another dream, another time, another place

being next in line, I walked to the “disposition” desk where

official papers were being stamped, and was summarily put in charge of gravity.

with my sarcasm in full bloom I asked: “inside my house, or citywide”?

ignored, I was handed a pamphlet and required to stand beside the famous

“Backwards Man” of yesteryear illusionism.

(there's an intriguing photograph of the "backwards man"

taken by Diane Arbus in NYC in 1961, if you'd like to take a look.)

instinctively speaking to the back of his head, I asked a few questions

but he had nothing to say to me, and he simply continued to drift

the way a dead fish drifts with the current, a rudderless, vulgar momentum

without a clearly defined destination.

–– yonder, I found a solitary bench in a solitary park and sat down

to read my pamphlet: “Being In Charge Of Gravity For Beginners”, but

I abandoned the pamphlet leaving it unopened and unread with only the bench

to keep it company. I didn’t want to be in charge of gravity.

––back at the desk for “disposition” I demanded another assignment,

one closer to "Reed's Road" beach where in 1952 the older, intriguing

Gina DeCorpo adjusted the top of her one-piece running the strap

over the slow, roll of her sun-drenched shoulder with a mesmerizing 

"do you like me?" wink in the process.

that was it. my first boner, or at least the first I remember as a functioning unit. 

but at the desk for "disposition" a new official document was stamped

and heatedly handed to me which read:

“don’t make this situation more difficult for yourself. you’re in charge of gravity”.

the mill town with heavy granite mills and lots of towering smokestacks billowing

smoke all over the town and up through the clouds to smear with soot the face of God.

history of life part one:

In my life, traveling south one could look in any direction

and see a grouping of massive textile mills. the same was true

when traveling north, and west and east. there were

aerial views of the mills one could see when visiting

the Historical Society, and with a sense-of pride

while telling strangers that the mills were built with granite

quarried from right here in the town where they sat,––

heavy-footed, sweltering, smoking from their stacks,

and bloated with the weary women of the needle trade,

my mother, and her sisters among them, along with

the mothers and sisters from across the neighborhoods.

It was a rare sight to see a working textile mill go out of business.

Fall River made its bones in the sweat of its women, and was marked

with the same block letters as Boston and New York in maps hung

in classrooms all over town. true, the maps were produced in the

late 1800s and early 1900s, but I wasn’t too far behind.

my old uncle Octavio told tales of walking to the Sagamore Mill

as a young “cloth-lapper” dodging ferocious dinosaurs along the way.

and the century turned to the south where cheap labor was abundant

and raw cotton was a footprint away, and up here came the closings,

and came the conflagrations from the oil-soaked floors, first one then another,

and then another, and then one after another.

history of life part two:

collating …

                   the deliverymen

the kitchen was set.

the screen door

screeched when it opened

and screeched when it closed.

some flies moved in

as others moved out

depending on the invitation.

the deliverymen

came with their goods

and with their bills

for services rendered.

eggs and milk, and bread,

and coal and kerosine.

the Encyclopedia Brittanica guy

came in with a heavy attitude. 

Phil came inside with the tube

the Zenith needed in order

to perform its task and to free us

from the dark ages.

he bobbed and weaved behind

the blonde-veneered 4-

legged beauty, as he struggled

to detach the old tube,

and ‘though it was “no good for nothin’”

–– still, he placed it in the compartment

of his toolkit as one would place

the dead parakeet into the vacant

Ohio Blue Tip matchbox with its

uniquely magical sliding lid.

also delivered were tails

of Italian sausage

from Gioconni’s on the corner

of Healy and Quarry streets.

                   addendum to “the accordion lesson”

we began the slow descent from the 4th floor:

seven mothers, seven kids, eight 20 pound accordions, cousin Paul,

and me, the lone male non-participant of the great and terrible accordion wars.

(the 4 story red brick building also housed occasional meetings

of the I.L.G.W.U.–– the International Ladies Garment Workers Union)

on the first floor, of which my mother was a card-carrying member

who paid her dues and went to work among the "balers" and “frame-spinners”

and "inner-hatband stitchers" and among the “slubber-doffes"; my mother,

first disciplinarian of my person inside the walls of the frantic house)

“Billy! put those things in the hamper”!

“Billy! go wash those hands”!

“Billy! go get your father some Luckies”!

 but on the long way down from the suffering echoes of eight air-breathing accordions,

all were equal in the eyes of God, and when the ground floor doors flung open

to the light of day on Second Street directly across from Alfonso Petrillo's dank subterranean "Roma Café".. I say unto you.–– the sea parted!

breakfast with Mussorgsky

7:45 AM

It's Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”––

Eugene Ormandy and his sumptuous Philadelphians;

the 9th track: “Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells”

as I whisked 3 eggs for the morning’s french toast.

the irony of Mussorgsky's track and the preparation of eggs

seemed to escape me, and I cooked and ate the 4 slices

with a pat of butter for each slice and a generous pour

of 100% pure Vermont maple syrup, and as the Philadelphians

continued their march to "..Bald Mountain" and with a bellyful

of french toast, I made a few calls to fend-off the collectors, then entered

the balance of my day summoning the chosen ghosts to be resurrected.

8:22 AM

 

––I’ll have to convene a meeting with the gods to determine

why in hell I didn’t receive “The Last Synagogue in Alexandria”

with the same tactile resonance as with other poems printed in the volume.

––the gods deliberated and adjudicated me as: "an idiot of the first order"

and with that justifiable tongue-lashing in tow, I re-visited the poem,

with a repentant eye, the way an empty-headed puppy looks into the space

between itself and the scowling homeowner after another shag carpet incident.

––so, pushing the gods adjudication aside, I'm currently in the process

of placing "The Last Synagogue in Alexandria" into the rapidly

expanding "mea culpa" footnotes to the enlightened "mucho respect" column.

(of Chloe Martinez /  "Ten Thousand Selves" / "The Word Works")

––I dreamed of plucking the yellow-headed piss-in-beds

from a parched roadway in a territory beyond the borderline

some time before my scheduled arrival.

––I dreamed of rushing to rescue a damsel in distress 

faster than a tsetse fly moves from place to place, growing older

and wiser on the approach.

––I dreamed of being reimagined as cellist Jacqueline Du Pré’s 

1673 Stradivarius nestled warmly between her legs for the night's

performance of the Brahms 2nd sonata in F.

these are the dreams I'll interpret for you in grater detail

upon my return from the fact-finding mission to correct.

 

H.W. Longfellow called me last night from a phone booth

somewhere in the downtown area.

It was rainy and cold and as far as I could tell he needed

a place to stay for the night. I said I was busy and hung up.

but he called back saying: “let me come over and I’ll tell you

what a poem is."

I've never taken the time to read his stuff outside of grade school,

but he's well-known and I saw this as an opportunity to get in on the action.

“ok. come-up.–– but wipe your feet.”

Longfellow was drenched, his hair was a natty mess and he smelled

like a damp kitchen sponge after a month’s use.

“so gimme the goods, Hank! what’s a poem?”

he stared into space for a moment and murmured:

“anything writ which ends in:

“my feet show it, they’re Longfellows” is a poem.”

I kicked his ass out into the cold rainy night and an admirable literary history. 

the end.

                    

                    five things to consider during my time at the table

1.  the vinegar-fly, or fruit-fly, as it appears zigzagging

over my quartered cantaloupe seeming to will itself against

landing on a hard surface like Karl Wallenda before the fall.

2.  the glaze of the compact disc where music plays

when spun to its manufactured function.

3.  it’s Bruno Maderna’s “Satyricon”  (sung in English)

where we find Fortunata, Trimalchio’s wife, complaining

of one thing or another.

this is expression personified, where italian gestural exaggerations

are deemed necessary to compensate for the stiff angularity

of the recorded language. 

4.  and because it's laying there every morning, the little pink

oblong-shaped simvastatin pill which helps control a high-middle

range diagnosis of my cholesterol level.

but even when sung in English I’m done-for without

5.  the "Satyricon" libretto.