did Ozzy Osbourne

bite the head off an actual bat

or did he bite the top of D’Elia’s

unforgettable ash 32” baseball bat?

there’s much debate about this

between the articles of baseball lore

and rock n’ roll’s sleazy legends.

now Ozzy’s dead and D’Elia

cannot be reached for comment.

a reporter for the Holmes Gazette 

recently stated: given D’Elia’s

age and condition (accurate bunter,

fast up the first base line, couldn’t hit for shit)

we don’t have much time to get the left-

fielder’s side of the story.”

 

                  requiem for Sharon Beattie in 1958

Sharon was a real beauty,

tall and lithe with a captivating smirk

which sent lesser young men

to woodworking shop concealing their boners.

I was around and so was she

but sometimes I got the feeling

that she kept her distance on purpose.

she wasn’t panting for a boyfriend,

she could’ve had any one of them to play with.

later, daydreaming from the 4th floor window

of a cantankerous Study-Hall,

I pinned Sharon Beattie against

my locker on the second floor across from

the room reserved for home economics

and read one of my poems close to her ear;

the one about a terrible car crash which injured

three people and killed an innocent cat.

she was horrified, but in a sense

I was saying: "now you have a reason

to keep your distance" and within the daydream she did,

albeit with a newfound sense of curiosity about me, and

given the persona which was Sharon Beattie, that was enough.

 

                   vignette

If I was around when Chardin was around

and he was a friend of mine and I was a friend of his

and I walked into the room where he was painting a new one,

I might’ve advised him not to paint that slab of raw salmon,

but maybe paint a nice plump pear instead. or a cabbage.

man, would I have been wrong.

every tom-dick-n’ harry was painting pears and apples

and bananas on a table where the fruit bowl sat.

but that slab of raw, bloody salmon! man-o-man.

I could sense it frying in a pan, snapping and sizzling

in a bed of olive oil (if olive oil is what was used back then)

clove of garlic, a pinch of salt & pepper, and a drizzle of fresh lemon..

anyway.––  better to keep my advice to myself is what I do now.

             new document

how to find me

5th floor east

follow the elevator cues

follow the aroma of fine coffee

you may notice a fleeting scent

of Triamcinolone Acetonide Cream USP, 0.1%

which did the trick

listen for the train to Providence

listen for the rumble of big rigs

moving southward and westward

listen for the sound of a doorbell

the sound you'd hear from reruns

of the Donna Reed Show as everyone

reacts with astonishment: "who on earth could that be"?

it’s my chosen ring

to announce incoming calls

better than Bach.

there’s a note on the door

there's a signpost ahead

there's an intruder

into the lives of the dead in there.

                   of the saints and their Plaster-of-Paris statues

as I recall before I shanghaied myself

to the diners, there were two of them of note:

Saint Joseph and Saint Anthony.

then of course Michael the Archangel

spearing the serpent..

and there’s a good one in the corner

of dead Jesus draped across the lap

of Mary, his mother, always the same

expression of overwhelming sorrow.

but on the early approach through the interior

I passed the holy water vessel, quite unsanitary

what with all the working class fingers dipping in

on a weekly basis,–– always three fingers

of the right hand, the three to the immediate

right of the thumb. there’s a process, you see.

then the altar, then the saints, always a tentative stone.

that's the church.

I played baseball for this church. left field;

navigated my rawhide strung 5-fingered glove

through the handlebars then pedaling somewhere into the distance.

destination it’s called.

                   –the Seidman sisters

known as the "Vodka twins"

during the "No Wave" commotion

deserved a life of their own.

sure, they were grungy hardliners

but dressed-up very well

and there’s a soft quality to them

when exposing their legs beneath the slits

of their everyday gowns.

I was told by a bystander

that they were hired to be on-stage

bodyguards for Lydia Lunch who

by the looks of her didn’t need bodyguards.

one kick of those meaty nylon legs and the perp

would be out cold on the dance floor.

I haven’t made up my mind as to whether

or not the Seidman sisters could be referred

to as "eye-candy"–– but I've seen photos

of my younger self taken by others and

I wonder if I would've been eye-candy

to the "Vodka twins".

that is before they killed me.

that is after having their way with me.

                  witness to an event

while standing on the corner watching all the girls go by

(a song sung by the Four Lads, not the Four Lads of Liverpool

but the harmonic Four Lads dressed neatly in permanent tuxedos

and matching pencil-thin bowties)

–– there are the sounds of screeching breaks.

the "screeching breaks” should be the name 

of a rock n’ roll band, a punkish sort-of band,

a no wave band, a band of lunatics who'll

stop you on the street, ask to bum a smoke

then turn your life into a living hell.

but what’re ya gonna do. you state an opinion

then run for cover. that's what. anyway,

who listens anymore? who gives a shit nowadays?

but the screeching breaks of a fast-

moving vehicle was immediate.

then the thud of fatal contact. then the screaming,

curbside onlookers, then the crescendo of commotion

and finally the setting of the scene.

I like the setting of the scene. I rely on the setting of the scene.

the setting of the scene means something beyond the scene itself.

snapshot: having an argument with the wife is a scene.

snapshot: looking down at the Cape Cod Canal

from the highway far above is a scene.

but when someone takes the normalcy of a scene

and creates the setting of the scene, that’s what I like.

but the time will come when the setting of the scene is struck

and everybody goes away.

                    the alternative to the memory of Crispus Attucks

well, Crispus, what do you think?

was it worth two musket balls to the chest

for a measly couple of hundred years

plus half-a-hundred in change?

I don’t believe you’re rolling over in your grave.

I don’t believe you hear me now.

this isn't for you.

this is for me, once again invading

the setting of a scene.

Boston was hot, Crispus; all that commotion

about revolution and the birth of a nation

the one now dying at my feet, but so unlike

the dying for a cause on the cobblestones of Boston.

this isn't the crime scene of your experience, Crispus.

it’s the fundamental vulgarity of 21st century petty theft.

I know what you had in mind when you hit the street and although

I know as surely as you are dead and that the dead stay dead,

Crispus Attucks, like you I'm living among the trespassers who

are trespassing against us.