I (fabrication)
Arthur Quincy folds his arms together
Sensing that interfering desire again!
Cant shake this fugue
Or forget the bad stuff he used to take/
Its a lingering presence/
The residual ash in his eyes blinking coffins & dazzling premonitions to the other smalltown poets writing in
Their kitchens to the sound of
Wheatgrass dancing outside in June and
A vacuum's warm considerate hum
From upstairs.
Post office on strike and
Cars being made with straw MAN he thinks
What happened here???
The day crossed out with faulty watches
And parkbench *** fantasies
& the crude laughing regular here
Sipping his tea
Wondering if he'll ever be as much a hit with the ladies as he was in the 1970s
Former beggarman Quincy lays himself out in an empty parking lot feeling invulnerable to the snow
As it collects over his shirt he whistles a happy tune from a date he went on before
The great sourness shelled him out of
Social fulfillment.
Now he keeps to himself
Making stories out of his bedroom and
Crying
crying for
His first love &
The laundry place shut down now wheres he gonna go/
Old Quincy used to smoke expensive tobacco but has since decided to save it for whenever he remarries. Or a brilliant morning where the neighbor sleeps in so he can sleep in too.
The view from his window is a continous rotation of wet crows who peer in and for a brief moment see the man's hands to his head making sure his hair hasn't fallen off yet..
House walls heavy with age
expose themselves occasionally
With an after image of past inhabitors,
The essence of their dry lips
Or olive cotton sweaters hanging from a rocking chair,
The enthusiasm of a corner lamp
Unappreciated by all
Past and present.
II (veteran romantic)
Arthur Quincy shelters his mind from strange ideas
Or conspiracy he hasn't "lost it" yet at least!
He has a hobby of painting the active society and
Expresses mood as colorful clouds
Floating out the skull of us to
Blend in an energy pollinating the
Deli and antique shop and yoga studio
V A P O R
to be swallowed by accident and catch the empathic disease of the
Depressed and jubilant simultaneous,
Makes easy living confusing and
Impossible to achieve in an absolute way!
He carries this belief
When interacting with others
Arthur Quincy understands
That balance is key to fulfillment
(so far as his life is concerned)
However, hardly anyone has seem him laugh and so assumes he doesn't have the ability to.
In reality he saves his joy and holds it to lift his lungs from despairing all day long to be released
Late afternoon in the comfort of home
As a display of feral bellows and supernatural ecstasy. This seems somewhat overromantic and exaggerated but someone has claimed to have had the rare pleasure of witnessing it!
Arthur calls the same address once a week, an anonymous voice speaks from the line opposite and while mysterious
It is clear he adores this voice. He adores the unacted subtlety and passion in this voice.
He smiles when he hears this voice which is simply enough.
Nearby those naive poets use Arthur as a muse sometimes too directly
Often referencing rumors of his hermetic life
Or retreating into his headspace
Unrealistically blowing his experiences into fable
And turning even his stirless sleep into a fabulous fruitbasket of language.
On the surface he appears forlorn and
Bitter with the winter gradually molding to his skin. Like anyone can tell you he has felt this before! Haven't you? But through all the stories and impossibilities of Arthur he is reserved in his
Knowing of important things. He is reserved in revealing that he not only knows how music sounds but where music comes from. He never reads the newspaper out of habit to feel in-the-know. He never lies about his feelings or his intentions.
Arthur exists in the
Glow of himself
And persists on breathing the glow of the street,
He is a wordless poet and veteran romantic.
III (funeral)
One day Arthur passed away a few weeks from Thanksgiving.
His name put on the paper he never read
And examined by a young girl
Who was only hearing of him now.
"Arthur C. Quincy/ 73/ passed away this Saturday. To be remembered as a quiet and misunderstood man envigored with the lightness only percieved by a rare and special few"
This description came as a surprise to those who knew Quincy as the claustrophic and uninteresting grump
Who's sidewalk idlings were unexplained and strangely hostile.
He saw the sky and its shifting canvas,
He saw the distant cats leaned on balconies impressed with the daytime ambiguity in firestations and libraries.
He would conjur a grin
From the passive conversation between a mother and her son.
He once saw two strangers fall for each other on the bus! A conjoined sun had bloomed between them.
Just a few attended the funeral. Upon inspection of his house following Arthur's death, someone found a will left for Helen Ashbury. A 55 year old woman who lived a three day drive away in Michigan..An identity to his weekly telephone fantasy!
It assumed all of his belongings to her, among them a military grade flashlight with his carved initials, a photograph of his time as a lumberer signed to "Peter! All the best in Costa Rica" and a copy of W.C Williams collected poems. Where folded on page 206 as part of the poem "Orchestra" was highlighted
"I love you. My heart is
innocent.
And this is the first day of the world!"
Eventually Helen Ashbury received the news of Arthurs passing, as well as these things.
At the sight of the poem she wept,
the man she only knew through a voice after years of correspondence.
Upon being questioned she refused to explain their meeting in the first place. That was a special time, a time which the public would misinterpret or slander with rumor.
While Arthur wasn't widely loved in the town during his life, he was a popular topic from death on. As more information came out! Serving in world war II and his companionship with a parisian ***,
Who shared the wonder of the rooftop and spoke on the value of tea as a food replacement.
He once met a girl there at a dance and in a show electrified with lust they moved to Lucienne Boyer without the knowledge of who would win the war.
He had a son with her, Who resided in France most of his life as Quincy regrettably
Abandoned their situation to
Pursue other things, in his journal he admits his wish to have connected with him more, referring to his leaving as the worst mistake in his life.
All of this masked behind his firm neutrality. His walk lacking suggestion and his wrist without the delicacy of a painter (not that people knew he painted and so didn't pay attention to anything like that)
He was buried by noon. Some say his son was at the funeral. People gave their partings, and Helen wanted so badly to say goodbye to him. Instead left with his curios and his infinite voice.
IV (i'll be around)
The following year at a yard sale Helen came across a series of musty and used records. In the stack of them was a Cab Calloway compilation. Nestled in his desperate wailings and hi-de-** was the track "I'll Be Around" a slow and patient song that Arthur sang to her once. She recalled that night with ease, and felt her shoulders sink at the thought.
The album was $4, on the drive home she watched the trees shake with the wind, their leaves transluscently pale at the angle she was going. She could feel a weight there in her chest. The weight of him, of his heart supposing itself onto hers magnetically. She rolled down the windows and let the wind surround her, blowing her blonde hair back and forcing her to squint a little.
"I love you. My heart is innocent"
she recalled the poem he left for her. Of course not written by him but it felt as deeply personal as if he had.
"-and this is the first day of the world!"
Helen lifted a cigarette out from her purse. The drag extinguishing immediately as it's trail left the car. A bewilderment slowly consumed her.