a good friday

it's a good friday

Jesus on the cross

noon to 3    me

& Tommy Finch 

in the Lowe's balcony

Charlton Heston parting

the Red Sea

Tony the usher will flash

his light if any girls 

arrive none do no one but me

Tommy & Tony watching Moses 

lead his people to The Promised

Land    we skulk out at 3

scope the street for nuns

or priests we don't

want to be cited for the sacrilege of looking

for girls in the balcony on a Good Friday

a year before     kneeling three

hours on the marble sanctuary

floor erect 

no falling

back on our haunches as the priest

trudged through the Litany

of the Saints  & the congregation grew  

hoarse responding      Santo Antonio

ora pro nobis

Santo Francesco

ora pro nobis

Santo Tomasso

ora pro nobis    the end-

less line of souls certifiably

saints lounging

in God's sight    Jesus arms

outstretched side

bleeding thorny head

glowing      ora

pro nobis

now I kill an hour

in The Wandering Goat   tea

a scone Simic's A Monster Loves 

His Labyrinth while Walt & Jerry

realign my front tires Jerry calls 

i have another

problem another $100 another

two hours    my wife calls

should our daughter go to Italy

for spring break Mexico

has drug wars    I walk outside

shoot the light three kids ask

are you a photographer

why don't you shoot us

because we're homeless

you're invisible

your faces in the paper everyday no one

sees you i watch

them walk the tracks try to see a new way

the rails run 

into infinity      Jerry says

your right rear was tilted i touched

it up for free    i believe him

if i can't trust

in Walt & Jerry i'd have to

lean on a Father who forsakes those children 

to the street & nails 

his son 

to a moaning cross      i'll go home

google cheap fares

for my daughter to fly

visit naked

Davids in Firenze

it's a good friday

ora

pro nobis

geneaology

my grandfather, father, and two uncles probably in the middle to late 20's in East Harlem or the Bronx. 

they arrived at the end

a Civil War dying    marble

cutters vegetable vendors fresh

off the boat in Portsmouth fleeing

their own

civil wars    in those first 

years how many stones

did they quarry for the Union

dead how many dead

men's families ate 

their produce    my great

grandparents' 13

children sold

oranges apples lettuce

cooked & washed  for the wealthy

lined up for day work  sat

in sweatshops sewing

America's clothes    guarded

her customs houses delivered

mail conducted 

trolleys through

Whitman's brawling

streets     their names

changed    Cirella

to Sarah    Achille

to Archie    DelGiorno

to Dell

by choice or clerks who chose

to baptize them

American      my Italian grandfather

married an Austrian woman moved

to his family's edge

when they divorced my father

lost his father found him 

when he & his two brothers knocked

on a door his father's new

wife pregnant

with a 4th son asked who

they were    opened

her heart to receive them

years later my father brought

a priest to bless

his father's death persuaded him to sign

the paper to open

the ground in the Catholic 

cemetery bring him home

to his family 10 years

older than the man

his wife thought

she married

AIG & Charles Simic

Here's a suggestion from our poet laureate that could be implemented to deal with the financial disaster's rogues and thieves. "Deterrence by example. Let's bomb X so that Y and Z will know we mean business & behave. By that logic why not hang a few crooked politicians & bankers so that others may be warned." hmmmmmmmm While I'm at it, in a similar vein, he wrote, "Centuries ago, when the king's advisors gave wrong predictions as to the outcome of military campaigns, they were tortured & publicly executed. In our days, they continue being called "experts" and appear on TV."  & while I'm quoting, here's one from Antonio Porchia (translated by W.S. Merwin),      

       What words say does not last. The words last.

       Because words are always the same, &

       what they say is never the same.

This is like writing a report in grade school(high school, college) ; just copy word for word from various sources. I think the saying is "Plagiarism is the highest form of compliment."

 

tough guy in moonlight

in 7th grade he sat

last row last seat 

head on desk asleep    Sister

Cleopha slapped

his ear he laughed her face red

hand 

trembling      on the playground no one

looked him in the eye afraid

to wake his hands

two furious stones tearing

holes in God's light 

seven years later i poured

drinks in a seaside town i'd learned 

to know a little

about a lot  

could talk to the toughest guy who'd 

be in the Series where

to find parts for a '63  

Impala how 

he knocked that motheringfucking

bartender from down the street flat

out    i gave him free drinks

in return he cooled 

the bad drunks    one

step & a cold

stare

now the crowd

dances he turns

to the music    leg

twisted he leans 

on a thick

stick worn

smooth by broken

hand & muscled

weight    the woman the nuns

warned 7th grade

girls they'd become if

they danced with the tough guy holds 

his empty hand full

moon sways

him to her

light

your dose of simic for today

Four poets reading. "My pain is greater than yours," they kept shouting all night.

I think I was at that reading.

another simic

"Ideological criticism is always stationary. It has its "true position" from which it doesn't budge. It's like insisting that all paintings should be viewed from a distance of ten feet and only ten feet. Many paintings do not fully exist at that distance, of course. Besides, one is never at a single vantage point except intellectually. In life & in art, one is simultaneously in several places at once." Like the time I was listening to a recording of Charles Lloyd playing at the Monterey Jazz Festival, but I was confusing Monterey with Montreaux , so I was hearing him through my French filter and associating him with all the great American expatriots who went to France to play the music Americans did not understand or honor. We were both in three places at that moment, and at this moment I'm in this place and those places. Is Charles Lloyd here with me even though I'm presently listening to Rudresh Mahanthappa? Is Rudresh Mahanthappa in Montreaux and Monterey & in a cottage outside Boston where I was listening to Charles Lloyd at Monterey/Montreaux? And where is Charles Simic now, the guy who got this all started.  Where would the postmodernist deconstructionists stand on this? What about the neo-punk papists and the omnipresent protopaternal god? This is why I'm going to convert to Ideological Criticismism. No more intellectual vertigo for me!

quotes from Charles Simic

How did Charles Simic sneak through national security & become the Poet Laureate of the U.S.!!!

Every now & then I'll be starting my blog with a quote from his book, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth.  Some days a quote will be the whole entry. Here's today's:

"The new American Dream is to get to be very rich and still be regarded as a victim."