The air suffused
with warm sweat
traced in humors  
blood-stuffed vapor
at body temp
leaking, aching
engorged clouds
drop
lop
lap at back, my shoulders, neck
No wind, no thunder
drives them, harsh
Just sopped
they plop into cotton creases  
Pumped
out
into love's still hungry
art
– eries

Cover deck chairs
Reel in the line

Clothes stick to skin and wanting in
so filled and touching
everywhere
ever-so saturated

I want it sated

I want it raining

They are wild things
Sometimes, I swear
I need a shotgun
but so as not –
to hurt the words

I hack them out of weeds
Break the ice to drag them out
Throw rocks at them in trees

Turn around three times fast
and collapse
Sometimes I catch one
still spinning dizzy
floating circle-words in breeze

I command nothing

The poems always have their way

I command nothing!

Not love –  Not time –  Nor hate
Nor sun –  
but the moon-rise –  
maybe

...in dream-light

...and there’s no one there to hear it,
does it make a sound?
_______

My poetry performed—
before a crowd of johnny-jump-ups
Their faces toward me in unison—
they listen
Intense, motionless energy
Velvet applause of purple and
Yellow yelling!

Encore
of performing in the perfume
with a troop of lilacs
They will remember me
While I— await their return to May
through billowing miles
of drowsing sachet
breathing euphorias
between the lingerie of clouds

What happens after ecstasy?

Grieving in life’s presence?
Loss of mind to self-possession?
____

...and when my sense of smell gives out
I will hold on for a while
to the walker of hearing
trying not to stumble past
the song of thrush
beyond me in the blurring leaves
once so clearly—
crinkled, shiny, and infant green….
___

As a child I held on to nothing
for dear life
I could cup a storm in my hands!
Could run with the rhythm of a horse!
I could fly in my mind’s eye
if the ferns I used were only wings!
If I pretended hard enough
I could eat my own home-baked mud pies!

If only I could be—

more than a fledgling of eight
so earthbound, clumsy  
___

But while the lilacs were out of town
thunder met the flash
and gutted summer!

I ran for dear life!
from the amazing distance of its echoes
pelted by its gentle gift
Snagged by growing things—
the clinging prattle
of their momentous tendrils....  
____

Lovers run off the path
past water lilies
along the swollen veins to the river
toward a grave and pounding heart

The Ancient Flood was jealous....

Now when the wind softens
and rain is tossed
last, and only from the leaves
may their encore be cupped in the hands
of some passer-by
Remembering—
that either because of a trifling wind
or the weight of time...

a tree fell here
clubbing the river’s bank senseless

I fell Once
for a banjo
and an Irish tenor

I have this rebel
daughter

I First Saw Scranton
...and did not unpack
my life
Iron--    ic  
as if always
meant to be a rusted ruin
I first saw Scranton
Not much of a view
beyond the smoldering mountains of the culm
dumps, decrepit
mills, of once...
prosperous coal
city in denial  
decay of Great mansions--abandoned
on the Hill    
away
from clapboard and spit hovels
of miners
in the barren
mud beside the river
below
and I remember thinking:

"How can I ever live here?" 

I own one of those hovels now
48 years-- under foot and harnessed
in the stays 
Just another in a string of small
sad 
cities'
people
so used
and
waiting
to be
covered up
once again by heaviness--
Its sin  
in the mercy of snow...

It was the time of my Auntie Bee summers
   I was small then
   She had a parakeet that landed on my head
   and a bathtub too
   with water so deep!
   and legs and claws!
   **** thing nearly chased me down the stairs!

She lived in slumbery Windsor Locks
   where bugs hung-out in the haze
   of teenage August
   I played in the tall weeds
   with a shoeless Italian boy
   who ate tomatoes like apples
   and cucumbers right off the vine!
   He was ***** free and foreign!
   We played— reckless, abandoned
   behind the gas pump, under the tractor, in the barn   
   and through the endless fields
   I didn’t know....
   His name was Tony
   I ate pizza with him—the first time

At Auntie Bee’s I had to go to bed at eight
   but I could watch night flowers
   bloom on wallpaper
   She came in to say good night
   slippered, shadowy, night dress slightly open
   and I peeped her *******!
   like Tony’s cucumbers!
   I had never seen my mother’s wonders....

Night spread its wings from the old fan—
   a bird of tireless exhaustion
   whipped, whipped, whipped to death in its cage
   tireless exhaustion
   tic-tocking in time to a wind-up clock
   stretched out on the whine
   of the overland trucks
   Route Five through the night of an open window

In the grape arbor below—
tremulous incessant
   crickets    crickets    crickets
tremulous incessant—insides of a child
   a summer child
   not yet ready for the fall of answers

Auntie Bee had a daughter—Maureen
   I followed her everywhere I could
   I was small then--    
   do anything for a stick of Juicy Fruit
I followed Maureen through my dreams
   of being sixteen
   and woke to Peggy’s “Fever”
   while she tied her sneakers
   against the mattress by my head

I followed Maureen (in my mind)
   tanned and bandanned
   to work in the fields of shade tobacco
   with all those Puerto Rican boys!
   She knew where she was going!

I was small then
...do anything for a stick of  gum

“Mauney! Mauney! Mauney!”
   ...through the goldenrod of roadside
   through the smell of oil that damped the dust    
I followed Maureen’s white shorts
   and chestnut hair...to the corner store
I followed the way the boys smiled
   the way the screen door slammed
   on her bright behind
   the way her lips taunted and took
   the coke-bottle’s green
I followed Maureen

I swear, I tried for hours to get that right!

Must have been Peggy Lee’s “Fever”

Maureen ties her sneakers in my face
Flaunts her years above my head
She has that look—
“We kids don’t know nothin”
(Little turds” that we be)

…followin’ Maureen
through the goldenrod of roadside
tic-tockin’, beboppin’

“Fever— in the morning
Fever all through the night….”

It was the time of my Auntie Bee summers
   I was small then
   She had a parakeet that landed on my head
   and a bathtub too
   with water so deep!
   and legs and claws!
   **** thing nearly chased me down the stairs!

She lived in slumbery Windsor Locks
   where bugs hung-out in the haze
   of teenage August
   I played in the tall weeds
   with a shoeless Italian boy
   who ate tomatoes like apples
   and cucumbers right off the vine!
   He was ***** free and foreign!
   We played— reckless, abandoned
   behind the gas pump, under the tractor, in the barn  
   and through the endless fields
   I didn’t know....
   His name was Tony
   I ate pizza with him—the first time

At Auntie Bee’s I had to go to bed at eight
   but I could watch night flowers
   bloom on wallpaper
   She came in to say good night
   slippered, shadowy, night dress slightly open
   and I peeped her *******!
   like Tony’s cucumbers!
   I had never seen my mother’s wonders....

Night spread its wings from the old fan—
   a bird of tireless exhaustion
   whipped, whipped, whipped to death in its cage
   tireless exhaustion
   tic-tocking in time to a wind-up clock
   stretched out on the whine
   of the overland trucks
   Route Five through the night of an open window

In the grape arbor below—
tremulous incessant
   crickets    crickets    crickets
tremulous incessant—insides of a child
   a summer child
   not yet ready for the fall of answers

Auntie Bee had a daughter—Maureen
   I followed her everywhere I could
   I was small then--    
   do anything for a stick of Juicy Fruit
I followed Maureen through my dreams
   of being sixteen
   and woke to Peggy Lee’s “Fever”
   while she tied her sneakers
   against the mattress by my head

I followed Maureen (in my mind)
   tanned and bandanned
   to work in the fields of shade tobacco
   with all those Puerto Rican boys!
   She knew where she was going!

I was small then
...do anything for a stick of  gum

“Mauney! Mauney! Mauney!”
   ...through the goldenrod of roadside
   through the smell of oil that damped the dust    
I followed Maureen’s white shorts
   and chestnut hair...to the corner store
I followed the way the boys smiled
   the way the screen door slammed
   on her bright behind
   the way her lips taunted and took
   the coke-bottle’s green
I followed Maureen

I swear, I tried for hours to get that right!

Must have been Peggy Lee’s “Fever”

Maureen ties her sneakers in my face
Flaunts her years above my head
She has that look—
“We kids don’t know nothin”
(Little turds” that we be)

…followin’ Maureen
through the goldenrod of roadside
tic-tockin’, be-boppin’

“Fever— in the morning
Fever all through the night….”
_


Peggy Lee's Fever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4hXyALR9vI
I was seven years old, but I somehow got this.

...what I don't understand--
what seems a sudden unexplained cultural shift
related to who can afford it.

Whenever money is in the agenda,
my back hairs stand up

It is only by asking questions that others can grow to understand.
I have been following the news on Transexuality since it first appeared on TV and magazines.  It was a story about a little child feeling misgendered.  I was sympathetic to her predicament.

I Was Under the Impression that The First Amendment Was Important Here!

One of those north face nights
cloudless, dreamless
thousands of feet up and clinging
Wedged
between cold and moonlit— still

Red digits cannot contain
the 3:15 that they proclaim

Breathing sideways
to get enough!

The air is paper thin

Idle snow—
loitering….

“Indian burn?
Let me show ya”
He
assaulted my arm, my mind
at once

Cannot protest
or change the scream

of blinding stairwell-

Double-cross

Descent 
of knowing

I will avenge 

will take revenge

at my first… 

blinded spurt of rage
Rebirth as renegade



No age

ever!
forgets!

It is right
that the day is gray
that the sun is not prying
No one should see me
mourning

If I didn't love you
What are these tears
in free fall

The snow is thin and pale today
like that girl –
you thought –
from the Home Depot –
the palette of an empty day

I think, instead
to smooth my hand along your arm
extend dominion 'cross your chest
To till the damp ***** of your shoulder
in surging heat
of earthen tones
to find in winter flames
your brow, your cheek, your neck

...your mouth that way...

This is the braille I'm all about
being far-sighted
and just too close
to even focus on you –
your eyes –
and all
the loss
these days

The deepest reaches of my life
and love and loss --
across the time of one breathing soul
I will harm no one
but my hopeless self
hoping lonely
for an interlude
in the end
A quiet exploration
of you
and maybe me
after loss so long
could we be?
Life and love and loss

I will not say what you beg me to say.
You will never love me-- nor I you.

I own it
I Wrote it!
I lived it!

It's mine
...and to whom it was intended
You have rights to read--only
Maybe you're the only reason I wrote it

Hope it gets to you somehow

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on a string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh
No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say

At first light
it comes unbidden

Mourning--
clenching deep
enough to sound your soul
Stone on string
sent to tell the depth of drowning--
in the tears
without a cry
weary beyond the sigh

No act of will
This weight--
gives no resistance
to the gravity of ocean's metal-gray
They seep along a sloping cheek
in silence

“Only lovers ever go this deep
It's strange,” they say

The sky glides through peach
settles in
to the gray...
I look away

Night

House feels damp
in between
seasons of life
where I try to start a fire
Sky tonight was an amethyst fan
on a ruby line
the sun an ember
rolling golden years  
down the Hills of Scranton
to the city's lights
Across the town
toward that bend in the river

a driving dusk

It’s there—
in our goodbye
in that last glance back
across the heat reflecting
from the roof
Your car between us
The door is open
and your wounded soul

He’s dead at 21— I know
you loved him

I overdose this moment
Paralyzed
our eyes—

go on forever

...or I will not be
I will not beg for love again!
I am worthy of you
or I am not!

I know how to love
I know how to be alone

I hear it
half in the bag of blankets
with an empty glass of wine
dumped
Between--
the furnace rumbling on
and the cat purring on my lap

"What the hell!"

That foreign sound!--

...of water in the winter
Far too cold for rain
more like a forest stream's refrain
I start to think of birds-- Then it occurs

I have a problem in the basement

Wading into the waters of Lake Laundry
Glancing warily for those snakes of wires
suspended from their rafter's limbs
about to spit and snag me
with their lightning strike

Slamming that ****
to make it go--
away--

Defeat
dripping off
jeans and unders
A clothes line pinned
with curses

Ah yes.
The smell of the Tide ...
going out
on another day

Susan
with her china-white skin
relaxed
down to lace bra and *******—

“Have you ever heard this?” she asks

… sets the album, drops the needle
in the groove
We wait till bass fills in the room
sending time and silence empty-handed
down a hallway

Susan lights a joint
settles on the bed
ample legs begging apart
She ***** in deeply
impounding clouds  
Head thrown back
Thick glossy hair—
loses gravity
Eyes half-closed, shadow-heavy
clear and blue like piano
The walls are muted trumpet
stutter-hush of cymbal and the snare
Crackling over scratches

We are barely there

Susan exhales
a swirl of fog to a frail moon
Only her sultry voice still holds me tethered

“Have you ever heard anything— like this?”

Miles flows 
around me
Smoking
On the floor of Susan’s room
lying clothed and drunk
Soaked
with chords and wonder

I never hear him coming

Miles takes his time

Dora! People with big noses are beautiful!
Anyway, Dora of the Noble Nose
as a single rose
as a solitary diamond
so brilliantly in love with Gilbert!
Married
and years later...

She kept the paper folded
in her jewelry drawer...
the paper from the hospital
that said...
she was pregnant!
With you!
in her jewelry drawer!
Joan, My friend
It was you
she kept as folded treasure
till her death at 82

I read your Kaddish, Dora
I watch the shovels fly
as stones collect like children of the prayers
upon your grave

Thank God, Joanie!
You have no heir

At grief’s end
there’s no one left...
to die of love’s enfolding
leaving everything
to...
Joanie Treasure!
Joanie Only!


To my friend, her mother, and father

An early evening gust
broke the back of the day's blaze
Still 90 degrees at eight
in orange haze
Sweat runs down my neck
Through the gorge between my *******
The wind lifts my linen shirt
runs its hands along my sides
reviving memory
of Forest Park
of a blanket in the grass

Where the pines trace
so many faces
Crackling popping kids
stolen matches, running
screaming victorious!
Blowing tin cans up with fire crackers
Bicycles, sparklers, fireworks at dusk
That whole afternoon
I spent hammering caps

Noise really makes us kids
really
especially
annoying

Mom wants us out!
Gone! All of us!
No needs. No excuses!
No cookies! No slices of bologna!
“No more Kool Aid!
Out now!
Out!”

That evening I tried
to dismiss the itchy sweat
of stupid-sister-Suzy-matching-sun-suits
at Gino's family picnic
When some kid
(I don't know?)
between the rigatoni and the sweet corn
Some kid
tosses a sparkler
into box of fireworks
I don't know?
whether to cry or laugh
I was pretty scared
Rockets going off across the lawn
and onto porch
Craze of colors through the trees
Some at eye-level horror!
But the sight of Aunt Nedda
diving under picnic table
Stockings, garter belt upended
Capsized beyond her caring
of uplifted dress

Some images just stay with you, ya know?

July 4th always lands for me
on a firework's ***

...And with the passing of the Solstice
I'm left to wonder...
winter...

Birds do not yet have the news
singing as if it all goes on forever

But the wind has told the chimes
who whisper it to the trees

I let you go
to Philadelphia
I let you go
thirteen goin' on “life”
to your momma-- (God rest her-- and keep you
--from wherever she is)
to your father in Philly
outa the picture

Sheepish in the doorway of my classroom
back again
one last time--

Say good-bye, kid, to your short stay in Scranton
a town that can't rhyme
whose name falls over its own misery
No use for outsiders

“Where's your book?
Found your binder in the rain
Soggy protest to school's demands?
Of course it's yours
I checked, ya know”

"No way!"

Desk's been empty, three weeks now
Still, gotta ask
“Whacha doin?
Where ya been?”

“Khmir,
I'm sorry for your loss....”
Thirty seconds shares our grief
Thirty seconds for your future's-- all I got

“Listen to your teachers!
Do your work!
Please-- be okay?”

Khmir
in your wooly black coat-- like a bear
like a dare
shruggin and dancin in the doorway
of the “show”

Homework? Aint happenin'
But one paper, though
on why--
YOU-- should be president

and I almost vote for you

Wishing to fly my kite again...
The secret of it

I gave up on...
the ones we made in school
of paper stuck in trees

Only by the ocean
could I send one to the sky
Tail of yellow streaming
if the wind was right
Tethered to its spool
My sky-dog
on leash of string
released, unwound
my hope
to send it all aloft
with crescent moon
and golden rocket on the blue--
diamond growing ever smaller
into the light of day
Until it stood above for hours
on the gentling winds
a miracle

Lying in the sand below
I dream about it
tail curling in the currents
on this coldest of days
a miracle
still

Lantern on a Rock

Sometimes I would look at him and know--
by his focus in the distance--
more often than we knew--

Alone
and far off
in the hills of Hatfield
walking with a stick
and can of bait in hand
Past some fields of corn and shade tobacco
like a **** along the road
he made his way

Sometimes to accompany the sun
toward its western home
He lay across Old Jerry's withers
as they clopped along
watching it set over the Connecticut
that curled its orange meandering
around the mountains
of imagining
its contentment

Later
after mother made the diner
with all the colors of a summer's glory
he went fishing in the moonlight
of his youth
with dearest friends

Lantern on a rock
of memory
to light the way

The last shall be first
and the first last

Why talk about it--
as one
is breaking down
in loveless lessons of alone
rumbling 'cross the sky
running lightning's fury
into ground
as if a voice could shake a soul
so softly form its leaping dance
Could call the world
to ground itself
so softly
among the words
to make a landing in the difference...

be enough...

to turn back time
from last, its mission
To tell its vision
like it was
the way it went
to tell the truth
of what it truly is
the way it had to be
to call it down from heaven
Just this once
to say--

I love you

I could not recall the lyrics to the songs
Except for maybe one
“Que sera, sera...”
had no meaning besides its fun
Swing set in the yard
where I learned to fly
to overcome
my fear of
music in the trees
to sing to leaves
to green and blue of sky

Que sera sera
and back and forth before the rain
Que sera
of all this reckoning and rocking back and forth
Que sera...sera
What will be,  will be
the future's not ours to see...

Que sera sera

In my mind
They bloom always
...along the fence
of Mr. Chauncey's yard
who cut and bundled them
for us to give to Mom

And suddenly
purple has a fragrance
I can see...
and another name
that follows me
forever
infusing home
Insisting on it— everywhere  

...though it wavers
in the years
in clouds of Lilac bubbling
Memory's palest purple
amidst the golden-green

...I am a child again
running down the hills of May
dizzy
in bee buzzing
Floating
in the lush warmth
and parachutes of fluff—
Next year's dandelions aloft
in the ends of this year's spring

Turning ferns to wings
twisted into tee shirt sleeves
We fly by sheer will to do so
Pretend to hide our nests
in forest of the lilac

Somehow it wasn’t right to cry
for someone who
no one knew—for years
though everyone knew about Lil
She was the crazy burden
of an orphaned family
whose memories rearrange the winter shadows

“Are we dressed right?
Are our faces adequately sad?”

They loved the skinny, happy kid
Loved—the ones who loved her
knew her from “The Old Neighborhood”

Two sisters approach the body
echoed in black and navy
holding each other’s hand
They look down at her—
They look her over
They overlook—“The Old Neighborhood”
of the Lillian they had hoped for—
took care of as a child....

And in the din of last respects
a comment from an older gentleman—

“The Goldrick girls were all such lookers”

So I was her niece
and not from “The Old Neighborhood”
I have memories of my own....

I was rich when Lil brought play money
from Misquamicut
She brought whelks and slipper shells too
My ear cupped close
I first heard the sea

Not as beautiful as I expected
nor as beautiful as I would know
She gave them with love—without telling
where and when that I would go....

Her hands were always cool and sweaty
Always trembling
Always a cigarette
and an argument in the background

From the height of three
and hugging knees
I see her face against the ceiling’s
white—with panic

Her eyes are never with me
I know someone is with her

“The Goldrick girls were all such lookers....”

Beleaguered beauty
Frail, with stiff grace
she glances sideways
Checking for my safety?

“Our names too close! Confused too often!”

I was to know her horror— as I know her sea

...Her laughter, too late for the conversation
a smoky hysteria
that will not share with her eyes
She stumbles backward through her childhood
as if she has mislaid something

She wants to go roller skating
with her sister, eight months pregnant
besieged by diapers
with stew on the back burner

...And Lil wants to go back...
to a time at the Rialto
to the *****’s boogie

to the edge—before
The Depression declared WAR—

on someone who
no one knew
for years!

And is it okay yet?
...to let her sea out of me!

It burns so!

Lies, manipulation
Topped with respect

How does that work?

My heart condemned to a cell  
became so shrunken by disuse
All my lovely things
shoved to a corner
near a radiator
for its rhythm, right, and heat  
Crushed by all the useless rules
reigned down from The Above
proclaiming—

"Certainty!"
of “what should be.”

My heart was never made for such a small space

But now—
atrophied and bowed by fear
prison garb seems comfortable
I don't think too much of hope or love in here
Too wary and too tired
to defend the right or wrong of it—or me
The sentence: so much more than I could bear:

“Life of Loneliness
no parole"

It’s good I didn’t hear the words
I would’ve died of grief

But all those years—

I served!
__

I wipe my eyes on the reprieve

Spent some time—
on my release
in cold gusts by the shore
where there’s room-- so finally
to breathe

Lifted my eyes into
the risk of clouds
the withered sun

If wind and sorrow
share the tears
that have returned


I figure...
so can we...

...share love
in a large room

knocking down guilt’s darkest walls

where souls make jails to keep from getting free
...Let them find each other there

The critters got my trash last night
Left it on the deck
forgotten
Till the ones with night shine
in their eyes
feasted between
cat litter, coffee grounds
chicken bones and wraps
A lovely chore to start the day
before sunlight and my coffee
picking through the mess
What I really want to do
is plant
tomatoes, spices, squash, and
Packman broccoli
things that grow
delicious
in sunlight

I suppose that raccoon
feels the lucky, yucky same
about good fortune of my trash
Same
about the moonlight
that he dines by

Luis was lured from the chicken coup
by a cold lunch meat sandwich
Luis who knew nothing of clothes or care
nor when to eat  
nor what to do
nor who to love
Nor how to plead
nor what to say

Where does love go...

Sweet love...?

...for the boy
...become man
"mentally deficient"
of a Mom
"mentally deficient"

confined to the scraps...
in that hospital
of days...
such as they were
of cold and lack
of anything approaching care
____

At a group home at last
with what was allotted, allowed
in a room of his own
A record by Patsy
played over and over and over again--

“Crazy, I'm crazy for feeling so lonely
I'm crazy, crazy for feeling so blue”

Why might-- your little heart be so broken?
Till the Sunlight came
in the woman
"The Mommy "
of dinners
and Christmas
and music
and showers and bedtime
Dropping your pants in the bank for attention of--
"Mommy"
whose scoldings you craved
whose lap was a pillow
for flicking your ear lobe
to smiles and giggles and singing
so desperately missed as she washed the dishes--

"Mommy"

of part time and sometime
of someone
who loved you
a while
while she could
in the aching of life

For what it meant for a minute
to Luis--
a lifetime of love in your voice
that the angels of heaven could never replace
so they envy
so you go
so she comes
to you Luis
a gift
of the God
who could never forget you

“I'm crazy for trying and crazy for crying
And I'm crazy for loving you”  


To my daughter Phoebe, the bright and shiny one, for the time she gave in this group home.

Lyrics by Patsy Cline

My grandparent's house
ten-kid-large and sinking
on the corners of remembrance
Remodeled now, to
...tenements

Honeycomb
...the remnants

Irish immigrant and Scottish orphan's child
She sang on the ferry
He fell in love
"The rest is the history of us...."
Wide
as the Connecticut River, grieving--
in their sunset....
____

This-- chair
is his

I am afraid of it-- of his learning
of the shiny badge pinned to his coat
of his dying...
Golden leather of it
soothes
his memory--
of another continent
of the once warmth-- of a distant hearth
so darkened now--
where his head once rested
...his hands
and,
I fear--
his mind....

I will not sit in it
as if he will come back, to take his place
I am afraid of him--
with his chair--
all worshipful and empty
like a high place, abandoned
to the heart attack
not for grandchild play
Seat of Authority
still stamped
beside the standing cold--
brass ashtray
Pipe smoke imagines itself
against the ceiling in the words
of Yates and Milton
He read to them
and somehow--

Paradise is Lost....
_____

This house is cold now-- even in the summer-- cold
Worn as only large families wear
The War
of waiting shadows
--four brothers who were spared

Anna Mae, in charge, too young,
worries in abrupt dark
of dinning room
Her face, haunted--
an archway-- ever empty
by the large and ghostly table
covered by its web of lace--
a bridal veil
of Catholic impossibility...
Anna Mae, held hostage by her thoughts
of darling, Sean...

Aunt Lil's “breakdown”
with cigarette and thorazine  
quaking quiet in her corner

Aunt Nell,
as blind as smart-*** hell
ironing, darning
with threads that thatch
the wounded socks
Holds it all together, scolding--
Brought the welcomed jelly donuts
sneered as Yankees clobbered Boston
all-- while drinking yellow ale

Uncle Eddie-- laughing hoarsely
cracks nuts over a wooden bowl

This room—not his
nor the house, the yard
Though a placard bares his name
it slides out
at a moment’s notice
when the waiting ends
when his old hand stops—
twirling, mindless against the loving quilt

This house-- the same
but different
from a distance
He should be sitting in this still life
an old Sachem
on his lawn chair

This garage—where I stand
still his, strangely

Patient tools
Cherry Chevrolet wait
with work gloves resting...
Cannot bring myself to touch
where his hands last laid them
As if to move a thing
would **** the matrix of the man

His moment rushing toward me....

I can hear their whispers now
Leaves, once forbidden
have gathered in his absence
tangled in his hedges
nestled by the stairs
Chattering together—

“Man with the rake—no longer comes”

“Pink carnation if mother's alive;  white if she isn't.”

Fidgeting with the hanky in her sleeve

WPA standout
fending off tears
armed wide-eyed with headache
finding her voice orphan-thin-- tethered--
by wire-will
She sings it still...

“Tis the month of our Mother...”

Behind that white carnation
Behind walls of flesh and ribs

HUGE WATERS
WANT--

...the church vacant of mothers

NEED--

the church
vacant
as clear blood
BURSTS
into faint blue concert

Whirling   Burning   Blurring--

The PURE

--distance--

of audience
of Saints
of God

OF HER MOTHER

“...O blessed and beautiful day.....”
___

It snowed today
May snow on green?
The growl of winter
threatened Persephony
if she raised her song ...
She'd be dealing with December's death
Who will not back away
from threats to everything
Still standing in his debt
Demeter
and he have a deadly agreement

"There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone..."  Peter Gabriel's  "Mercy Street"

Orion abandons the sky
dropping his club
casting his belt toward the horizon
Just once, for a moment, he glanced away
from exalted ****
his vanquished prey

He’d seen the picture—
A girl of sixteen
lying awake—muses in her head
eyes shut, arms thrown back
behind pillow
Tee shirt stretch across lean chest
Hips mingle with blankets
She is scattered there
among the minions of her hair
behind her mouth of unkissed words
____

McCaffery's Coffee is open late
He’s seen the picture
Muses in his head
His arm almost around her
Hers on his shoulder
Small—feather-light fingers
lift the hair of his neck
Reaching around her
his hand searches and slides
along her silk-draped hind
...and the view he has is amazing!
___

Music— and waves pounding and lapping
at the life he fears....

Little boat stranded in gray mists
till a thousand tiny birds alight
in a peppering and fluttering
stir of time
in greens of brine
as the sun pries through….
___

McCaffery’s is ready to close
but the owner, knowing
douses the overheads and turns away
leaving candlelight to crouch and duck
and blink in circles

How long and free we
are allowed to gaze....
so full of wind and riffling water
Stars above and stars below
blooming on the floral silk of night
Vespered lilacs exhale
Votives of warmth
beneath his hand
Silk sweating—
familial in their rocking

Distant lightning loosens eternity

She didn't care much
about the ruined stuffing
of the dead animal
Just the music box
exposed at its heart
like a cypher
of brass-colored keys
plinking away at itself

--a player piano* in someone's basement
to impress, entertain
less affluent
cocktail friends

Never took much
to sweep her away--

like the insides
of a music
box
resisting
curious fingers
to speed it up
or slow it down
learning how
to force
its secret
into her hand

Marveled when it skipped
at the broken pins
a minute glitch
finds holes in tune

as roll uncoils
to spring the ditty

“This girl has mechanic's ability”

Forcing mechanisms
noticing holes that catch at music
slowing  
slowing to sadden the song

Winding it up to hear  
again--
happy

Tears when it stopped

--the question
of why?
of its own accord

Can I return you
to the shelf
Closed, Collector
of dust
to be thought of
now and then
when some reminder returns you
blood red and rampant?

Like outta control alliteration
***** so sweetly

Seldom seen in the stew of Scranton skies
But there it is
a rubber band of fog  
smudged across black distance...
Myriad-multitudes
They are truly there
Each burning ball
gathered beyond my imagination
by the Moon Mother
Who scrubs the faces
of her little stars

from the series, Winter Birds*

Unseen shivers of song
Junco’s busy gray visit
Amid the sudden flash of white
Arctic scissor-wedge of tail
in hoods of
Charcoal-heated nervous fleet
wheels round the eaves
on unnerving cold
to land on secret signal

Twits on crystal

Thought I heard you scratching
At the door of my heart
I go to answer...
You watch from a distance
And slink away

Two poems got away last night when I was dozing
bolted out the door
before I knew it
laughing like fools
Stole my last two beers
and they were gone

“Ya see, officer,
They didn't have their names yet
so they don't know themselves at all
or to answer if I call
They misbehaved and
Never learned there's rules out there
I'm a lousy poet parent, yeah,
I know
I shoulda been tougher on 'em
Half their words 'er scattered
twisted, misspelled, unreadable, inept
with rhythms all askew 'n weighted wrong

They will surely fall over their own lines
and into big ****-trouble
***** little scribbles!
sorta clumsy like their mother"

Meanwhile, the grammar cop is thinking,
“They do not pay me enough for this!
I'm looking for children of the village idiot and a *****”

"...Across the yard and down the alley
They must've run
Hopin' they didn't figure out the stick
on the Toyota

I'll never see 'em again
Pretty sure they got my keys"

The cop is nodding, bored, polite
but I notice
He's written all this down

She rises above Monamoy Point
on her wake—a Tenebrae of carbon
Then bolts back
careening cross blue-black—
through her lucent clouds of hair
from which on radii spray a diaspora of stars
Mistress of Metallurgy
tempered, tampering
Darkness forged to alloy with light

Men have always wondered...
how anything could be so round?

To arouse a sullen tide
her fingers palpate night-water’s lead
tingling light of limbs so spread
to her lover!

Close him in—
a pewter path of trembling touches
that ends in the small of her back

Men so wooed, still shudder
“How anything so tender...?”

could expose such stone!

She eclipses the sun!
She commands the sky!
...to hone his steel on that!

It is a sudden thing
while the night is lamp
It is sudden
senseless
scattered
amidst fitful dreams
when the word for dark is lamp
as dawn collects light
a phone rings
in a gray rectangle
around the window shade
to announce the first day
without you

I should have been there, Momma....

when mourning came
Sudden

I should have been there
as you were for her--
feeble waving hand
as they carried her away
through the gray rectangle
of her twelve-year-old day

Morning always comes

Massasoit and me
driving under signs
from the spirits
that should have warned us...
what was to come
that Cotuit got Pearl Jammed for...
"one great brass kettle seven spans in wideness round about,
and one broad ***.”
Read as you need

From Wampanoag:
“she lies and says she's in love with him--
Can't find a better man...”
Perhaps she can't
Perhaps she can't?
Read as ya need

495 South
on-- and out to sea
“You don't have to live like a refugee”
Not when ya got
Music and the road


sachem: great leader
cotuit:  place of the council
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampanoag#/media/File:TribalTerritoriesSouthernNewEngland.png