to work

as I've been informed with their invitation.

I’m on top of my game rearranging the contents

of a temporary space with an aptitude at making

adjustments to stabilize a shifting point of view.

geography took the measure of us,–– the years

punctuating the measure on their arrival at the depot.

her hair is tightly cropped, greying

in arcs behind her ears. he wears

a powder blue, open-collared oxford.

three days to the eastbound train.

dinner's at six in the small

dining room just off the kitchen.

a young, dry red is poured by her husband

with a sincere sense of hospitality and the sound

of her voice is gracious and lovely, still.

it's three of us at the table who are older,

three of us who have decades of stories to tell.

genuine contentment surrounds the table

and surely they'll ask me to stay another day.

Dolce:

1.

From the middle latitudes, prevailing westerlies

settle into their destinations

 ––and on a heading northeast by east

approach the mouth of Mount Hope Bay

––and driving further northward lay their introductions

upon the red-cedar clapboard at the banks

of the Taunton River running southward

––and there from a window's perch the young

cat, black and glistening considers her acquisitions.

(In the distance, muted rolls of thunder serve

as prelude to rejuvenating rainfall.)

2.

An interlude of sorts finds the breakfast table set

with seedless rye toast, glaze of pineapple marmalade, and coffee;

"a highly intense dark roast with smoky undertones and dried

fruit notes" as the bag romances the bean will come to be.

epilog:

The short-haired black patters to her station

enlightening the pale indifference of linoleum

when a knock at the door intrudes upon the morning's suite,

and I respond without apprehension to the unexpected.

 

-Including Fragments of a Poem Revisited-

So that’s it.

I’m pulling out all the stops,

adjusting the dashboard's choke for a jolt of lead ––

yanking the chain transporting the evacuated.

I’m stepping-out with a new
pair of shoes or at the least
Shinola glazing the toe-tips of the old pair of shoes.
I, too, can tell a story.

So that’s clear.

In the meantime, the restless poets exposing their spines

on the shelf have been known to repeat themselves.

From Mexico comes Octavio Paz.

I’ll read him again tonight when the traffic is culled by the late

afternoon time-of-day or the work-a-day weary hand of God.

Tonight, Octavio Paz

will have the opportunity to repeat himself.

        "My hands

         open the curtains of your being"

I've read this line before.

Something has fallen beyond the tree-line toward the river.

        "My hands

         invent another body for your body"

Octavio Paz has come to repeat himself.

But didn't I say I, too, can tell a story?

"Salutat"

"Salutat" is hung for viewing.

In the fight game

a salute to the crowd comes
after the gloves are pulled by attendants
from the prizefighter's fists.
Outside the ring, the featherweight

stands exhausted, saluting his acceptance
to the crowd's recognition.
The oil painting, towering

above its own dimensions

glistens under a bronzed patina

in aging lacquer as if soaked in its own sweat.

"Salutat" is hung for viewing

and it smells of blood and spit in here.

Thomas Eakins at the Crapo Gallery,
The Swain School of Design, New Bedford, Massachusetts. (1966)

                                           

-Regarding Marguerite's Ascension-

1.

With the measurement of time and distance considered,

If a star exploded last night I wouldn’t have known.

It's a rare, deep sleep with clinical aids in capsule form

Dissolved in the bloodstream with the measured accuracy

Expected of any prescribed pharmaceutical.

As for last night's celestial activism,

I wouldn’t have known.

It’s in the raucous company

Of Hector Berlioz this late afternoon

Acting out his visions of Heaven and Hell;

Of how through circumstance, he who loved descends

Into the abyss as she, the loved-one ascends to paradise. 

"La Damnation de Faust" is its calling;

A fitting requiem to a deep-sky object

Reaching its existence.

2.

It's a wide berth the skies grant unto us.
Inside, another Monday begins to slip beyond itself

With little time remaining to consider what to make of it.

“and now it’s all... This!”:  John Lennon

The first installation:

1.

Christ, it's late.

I’m looking into gimmicks for a leg-up ––
a jumpstart.

Better to be more like Picasso

having fun painting bullfights on dinner-plates

with Bardot breathing down his neck.

2.

Morning, and the guy from “Saladmaster”

who beats-up on regular pans shows-up unannounced at the door.

He tells me of his idea to incorporate

the "whack-a-pan" gimmick into the sales-pitch.

I kicked his ass out.

The second installation.

A revisionist's catechism:
1.
The slow-roving Rabbi ran fast into bad timing.
That's why they killed him.

Sure, the guy was largely maniacal and probably lonesome, but
I'm listing "bad timing" as the immediate cause of the Nazarene's death.

You bring a guy back from the dead four days beyond the fact

in the middle of the desert among an audience of scorpions and lizards?

I submit for the prosecution's consideration the charge against

the Galilean: –– Bad timing!

2.

Finale:

Imagine waking-up in the morning on the outskirts

of a muddled consciousness.
Now imagine yourself capable of bringing them back from the dead.

The Infinite Nature of the Untitled Poem

I was a bike rider and then

a lover of women and then

an observer of women.
I was reflected within the drop of my time

standing alongside the transported.

We gathered as early folksongs eased their way

across the square of a marketplace

where tables of fresh-baked breads were set.

We ripped bread from their loaves,

sampled various cheeses
and tasted the dry, local reds
poured from the necks of perennial black-glass bottles.
I took on the shape of hydrogen.

I asked: "Am I dead"?

The physical properties were senseless.

I took on a particle's shape

passing through barriers like a slick neutrino,

or the sage, Mr. Natural.

I became the smallest of living creatures.

The comic protozoa bumped into me
with what might have been their heads

then veered toward other destinations, going about

the aquatics of their infinite routines,–– and then

through what might have been the passage of time
I settled into the vast sea of introductions, waiting

for whatever might drift my way.

                  -the hoppa'grassa'-

1.

To stalk grasshoppers, the small-game hunter

departs the first floor tenement

through the creaking screen door of the kitchen

moving toward the backyard then into the deep
meadow grass surrounding the vegetable garden;

his weapon of choice, an empty jar reserved for preserves

of one kind or another, twisted free of its once faultless lid

now punctured with air-holes delivered by a hammered

six-penny nail.

The small-game hunter stalks his prey on the fertile ground

where hornworms pant for tomatoes, approaching with the stealth

of a lioness eyeing her prey on the great savanna.

He’s a patient hunter, but fast-at-hand scooping the grasshopper

into the jar, closing the lid with a quick half-turn at its flights.

But one grasshopper is never enough and when the count has reached

the limit of his interest, he'll screw the tin lid down and the hunt is done.

2.
From the strength of her kitchen window,
his young mother calls-out with authority.

It seems the small-game hunter

has left the screen door open and the flies are coming in.

Quequechan / 1952

                 -A pre-concert situation at the first Smoot-

I had plenty of time before the performance

of Sofia Gubaidulina's "Offertorium" –– 

so I drove northbound on Massachusetts Avenue

toward its bridge spanning the river, but stopped short of crossing it.

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

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

From my sightline, Harvard, sitting northwest along the river

was 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 confrontation with M.I.T.

remained unresolved, I had my hands full with confronting

the complexities of Sofia Gubaidulina's "Offertorium."