For some, life can be that last game played....

For some, life can be that last game played....
I have the honor of being inducted this weekend into my high school's soccer hall of fame. I am humbled by the invitation and the recognition. It has been 29 years since I played soccer for this high school. I began work on this piece of writing not too long ago, and it seems appropriate to release it now. I never touched a soccer ball thinking more than as a young boy's pure pleasure of running after something and chasing a mere ball. I have much respect for the game of football as it is said in Europe. I leave you these words;


The Amateur Athlete


There will always be the last game.
Whether played
to the roar of the arena
filled with spectators,
and athletes of keen skill.


Or that lesser game
played throughout this land–
the outcome all or nothing–
(inconsequential really)–
but integral to those within it.
Who will speak
of it in later days on stools
sipping their drinks,
rolling in the reverie
of that last game;
of how it should
have been played or won.
The re-analysis honed
through liquor and time.


We live for the game.
Whatever the chosen sport.
Men and women of little recognition
confronting the reality of winning, losing
and playing well. Or how might it have been
had they been a little faster, a bit taller
perhaps quicker...

Something to savor in Bien Hoa, Vietnam...

This is a very recent writing. I was introduced to a pickled item found in a jar with calligraphy I could not read. But when I tried it, it proved pleasing to the palate. The placing of goods in jars for long periods of time is very common in a country like Vietnam because of the lack of electricity and refrigeration. The writing below is just a reflection on being introduced to the flavor;


She Came From Bien Hoa, Vietnam

Have you ever met someone for Bien Hoa?
Have you ever been to Saigon?
Well, just northwest lies the town
where you can taste strands
of pickled, papaya fruit
mixed with slices of lotus root.

It comes in mason jars,
in which the labeled words
is calligraphy you and I don’t understand,
but trust once your palate
has been brushed
by such perk(y)ness.
I’ve even been taught (by her)
to wrap it in spring rolls.

With these simple,
epicurean pleasures,
we come to see
why cultures rise
and thrive
and sustain in all
their cannery forms.

Without refrigeration
the women of many past generations
understood well how to preserve
their culinary treasures
in all their tartness, and now
display to fervent foreign curiosity...

The beauty in the printing press

When I first came to work in New York in 1981, I worked as a poduction assistant for the Cambridge Book Company. It was here that I met vendors in lithography and offset printing. On occasions when they would invite me to their facilities I would always be impressed by the pressmen and the printing presses. This work is a reflection of my reverence;

The Driving Run Through the Graveyard Shift...
(an homage to the pressman and the printing press)

Gutenberg knew well the sound;

the running press, the making ready.

The driving run through

the graveyard shift. The paper

makes its blanket roll– (‘round) –

the pressman hones his inky skills.

This vehicle of speech;

driving through the graveyard shift.

It cannot run dry. It cannot be silenced.

The pressman eyes his early sheets;

ups the black– the paper makes

its graveyard run... (through the dark of night).

The clanking and cacophony

of the working press– will not be denied –

in its urgency to tell of itself

and its (offset)...

How close we all are to the precipice...

This is the last in a trilogy of poems that I wrote about people that I would see in New York City on my daily walks to work. My sense was that they were homeless or certainly had experienced living on the street and in the shelters of New York City. They would catch my attention and this is a work they inspired in me;


A Hand Held Out...

We are the scuffle-shuffle
clean-cravats, stainless-shoe ones.
A silent procession.
And, he is there as always.
A hand held out– suspended–
not so much asking, (but waiting...)
to assist if we too, should stumble.
And those eyes. Like none I’ve seen before.
Penetrate deep into the soul
as we pass by.

There is no need to express
in words what he needs.
The hand held out, as the seasons pass,
the stoic pride, as he leans on his cane;
the soiled clothing is his language.
And audible it is, these words with no sound
this language of those muted
by the indifferent world.

He receives so little
from us, a paltry sum at best.
But he is that reminder to us– fresh
from our morning showers,
indomitable in our chosen attire–
life is a hand held out waiting;
taciturn, waiting to grab us
when our mettle fabric
shows signs of wear and tear...

Bring me your weary...

When I would walk to work I would pass Saint Bartholemew Church on the corner of 48th Street and Park Avenue. Upon the steps of the church a homeless man would be emerging from his cardboard-like shelter. I would watch him for a litlle while and then get on my way. However, he left an impression with me and I share it with you below;

"...a repetition in a repetitiousness...", observed
"of men and flies"...

Emerging once again from his cardboard manger
the slouched, heavy-eyed beast
rises to his kingdom’s rising cacophony.
He tries to rub the weariness
from his eyes. In his tattered robes
he leans against the Church’s massive doors,
out of scale against such backdrop.

Three wise men pass,
and many more will pass,
(both wise and unwise)
as the day moves to night.
No one seems to see this man.
No one seems to hear his call.

Day’s dawn forgotten dauphin.
He wears his poverty–
his crown of thorns. Homeless,
shoeless, mumbling passages
and parables of his plight.

His rants fall on sullen ears
the laics have places to go
meetings to meet– scurry by in curious neglect.

Frustrated, epithets will spill
from his mouth. He curses the world
and Saint Peters deemed rock
on which he stands. The day will draw
to yet another close.

The night’s coolness will cool him, (somewhat)
and slogging towards his Bethlehem–
this sad life, this sad birth– like death;
will seek solace within his corrugated,
cardboard box.

And tomorrow will bring...

The Beauty in That Photograph...

There is a family photograph that I keep in my room which is an outtake from a Time/Life Magazine article that was done about the famous 1965 clambake on Gardiner's Island. My father was one of the chefs cooking and being profiled in the piece. One of the photographers gave us one of his outtakes that he took of the family, and that image has been with me ever since;


August, 1965
(from a photograph of the family at the
famous Time/Life Magazine clambake)

Can you remember
that time?

In that summer of ‘65?
A youthful inebriety

of food and song
in the sand-soil

of Gardiner’s August.
The plain simplicity

to it all– a clambake.
The bay’s breeze balmy.

Us, (the four of us in full center)
this black and white of us.

Feasting le grand bouffe.
A timeless, caesura –

Life is our mots, the moments
and our memories...

...To mendicants, and those of lesser fortunes...

I have always held a guarded fascination with street people. Those that seem to make out some kind of an existance living in the streets of New York City. I have written several pieces on these street people and this is one of them;



Contemporary Forms

Propped upon the Church’s steps
turret-like
in Rodin’s sculpted pose. Armed,
within ruminations of what has gone wrong–
of what could have been.
His dark skin glistens,
(not a sole listens) as
twilight’s light burns
terra-cotta red.

He has chosen his covenanted plot
arbitrarily. The Church’s backdrop
signifying nothing– to him.
His white eyes watch all
that passes by.

A late afternoon repose,
repeated, and repeated...
Sweat pores forth,
little water beads collect–
The myriad of thoughts,
perhaps, in his head.

There is no pity exchanged
between us. He has his lot
and he seems to know mine.
The walk light turns in my favor
and I ford the street
as the cars subside.

There's something about a woodpile...

This is a poem taken from the time I spent in Tuscany. By the side of the house where we lived was this old woodpile, a gate and a bench. All basically unused but aesthetically quite pleasing to look at and wonder about. This little writing comes from these items;




The Woodpile


There is a woodpile somewhere in Toscana,
composed of the debris the present house’s
former self has shed,
that leans on cypresses– old wood like old bones
need buttresses.

There is a gate at the entrance to the woodpile,
somewhere in Toscana,
that leads to no where.

And, there is a bench by the gate, at the entrance
to the woodpile where few have sat,
over the years, now
over-wrought by weeds.

Yet, all this had to be imagined.
An old ingenuity was involved.
The maker did not have to place these objects there.
His intention was not one of pure function–

save the purpose to stir the mind
as the wind stirs all things...
and the cypresses leaned...

A Feline for a Lifetime...

This is the second poem in recent days about my favorite cat named T.S. (milkstain) Eliot. He happened to be killed four days after our return from Italy. I assume he was out wandering and checking out his new surrounding as he had done in Italy. I miss him. This is an homage to him;


T. S. (milkstain) Eliot
(D. April 15, 1992)

April can prove to be the cruelest month.
A black lab found him –
stiff and gutted– amongst the beach grasses
of the marshes in Accabonac Harbour.

His eyes nonchalant,
his fur brittle.
A cat so keen, what could
have caught him? A predator
with cunning and mean.

His sister, Corin, waits at the window,
spawning glass, at her widow’s watch;
her vigil will go on...

Stolen by jowls;
a cat for a lifetime,
only four years, now gone.

The ground where he lays is marked.
He will decompose
like all dead things.
But a brief
life remembered,
a spirit transcended–
in his epitaph–

A king among cats...

To one who makes me melt...

The poems talks about the power of attaction and how attactions can feel like forces of nature. I feel this way towards a certain woman who doesn't want to see me anymore. So I will write about her from time to time to reveal the difficult feelings I have not being able to communicate directly;



In A Time of Melting...

...and so much, Time would not allow them to know
about one another, They had encountered in mid-
stream, when gray skies provide backdrop
to the plain sense that is every coming New York’s winter.

He had grown weary of dank cold, hard snow under-
foot & the wet whipping wind.
He was frost; Frozen in Time.

She had campfires eyes.
He, frail– a mere snowman of a man–
perceived a loss in mass with her every gaze.

Though her coals were his deplete
he could not keep from their soft, keen heat.
She was that early spring thaw in mid-
winter, gradually reducing him
to the water that he really was...

Sloppy Scrawlings and such....

The work below examines the relationship between art and the bleakness that is confronted by the artist. The work in its creation serves as a reminder to the artist; his/hers confrontation to the absurdity of this given life;


Scrawl

In my sloppy scrawl
I scratch these words
that help to convey
my position in this absurdity.

Beckett knew, as did
Magritte, to confront
the bleakness
there is art and humor
coinciding on the chosen
canvas.

So that we
may come to see ourselves–
the thinness, transparency–
like a woman’s subtle
stocking that hides no leg
and reveals the intimate
vulnerability...

Words written in the Rain...

I had started this poem some to ago and found these last days to complete it. It is simple in its form but contains so much of what I wish to convey. It's satisfying in this form to set her off on her own;



Words just Written
(prior to being washed away by the rain)


The rain,
rains in its usual,
unusual, slanted
way. Seeping into
the slightest of window cracks
and, ... too, ... the mind
continues... and, throughout....
almost transparent in the dank,
dark uncertain night. No moon,
nor stars, nor a sole in sight. Pelting
beads of mere water– pelting its drone
like sweat – like old, old memories, haunted
against a house of shingled consequence.
(Inside the listener listens). Seeing more in such
darkness of flight, his troubled life...

The Cat I had was a King...

When T.S.(milkstain) Eliot moved with me to a private house in Tuscany, Italy he would check out the property as if was it was his own private hunting grounds. he was a most particular cat and I loved all his of idiosyncrasies. The poem pays tribute to this king among cats;




T.S.(milkstain) Eliot

He was T. in the morning
announcing the reverie at his
prescribed purrs.

He was T.S. in the day
hunting and sleeping
With feline nonchalance.

He was T.S. Eliot
with a trademark milk stain
to break otherwise perfect lines.

And so shall he remain...

Nor' easters, the wind and the rain...

The poem goes back to my childhood. There was always much drama to witnessing the impending storms that would gather over Gardiner's Bay on the east end of long island. The work should speak for itself;



Gardiner’s Bay

November’s grey mood
had poised itself
over this sea-splashed scape.
Gardiner’s Bay is deep in its
green hue. Swells of tide
slide and ply and we glimpse
the white insides,
so quick they hide.

The poet’s raging rhythm
and ancient rhyme, the mariner knows–
has heard so close the sea’s ceaseless song.

Off Montauk an ornery nor’easter
forms; brings ominous cumuli gathering.
An autumnal storm bears down
you can smell its briny breath
the plain sense that Stevens knows
is the season of pending death.

Upon a knoll a cottage sits
A fire of driftwood from within burns,
embers warm those inside...

The Peace Within a Child's Sleep...

When my daughter was just a baby I would put her in her crib at night, and during these moments I would find songs to sing to her to ease her to sleep. I would repeat the songs(about six in total) night after night. The trick seemed to work because she drifted off to sleep without much fuss. One night I even recall that I started to sing John and Paul's "Blackbird" and she began to sing right along with me. It was a special moment between a parent and a child. This poem is in memory of these ephemeral moments;



To Boo...

Do you remember
those off-key, night-songs
sung?
There were untold attempts
at “Sugar Mountain”
by Mr. Young.

And you like a nestled bird,
I had to try to sing
John and Paul’s “Blackbird.”
I’m sorry for you
that I was born tone deaf.

Sunken in cradled crib,
your scent irresistible.
Eyes, once so ocean-wide blue–
(I gave you the nickname Boo)–
closing shut, now night
waits;

for that succulent, silent sleep
a place of peace ‘dropping slow’
only a child knows..

No Rewards for the Reluctant Ones...

Having read Joyce's Dubliner's as a young man I was always struck by the character of Little Chandler in the short story "A Little Cloud." There was something pathetic and sad about him as he is described by Joyce. I began to think about artists who never materialize because of their reluctance towards failure or even worse their fear of greatness;



How Ever small
(or Little Chandler’s Lament)

Within him was that apparent relentlessness,
yet reluctance, and yearning
to capture life in the written word–
as the Old Masters he read and devoured.

A little cloud within a vast sky...

With shaking hands and spectacles
through Dublin’s dank night, pub mood,
his night-light burned. Perhaps all in vain?

Distraught by that which he had wrought
he sought the songs of Byron.
What was the genius within their thoughts?

Distracted again, by the cries of his son
he re-entered the mundane.
Peering down he read night’s production–
as a solitary tear appeared
he re-read the only line;

"A little cloud within a vast sky"...

Of Human Will and Endurance...

This writing came out of quote about 'vulnerability' that I happen to read in Time magazine while seated at a doctor's office during one of the many appointments for my aging parents;

...of Will
(Vulnerability: is like that moment when you
see your father catching his breath on the stair
and you realize that someday he will die...)

Will the lapse of a Man
be known prior to his self-inflicted
collapse?
Will a Man know when his bell
has toll?
Will he hear its knell?
Will he endure to listen
to its sonant ring?
Will a Man know to lean
before his cane–
before his crutch–
is made palpable to him?
Or, will he just fall into his chair
that’s wheeled, (his chariot with wings)
assign to him,
by some nurse in charge...

A Cold Front in the air...

The poem speaks for itself. It is a writing that comes more from feeling that any concrete labeling or event. It is a paysage moralize poem and I share it with you;


A Cold Front Forecasted

A cold front should arrive,
as the individual fronts his demise
his cold reception--his not providing
enough for her.
In the post-Emerson world of
self-reliance. Thoreau I dreamt on Walden
Pond and in delight.
We still depend upon the rain,
upon the snow. Upon the sun– nature–
To comply and to feed our furtile ground.
Feeling sun unleashed, like ocean waves
That pound and thrash upon the shore,
The wind that moves the grand cypress trees.
And the sleet sheets that sprawl silent
and fall and can destroy all things...
Why? Why? Why? Does the postman
carry his chosen chores though all of this....
Obligation to his given demise.

The Interminable Stillness in Waiting...

The work below grew out a of desire I had to articulate the feeling of something one wants that seems so far away. I had the chance to see someone close to me after some seven weeks apart. The waiting for those seven weeks to pass proved difficult, and the writing touches on this;



Waitings...

In the reclusive forbearance
of longing,
there have been long, long
nights waiting...
when even the air
does not seem to move
and the room is so still–
(almost foreboding)–
and still thoughts of you;
as if the air is moving,
as if the room is full of movement,
as if you are near.

Within these sheets quiet,
echos distant
the hungry wolf’s howl
inside growls
a heavy heart’s beat, waiting...
waiting...
the interminable (stillness)
in such long,
waitings...