culminating smile of recognition—
(i.e. acceptance of the cosmic
totality of which we (you/me)
are such an integral portion—
e.g. the smile as reflection of
the blue—the blue of course
reflection of the logical extension
of total association—unlike
“free association’s” limitations
of perception as in only an
elite of imaginative expertise
of which I readily admit I am
a member can perceive—but
it’s work—the rest is “natural”—
“it” isn’t “poetry” (NO IMAGES!)
“it” does not equal “poetry”
“it” does not become and is not
becoming “poetry”—“Eddie!”
“Yeah!?”—“Hah?!”—“Yeah!?”—
SNOW 2
It is a planet,
the atmosphere
always alien
except when we
make a metaphor
for our growth
& death out of
it: “O look it’s
a beautiful blue
sky this morning
and it snowed
last night and
the snow is so
bright and shiny
in the sunlight—
what a great day!”
beauty being a
condition we re-
quite for our
happiness not to
exist but to
unfold as though
growing older we
contribute some-
how to it, perhaps
through our obser-
vations, or our
naming & recording
of it, or maybe
just by pretending
it isn’t another
world.
THE COLD
You know what that’s been like
These winters
Remember the winter of ’77
’78 is already worse
Fuck the pioneers
They had it rough on purpose
We didn’t intend this shit
We meant to be the future
Where the choices were unlimited
And all good
But no
It’s the same old same old
Here’s your three choices
The first two stink and the last one
Well we all know about the last one
That’s the one where you think you
Have a chance
Only the chance is
Your last one
Goddamn it’s so fucking cold
MOTHER’S DAY 1978
It’s raining
like Good Friday
or so we believed
when we were kids
that somehow the
weather reflected
our Catholic faith
& honored the death
of the Son of God
with rain or at least
clouds and greyness
and this the day my
mother died 12 years
ago when I was 23
& thought myself too
old to feel too alone
with the passing of
someone I rarely saw
and was afraid to let
know me too well but
felt amazingly intimate
with nonetheless because
she was a woman and I
loved women and knew
that between her thighs
out of the place I loved
most to be I had once
been for the first time
going the other direction
out into the world she
seemed so able to maintain
her innocence in, even
after seven kids, an
alcoholic husband, all
the deaths big families
live through and even
the crazy betrayals of
her standards and beliefs
by her baby who didn’t
come around much anymore
but was there by her side
when the struggle with
whatever came to take her
began and she called out
for her oldest the priest
and for her baby who rose
to take her hand and let
her see he was there but
her eyes showed fear and
anger and confusion at what
I was sure she took to be
a stranger because of the
beard that was just another
sign of my estrangement
from these people who had
once thought I would be
some kind of answer to
the questions that the
future perplexed them with
constantly these days
only instead I grew away
from them, and on my returns
always disturbed them with
my latest alteration in
my movement toward knowing
what I might be as well as
what I had been and them
and when the nurse came in
to turn off the machines
and their ominous low hum
that graphically displayed
my mother’s loss to whatever
it was that had frightened
her so, I felt so fucking bad
for adding to that loss with
my stupid disguise that when
we got home, 3AM on Mother’s
Day 1966 to tell our father
the news I left my brothers
and sisters and in-laws to
shave off the mask to discover
the skin beneath the months’
old growth of hair as tender
as a baby’s, my chin my
cheeks the skin around my
lips all soft and white and
delicate like a lady’s, a
side I was yet to discover
for myself all I knew then
was I would never let that
disguise hide me from the
world I had yet to realize
I understood more from her
sure knowledge passed on to
the child I had been than all
the books and experiences and
hip friends I had gone to since
but when I came downstairs they
all thought I had done it for
him and were grateful I had
been thoughtful of those left
behind especially he who had
taught us most of what we knew
about life it seemed to them
though without her he might
have been the narrowminded
crank he sometimes was although
he too knew how to use his
emotions to understand and that
must have been what brought them
together or perhaps what kept
them there but even in death
the nature of their relationship
took on the security of her care
as the oldest sister read the
note found in the hospital
drawer with her personal stuff
letting us know she knew what
we had only half suspected that
this was it and we’d be left
without the spiritual wisdom
she had offered unwittingly as
she spoke to us once again when
my sister read where daddy’s
medicine could be found and what
dosages he should take and where
she’d left the newly cleaned
shorts and shirts and how he
liked his meals and when and
who should remember to take
&nbs
p; their insulin and who among
all these children who were so
long since grown and running
homes of their own but still
so near and dependent on her
she understood in the guts that
were half gone and caused the
heart to close down she knew
they needed to know she’d
never be gone for good but
was only giving advice from
another home the one she had
convinced them could be theirs
because it had always been hers
and now she was there waiting
once again for her babies to
bring their confusion and fear
and strangeness in a world so
far removed from what their
world had given them she was
that world more than any son
of god could ever have been
but she left them to him anyway
despite the reality I saw in
her eyes when whatever it was
came to take her from inside
it wasn’t any meek and loving
lord unless she took him for
some fearsome stranger too as
she had me and I had her for
all the years I never knew how
much I owed her just for never
giving in but always giving . . .
LOVING WOMEN
In 1956 I got on a number 31 bus
in Vailsburg, the last neighborhood
in Newark before South Orange where
I was going home to, after spending
the hours after school with a girl
I’d just met and fallen in love with.
It was a beautiful spring evening,
around six thirty and I was late for
dinner as well as playing hooky from
an after school job, so I knew I was
on my way to an argument with my
father, who would be waiting angrily.
The bus was full of old ladies and
only a few men, stragglers from their
jobs in Newark—but no kids, just
me, 14, and so thin I thought it was
embarrassing most of the time, only
this time I knew it was sexy and great.
My shirt was unbuttoned down to the
fifth buttonhole and my hairless
teenaged chest was exposed enough
to see that right between my little
male tits was the imprint of two
bright red lips—a lipstick tattoo.
It almost glowed the way I flaunted
it, showed them all what I’d been up
to and was proud of, proud to be a
teenager when that word was only one
step removed from monster or moron,
criminal or alien being—or love.
The old ladies stared, some sternly,
some jealously, only one smiling,
approvingly, she was tougher looking
than the rest, like an alcoholic
aunt who smoked too much but her
eyes shone from few regrets and me.
I was a punk, a juvenile delinquent,
and a total enigma to my parents and
older brothers and sisters, but I was
a hero to my dreams and only on rare
occasions like this one did I live up
to them—swaggering down the aisle.
When I took my seat the bright eyed
lady turned to take another look and
caught me sniffing the fingers of my
right hand that had just been where
I longed all day and night to be, to
worship in, to build my temple there.
I’d start my own religion in that
mysterious church defined by the
lines formed first by the knees and
calves of the starlets who perched
on the railings of ocean liners for
the cameras of The Daily Mirror or
The Daily News, their skirts pulled
up to cap their knees like an exotic
hood under which the rest caressed
itself so obviously and promised
the answer to everything I had always
wanted to know—back there, somewhere
between what I could only imagine
despite all I’d seen in short shorts
and girly magazines, because this was
news, the real life beauties posing
before going off with some lucky dude
I might someday be. Only I knew I
didn’t have to wait to find out, I
found out every chance I could get
or make and still I didn’t know and
longed to know and owed it all to
that crazy haven for my frustration
and confusion with the times and the
values I couldn’t share and didn’t care
about outside the trouble they caused
me every fucking day. The lady knew
what I was doing, what I was smelling
on my fingers to make me forget the
inevitable limitations, this far and
no farther, 1956 after all and an Irish
Catholic girl, like my sisters and
cousins and nieces, only poorer, without
even a phone so when I got home I would
have to satisfy myself the rest of the
night with my fingers brushing my lips
and unshaved fine hairs beneath my
nose that alone could put me in touch
with this beautiful girl from Vailsburg.
All through dinner the reverbs from
arguing kept the place silent or phony
until my father, not noticing how often
I wiped my mouth, got to feeling better
with the dinner and the evening’s rest,
looked hard into my eyes and with only
the slightest glimmer of mischief said
I was the most falling-in-loving-est
boy he had ever seen or heard of,
because, of course, when he asked me
what had happened, what was my excuse,
I hadn’t told him all the details, but
I had told him the truth, that I had
fallen in love again, only this time
with a beautiful Irish girl, like his.
the cleanhead black guy
no bush, no sky piece, no
nothing but short hair and
glasses leans out the car
window, shotgun side, to
yell at the neighborhood
bag lady, my neighborhood
bag lady, “Shut up!” and
I don’t like it, it’s my
neighborhood, not his, and
she ain’t doing shit to any
one except herself, a once
obviously attractive woman
who some people mistake for
a once obviously handsome
man which seems intentional
on her part, a very savvy
bag lady, now all greasy
haired and filthy, babbling
her obscenities at the side
walk and street, sometimes
at the air, though she always
seems to be aware of passers
by, at least me, when I pass
by and glance at her, to
catch her eye, I don’t know
why I always do that with
strangers on the street,
Rain says that’s why I’m
always getting so much grief
especially threats of violence
because I look people in the
eye too directly and for too
long and that seems somehow
like a challenge, as it did
back in the ’50s when I was
a kid and I’d catch the eye
of some other male kid whose
neighborhood I was passing
through or who was passing
through mine and inevitably
my stomach would drop as I
suddenly realized I was in
a battle of balls to see
who looked away first knowing
that if I didn’t it would
mean an even more obvious
challenge like the finger
or the Italian salute and
then it would be too late
to look away without looking
like a sissy or a punk, a
scared shitless faggot whose
intense eye contact didn’t
have anything to do with
the real male stuff of kicking
each other’s teeth in as a
sign of interest, so I’d
fight or talk bad or sometimes
bluff my way into their backing
down, but I’d promise myself
never to stare so long and
directly again except at the
girls who when they stared
back made life sexy and even
scarier, because if they got
tough there was no way to
not feel humiliated, so here
I am, more than twenty years
later, still checking every
one’s head out through their
eyes and trying to decide
where I am in their world,
always sure I’m there because
I looked at them, let them
see me, like the bag lady
who I’m sure must know me by
now when I catch her eye
between her profane lists
and the assholes who yell at
her for reasons I can’t under
stand anymore than I could
the assholes who’d decide
two humans looking at each
other for more than a second
must mean one of them gets
beat up or somehow humiliated,
somewhere between the ’50s and
now it seemed it would turn
out differently, I remember
the absolute thrill of the
first hippie who flashed a
big grin and the peace sign
or fist my way when I caught
his eye and the defiantly long
hair we shared, unsuspecting
how the ’50s had prepared me
for his show of friendliness,
not aware yet of how signifi
cant and satisfying it could
be to gather in massive crowds
and never have a massacre, not
even a fight, unless it came
from the law, which only Nutsy
McConnel took on in the ’50s I
went through, that’s how he
got his name, jumping a cop
to prove his manhood at 15,
one ’50s spring like this
last one of the ’70s, my bag
lady and me as much a symbol