 
## Contents

Title Page & Licensing

Acknowledgements

Praise

Introduction

Poems 1—34

Poems 35—68

Poems 69—112

Closing
Title Page and Licensing

_Primarily Poems of Prospect Heights_ , _Pawtucket, R.I_.

By Thomas M. McDade

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Thomas M. McDade

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Acknowledgements:

Special thanks to the following publications that have published many of these poems: _265 Degrees of Grey, American Jones Quarterly, American Poetry Journal, Apostrophe, Blue Collar Review, Borderlands, Bull Horn, Catbird Seat, Chaminade Review, Chance, Chiron Review, Coffeehouse Quarterly, Concrete Wolf, Crimson Leer, Dead Snakes, Expressive Spirals, First Class, Fullosia Press, Gluestick Happy Hour Ice: New Writing On Hockey Iconoclast, In It, Leaf Garden, Liquid Paper Press, Listening Eye, Literary House Review, Literary Lunes,_ _Literarily Erotic, Literbug, Lost Beat Poet, Lunarosity, Nerve Cowboy, Newsletter Inago, Old City Cool,One Hundred Suns, One Trick Poney, Opus Literary Review, Oyster Boy Review, Pawtucket Times, Penny Dreadful Review, Perimeter, Peripheral Visions, Physiognomy, Pitchfork Press, Plainsongs, Plastic Tower, Poets' Podium, Potato Eyes, Potpourri, Rag Mag, River Poets, Rope & Wire, Slugfest, LTD, Stymie, Sophomore Jinx, Supernatural Magazine, Syncopated City, Synergist, The Moon, Velvet Box, Voice From The Beyond, Web Poetry Corner_

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Praise

"Tom McDade's Primarily Prospect Heights is large-hearted, tough-

### minded and beautifully written. He never flinches from a

### confrontation with the perils and sorrows of our day to day lives—an

### engagement which, in these poems, often involves the infinite."

\--John Skoyles, author of Secret Frequencies, The Situation and A Moveable Famine (May, 2014)

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Introduction

## Note found taped to Brown's drill press after he left EPS Industries for more lucrative employment:

## Brown has moved on to greater heights – NOT PROSPECT.

## Someone more familiar with Mr. Brown's residency added:

## (He's lived in a Block 17 Apartment for three or four years now, asshole.)

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Poems 1-34

1. E Pluribus Aluminum

2. Pond Noise

3. Ammo

4. The Heights Hall

5. Mothers' Aid

6. First Squeeze

7. 13W & 35E

8. Federal Housing Superlatives

9. Released Time

10. The Pirate

11. Big Jewelry

12. Summer Stack

13. Haircut

14. Exploitation

15. A Nickel

16. Bereaved Busboys

17. Bread

18. Grading Snow

19. Clunk

20. To Count

21. Aces Grown Old

22. Staccato Flashes

23. On Our Own

24. Sky

25. Pete's Lawn

26. Black & White

27. Saints

28. Fakes Before Jumpshots

29. Prior To The E.P.A.

20. Dead Cigarette Packs

31. The Combine Combination

32. Rockwell Cover

33. More Money Than God

34. Shoot

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Poems 35-68

35. The Quarry

36. Calculating

37. What Was Boss

38.

39. Caddy Evenings

40. Bad Water

41. Protection

42. The First Thing

43. An Old Guess

44. The Consolation

45. Island

46. Me & The Dragon Python Man

47. Opening Act

48. Labor Day

49. Cuisses de Grenouilles

50. Swamp Stocking

51. Angling

52. Gimp

53. Chewing

54. Popcorn

55. Tone Deaf

56. Hygienic Knowledge

57. Vandalism

58. Hollywood

59. Seamanship

60. The Emperor of Prospect Heights

61. Monday

62. The Cave That Drank Summer

63. Fantasy in the Clouds

64. Apprentice

65. Mr. Fix-It's Dream Deal

66. Boxes

67. The Toughest Part

68. Handshake Cold and Rotten

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Poems 69—112

69. Freestyler

70. Adult Carbonation

71. Sixty-Eight & Four

72. Money

73. Songs

74. Codeine & Paregoric

75. Sir Parapet

76. Second Grade

77. Inhale!

78. Orthopterous Insects

79. Our Silent Applause

80. Next Week

81. Old Warnings

82. My Mother's Life Enough

83. My Birds

84. Agawam Hunt

85. Wannamoisett

86. M-1 and J-1

87. Heights Kid Gone

88. Lash Larue

89. Morning Air

90. "Look for a Star

91. Forest & Gasser

92. Suzy's Snack Bar

93. Thrill & Swill

94. Itching

95. The Ballad

96. Catalpa Tree

97. Pretty Much Defunct

98. Guppies

99. Permission

100. Thrice I Must Admit

101. Cold Cuts

102. Less Than Half Relieved

103. The Manager

104. The Mystery of Paul

105. Francoise, Nicole and May

106. Hurricane Carol

107. Chocolate Milk

108. Cages

109. Swings

110. Can't Dance

111. Bricks

112. Benches

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**E Pluribus Aluminum**

When I left the Navy the first time,

jobs were easy, worked a year

of three-week stints.

EPS Industries was the first,

assembling doors

and windows second shift.

The company motto

was "E Pluribus Aluminum."

Some guys on the payroll

were from the Heights.

We remembered swearing never

to slave in a Goddamned factory.

One Friday, drunk on Four Roses

near Dunnell's Pond after work,

we sat on a wall WPA constructed,

discussed where we'd be working next.

Someone said Apex Rubber

was hiring—piecework was their game

and some jobs were so dirty

overtime was paid for showering.

Man, it was like a chorus to a song

the way we all chimed at once:

fuck that filthy hole—

"E Pluribus Aluminum!"

We roamed the Heights after that,

quizzing each other on who lived

in which blocks

when we were kids.

We shouted those names

like the lives behind them

were the stuff of mottos

we planned to live by.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Pond Noise**

(For Bill Arundale)

We used to loaf all night

sipping Narragansett Lager

not far from Dunnell's Pond.

Urgent sailor and soldier lore

hushed our dashboard rock & roll.

Now we settle up the street

where the racetrack used to be

since the law might doubt Heights

nostalgia is the only drug we're after.

Childhood dwarfs our service tales.

We talk of kids we'll never see again

and the sound of summer at the Pond.

Was it like a radio ballgame crowd

when the announcer went quiet?

Or a racetrack mob waiting

for a win photo to develop?

Pond noise had so many tongues—

a hovering dragonfly squadron?

Whatever it's called,

remembering calms us down.

We aren't boozers anymore.

But Oldies stations know our songs.

And one of us is sure to shout, "Pond noise!"

We always take it home.

All the folks we'll never see again

mingle with humming appliances.

Sorting out the ones we owe

apologies brings sleep.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Ammo**

Bean shooting season

was between trading cards

and marbles—

or after chestnuts

strung on shoestrings.

Got shooters

from candy stores,

beans, First National, A&P.

Or, each autumn

you could raid gardens

outside the Heights

to collect

four o'clock seeds.

Those not on the ground

would gently tip

from their cups

unless earwigs

had good grips.

The free ammo

didn't sting

like beans or peas

but their flowers

brightened up

Heights places

where seeds

that fingers

planted

always failed.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Heights Hall**

Lurking in the back of the Heights Hall

Sunday Mass, half-kneeling as if an on deck

batter was an Irish bricklayer who passed

the collection basket.

He'd spread a handkerchief

on the floor to make

his blue suit knee last.

He didn't call the Heights home,

lived down Bishop Bend but one kid

didn't care if he was from the Vatican.

He was sure to try to swipe some cash.

The Hungarian priest was a refugee.

His sermons were short as if he feared

lapsing into his native tongue.

He never preached against the Witnesses

that bribed us into the Hall with soda

and cookies for their Story Time.

No extra penance was assigned

when we confessed taunting them.

We spit out more serious sins so rapidly

a United Nations translator wouldn't

have helped him.

Dances were held in the Hall and a kid

from Newport Ave was the star,

impersonating Elvis

as if he'd trained in Memphis.

"Love Me Tender" backed up

the stabbing of a guy from Georgia

outside one night and his blood

still stained the street the Friday

next when a projector clicked

off old World Series footage.

Some kids went for a pocket

when a hitter in the on deck circle

half knelt like the Irishman from the Bend.

Eyes widened when a close up of the stands

revealed a gal who was the spitting image

of the Heights gal built like a brick shithouse

who dated Elvis and his brand new Buick

and there were some appraising its luster

who nearly drooled just imagining

keys left in the ignition.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Mothers' Aid**

I'm not sure how the saying came

about maybe Teddy who knew

karate coined it.

Suddenly every Heights

kid was saying:

MOTHERS' AID, DON'T

WANNA HEAR IT.

Many had the right.

Their Boys' Club

memberships were free.

They got commodities:

boxes of powdered milk,

blocks of American cheese,

big silver cans of stew meat

in gravy and tins of peanut butter

you could plunge both hands into.

The MOTHERS' AID cry

was the answer to everything!

Ask guys if they wanted

to go down to McHale's

to jump off conveyor belts

into the cool gravel hills

or swim at Sprinkle Shit Pond

and you might hear that chorus.

It cut down on swearing!

The lady next door gave

my mother silver meat

which wasn't bad but salty

enough to preserve

that old Heights phrase

and time itself.

I shout it out occasionally

to this day and loud

enough I imagine

for Karate Ted to hear

and award me a Black

Belt in remembering.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**First Squeeze**

At the Boys' Club

woodworking classes

nothing that looked

like a weapon

was allowed

so I made the

pistol on the sly.

Had a beautiful

piece of brass

pipe I'd acquired

from a abandoned

tenement.

Felt like a convict

cutting it to fit

with half

a hacksaw blade.

Got a hammer

from a toy gun

I shoplifted

at W. T. Grants

along with fifty heavy

duty rubber bands.

I used copper-coated

baling wire that bound

newspapers tossed

off trucks before

dawn like bodies

to complete my zip.

Never tried to shoot

the .22 bullet

I found in Dunnell's Pond

beach sand but

I liked walking around

with one shot left

not knowing if it was

live or not.

That was the only

gun feeling I missed

when my fingers squeezed

the first pawnshop

switchblade.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**13W & 35E**

A Heights block

wasn't known

by the number

painted on it

but rather by

the name

of a family

residing in one

of its apartments.

Whim, familiarity

or legend dictated

just who deserved

the honor and I don't

recall arguments

over any choice.

I believe

the same good

will holds true

especially around

Memorial Day

when Al Haslam

and Billy Moore

come to mind,

and thoughts fly

from blocks

17 and 36

like small arms fire

to panels on

the D.C. Wall,

glistening

always

the way Heights

bricks do

in the rain.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Federal Housing Superlatives**

A picture sticks in my head of a kid

in my block who stole a city bus.

People shook fists and cursed Eddie

as he sped past bus stops

finally parking and bolting as if a driver

in a take-this-job-and-shove-it

state of mind.

Hot-wiring a building site bulldozer

also ranked high on his resume.

After finishing off the Lebanon

Knitting Mill parking lot he left

one next door a junkyard jumble.

I came across him my first time

leaving the enlisted club

at the Norfolk Navy Operations Base.

I saw a WWII mural, a landing

craft unloading soldiers, and it might

have been just the booze but so what.

The coxswain was a spitting

image of bold and daring Eddie,

taller than I remember, but the bushy

black hair the same.

Odd, since Steve, next apartment,

was the only one in our block

who saw action and seemed to

have survived Vietnam combat

as if it all took place on canvas—

but he surrendered

to suicide soon after returning.

Thankfully, off to the right

the slim warrior debarking is Steve.

Had he stolen a bus or bulldozer

would he have been arrested?

Beaten the draft like felon Eddie?

Shit, quickest of foot on our block,

cops would never have

fucking caught him.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Released Time**

On Wednesdays

we weren't due

in class

until ten

so Catholics

in public

school could

have weekly

religious

instruction.

Those mornings

in the Heights

between the ninety

and hundred blocks

chalk stubs

numbered hopscotch

squares and

jump ropes

raised dust.

But as God was

busy elsewhere

no one thought

about commandments

or death not

even the abortionist

leaning out

her apartment window

dropping cigarette

butts long enough

for boys

to fistfight over.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Pirate**

He use to hang around

the Heights drinking

quarts of Narragansett

beer when we were kids,

telling stories

about Army life,

teaching us jujitsu moves

he'd learned in Japan.

But he never revealed

how he'd scuttle a boat

for a piece of insurance loot

or steal one complete

or just outboard or sail.

Never mentioned getting shot

in the leg

robbing lobster traps

or midnight quahoging

in polluted water,

selling his catch

bar to bar.

When I see all those

guys wearing

an earring

like Captain Kidd,

I think of the only pirate

I ever knew --

how he never wore one.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Big Jewelry**

I used to loaf

on a Heights

corner to watch

older kids go

into her apartment

and I imagined

her leg

brace

catching

the sun

like a big

hunk

of jewelry

behind

museum glass

and her

pillowed hair

the color

of hot tar

smoking

and her just

licked lips

as red

as candy fire

balls.

Just twelve

years-old,

I pictured

her brace

hidden under

hastily

discarded

clothes

as treasure

her shriveled

leg died for.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Summer Stack**

The Heights smokestack

by the playground waits

for winter and offers

its ladder

like an extension

of monkey bars.

Climb the chain

link fence, stand

on top and you're

on your way!

Kids on swings,

seesaws and slides,

the checker players,

beanbag tossers,

and shuffleboarders

resist temptation.

But damned

if a horseshoe

doesn't feel

like a stack rung

or a radiator rib

as ringers

and the proverbial "close"

clang sand pit poles

like frigid January

nights when stack bricks

are hot with launching noisy heat

and many a kid's dream crests,

snapping icy lightning rods

like cop car antennas.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Haircut

Years of booze vapors

from the Hitching Post

had slipped through

the barber shop wall;

curled ceiling paint

that fell

on the _Argosy_ magazine

I was reading.

The frog-green spittoon

studied me like I was a fly.

I imagined a break-in

filling the disgusting thing

using the through-the teeth

spitting style I'd perfected

that year.

The barber yelled next

and continued whistling

along with a radio

Sinatra tune.

I thought of a million

better things

to sing about

as I got lost

in the big mirror

reflecting kids

hanging out

on a Heights

corner, one a girl

I thought was pretty

cool who never even

said hello.

I bet I stared

like I'd heard

drunks did

at the old distorted

glass behind

the Hitching Post bar.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Exploitation**

The produce peddler

from Central Falls

hired Heights kids

for a buck and a half a day.

The teacher

who ran the playground

said he exploited us,

but there was no money

to be made playing

checkers or horseshoes.

Besides the cash

everything on the truck was free,

even cherries.

A kid had to be careful

not to get the shits.

Sweet corn was the big sell,

fifty cents a dozen

seventy-five on the better

streets and avenues.

Some kids who had never

been in a home

other than a Heights

apartment loved it

when a housewife

said "come in

and wait while I get

my pocketbook."

The peddler preached

about stealing

from those houses,

but no one would have dared.

Christ, anybody could

have run us down,

our sneakers like tap shoes—

so heavy with silver.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**A Nickel**

Sleeping wasn't easy

Thursday night anticipating

the garbage collectors.

Once I dreamed they'd picked up

the dawn like it was a bag

of citrus rinds!

I loved the banging,

screeching of the brakes

and revving to empty the scoop.

No circus could have been more welcome.

The glorious stench was as overpowering

as cotton candy.

The garbage pail was set in the ground.

We told little kids it was a trap

door to hell and they believed us!

With one foot on the pedal

and the other on the lid

you could rock all day.

Or you might pump that pedal

like a drummer's cymbals

to the beat of some rock & roll

tune lodged in your head.

After the collectors left,

a popped lid revealed a world

of maggots as thick as pudding.

Times I had five cents,

I'd buy a milk bottle

full of kerosene to purify

our garbage pit.

Flames shot out

like a cannon firing.

Kids without nickels

had to wait for post

pickup fun.

When their maggots turned

into flies, they grabbed them

mid-flight as if King Kong

plucking planes

and flinging prize captives

to deaths against

Prospect Heights bricks.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Bereaved Busboys

Only a maze of mortar

survives as night swallows

the Heights bricks

and the black clad dancer

becomes head and hands

jerking to a transistor

blasting so loud

the stars complain

until the music needles

heal an old street lamp

with threads of her golden

bobbing hair.

How long before a dancer

blessed with better moves

will take her place?

One so young she thinks

there will always be another hit.

Unaware at the end

that only darkness is served.

Oh, to possess the mere crumbs

of that limp head and hands

gracing the napkin of night!

Ah, aren't we the bereaved busboys

crazy to shake them free,

as if some dear, old

deafening rock and roll?

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Bread**

There was no basket on my bike.

I don't recall how I carried the bread,

day old or worse, back to the Heights

without the plastic bags that tote

the world today.

A knapsack hung off the back fender

once but the Bond, Tip-Top or Harvest

would never have fit.

Jerry-rigged it somehow I reckon.

This was Newport Avenue in the fifties,

before the ten-pin alleys or Mammoth Mart—

when the A&P, First National

and Narragansett Race Track

seemed they would at least outlive me.

I couldn't tell you

the cost of those loaves

or the odds of finding raisin.

I remember kids used

bread too stale, strictly for duck

feed and sunfish bait at the Slater

Park Pond beside a bandstand

that might still stand today

supported by ten

columns whether

Greek or Roman

of as much consequence

back then, as the transport

or brand name or age

of marked down

bread.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Grading Snow**

Memory may lie about snow

depth but not the perfect texture

of a ball of storm I held,

mitten flecks

sticking like wrapper

shreds to a root beer

Popsicle.

The drumming as they

landed on trucks and buses

was relentless but just

until the roads were suitable

for hooking bumpers.

At a Heights exit

across from Gus's I.G.A.

I'd assume a ski crouch

to breathe exhaust

as if training for suicide.

No one slipped under

wheels, went blind or dropped

dead after a snowball hit

an eye or temple.

For that matter, never

heard of a frostbite case.

Voices shrill with warning

but never naming victims

tailed off like the bouquet

of wet wool on radiators

after a cold snap

turned snow

crunchy.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Clunk**

When a cop was gunned down

on the Heights grass,

state trooper bloodhounds

searched every apartment

and I got to skip school.

The killer was captured

at the country club.

I don't recall at what hole.

At last, being a Heights kid

gave me some celebrity

at St Teresa's.

I went all out describing

the reenactment

of the crime I'd seen

from all of twenty-feet away:

how the killer used his hand

for the murder weapon

like a kid playing.

That night I prayed a rosary

that glowed in the dark

for the cop and his family.

I pretended to slip money

in the slot when I lit

candles for them.

Coins would have been scary

dropping like shrapnel

on a coroner's table.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**To Count**

Sometimes I try

to count the kids

in my block

and the one across

the way

in the Heights.

Often I spot

fifty-four faces

darting in and out

of my game.

But when the rules

call for names

I struggle and wonder

whether I had

a childhood at all

and I sweat,

imagining a time

when the faces

of all those kids

will be just circles

with hints of eyes,

ears and noses

like the ones

on diner place mats

that keep tots

occupied.

And God, it sure

is tough

getting anywhere

with Crayolas

so blunt

two blocks

of Heights kids

might have

shared them

lettering cement.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Aces Grown Old**

When I was nine crossing

a street was a waste of time

unless a car nearly hit me.

Best risk was a five street

intersection between

the Heights and the Blue

Star Pharmacy.

That year of daring came to

mind when a cop signaled

to turn around

as my headlights shined

on his patent leather feet

and the new speed bump

body in the fast lane:

a brief memorial

to street dashing

aces grown old

cut down daring

the devils

in chrome

and halogen

one last time returning

from convenience

stores to cheap

motels they called

home by the week.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Staccato Flashes**

I remember Joey,

blond, rock & roll

idol hair.

" **LOVE HURTS** ,"

shouting off

his leather jacket

like it was

the only thing

that ever would.

" **22 combat missions"**

replaced that white

on black lettering

as I read the column,

a foot long,

on the obit page.

He'd penned his own

and I heard

what the paper

printed was a nutshell

next to what mourners got

at the chapel.

No combat vet myself,

I only imagine

the rough draft

words and sentences

jungle silence jumbles

in a machine gunner's head.

And sleepless peacetime nights,

each doctor's death guess

curing writer's block,

staccato flashes of when

life was stuck

on two popular

jukebox words.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**On Our Own**

Project guys said if you got sent up

don't worry, Donnie Brandt

would always take care of a kid

from the Heights.

He was only doing time

for attempted murder then.

I never made it to prison to test

his guardian angel skills

but there was this other guy

named Sammy from the Project

I barely knew who sold

used cars on Division Street.

A phone company fleet

of old Studebaker Larks

was advertised on a huge sign.

The price was right and I tried

to buy one to drive to Denver

but Sammy told me they were shit,

shop elsewhere.

I did and bought a fifty-five Ford

for $85 from a private owner

while wishing it had Sammy's OK.

After delivering me it lived two days.

I walked and worked bagging

groceries until I had the $75

for a newspaper fifty Chevy.

I longed again for Sammy's blessing

and that's gone for every car

along the way.

Donnie Brandt

often crossed my mind

the drinking and driving years

even after State Troopers blasted

him out from under a car

like a rabid raccoon

as if every kid in Prospect Heights

was finally man enough.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Sky**

Last time he killed she drove the getaway car.

God's on our side, he said,

after the cranky old Dodge got to Vermont.

They broke into a three quarter cape

and took a family hostage.

Her hitman told the kids cowboy stories,

he spun his pistol on his finger.

She touched her belly and imagined a child

building a father from her careful words.

When the law showed up, he freed the family

and said she might as well go too.

But she stayed, tried to get lost

in an old Ginger and Fred on the tube.

She was on a swing in the back yard humming

"I Won't Dance" when they fired the tear gas.

The law didn't care about her right away,

they had her hitman trapped under the Dodge.

He tried to get off one last shot but they gunned

him from under the car as if he were on one

of those wheeled things mechanics use.

It crossed her mind his father worked on cars

and she guessed her lover probably thought of him

last while he was staring at the rusty muffler.

She figured she'd lock him in memory as an outlaw

waking under a rusty sky that warned only sailors

and the hell with the rest.

As good a nursery rhyme as any.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Pete's Lawn**

No Heights kid I ever knew

flew until leaving for boot camp,

so we imagined looking down

on our brick block homes,

guessing our eyes would fall first on Pete

the Greek's yard, the only one

with any grass worth high praise.

The buildings would be dot-less

sets of dice or multiple tombstones

for a giant gambler whose emerald

ring emerged to form Pete's lawn.

We'd parachute onto that turf,

dodge the stones he tossed

and throw kisses to his mad wife

screeching from a window,

six-foot silver, braid dangling.

Pete picked off a trespasser

with a strong sidearm once causing

people buying produce from a peddler

to empty the truck, turning

Pete's lawn into a casserole.

We'd all taunted him one time or another

on dares, dashing across his jewel as if we

were customers testing its authenticity.

Years later we got friendly with Pete,

warned younger kids off his grass.

We played poker for pennies on his step.

He always wore sunglasses that reflected

the cards he never held close to his chest.

We kept him winning

for the sake of reparation.

The boot camp planes never flew

over our Project but we appraised all

the grass on God's gambling green earth

and called it glass against Pete's gem.

We imagined him without us, sadly

playing solitaire but later we learned

he taught his wife poker.

She read his hands like tarot

and her braid

became snake heavy,

studded with shiny copper.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Black & White**

Photos of a woman

wearing just a rose

littered Heights streets

for days when I was nine.

Nothing was clear

without a magnifying

glass and strong light,

but parents and clergy

were steaming.

I had a pocketful

but Rose's star faded

when Eddie showed

me a snapshot of a gal

prettier and smiling

as wide as she held

herself open.

Can't say I hadn't thought

about Smiley nostalgically

before I heard

Eddie was dying

of throat cancer.

A friend called

to say he'd visited Ed

and couldn't handle it.

(This guy saw combat

in Vietnam!)

I say a couple of shots

would get me though.

Just once, he says, once.

Living so far away, I'm safe.

I light candles,

for Eddie of course

but Smiley and Rose too,

all top shelf in a row

and a slip of paper

on the floor that wasn't

there when I knelt

boasts nothing

but a prayer

I failed to say.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Saints**

At my grandmother's house

there was a picture of a saint

on the kitchen door that to me

was a face in the hall

whispering a password.

Just what we needed, another

holier than thou!

My father looked out the window

for things to say.

I imagined us jumping

to the garage roof

like good guys on TV.

He was an outsider

not as successful as my uncles

who weren't raising their kids

in a Housing Project.

I was out of place too,

a victim of cousin hand-me-down

inferiority and my grandmother's kitchen.

She mixed onions with hamburger!

Let milk get warm on the table!

We were a couple of drifters

who got the right

password by mistake.

After a while he'd find an excuse

to slip out and I'd tag along to a bar

where he'd relax sipping a Narragansett

draught, talking baseball and horses,

tapping a finger to jukebox music.

Once a woman very drunk and beautiful

danced with me even though

I only reached her belly.

I had more Coke and Wise

Potato Chips than a kid

could dream.

Too quick my father recalled

the password to get us out.

We headed back to face whatever

abuse was waiting, armed with the strength

of saints we were glad we were not.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Fakes Before Jumpshots**

I found the name of a guy

from my old neighborhood

chiseled in the Wall.

But my memory of his face

was much too vague to mourn

with any certainty.

Maybe the one who gripped

the filter on his cigarette

between his teeth

when he practiced

free throws?

I can still hear the chain

net ringing.

Was that Heights court cement

or blacktop that glistened

in the rain the way

the Wall always does?

Did he pal around with the kid

who had a deadly jumper

but never learned to read?

For a moment, I wonder

if illiteracy might weaken

the power of the Wall.

I imagine a man's word-free eyes

darting back and forth across

names like fakes before jumpshots

until he's silently cursing

the game that made him

learn to count.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Prior to the E.P.A.**

I was a Heights kid

who played at the dump

behind Dunnell's Pond

in pools of chemicals that bubbled

the tropical colors of fish

in Woolworth's aquariums.

Those crazy liquids smelled

wonderful and most days

they made me laugh

at rats and calendar pinups

staring out the chicken

wire glass in the barrel factory.

And those gals blew kisses

as I floated to the popcorn plant

where mice shared pickings

like we were pals at the movies.

Once I shrunk so small I fit

on a pinup's tit.

Pigeons that shit

like government birds

in swaying towers and stacks

never agreed to take me flying.

That seemed to be the only rule.

Even cheese popcorn

couldn't bribe them.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Dead Cigarette Packs**

I crumble and toss

the cellophane.

It twitches,

and the foil falls

in the gutter

and poses like

an artsy flower.

The packaging

reminds me of kids

in the Heights

kicking each other

to get a foot on

a discarded pack.

The winner could punch

the nearest arm

without retaliation.

Punishment varied

brand to brand

and Luckies

topped the list,

Raleighs last.

Maybe a chant like

in a playground game.

Who remembers?

Not the girl I recall

opening Camels

at the wrong end

to keep her lips

germ free.

She faked amnesia

at the Silver Star

Lounge one night

and got so angry

at my quiz I was relieved

her statuesque height

was due to high

heels and she

wasn't platformed

on dead Lucky

Strike packs.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Combine Combination**

Cleothas Grier's green pickup

had an oversized bed and a sign

on the window that said CLERGY,

though he never quoted the _Bible_.

The Reverend coached a Heights

team named the Combines after

a semi-pro nine he remembered.

Buttering up our mothers, proclaiming

what good kids and ballplayers we were – he was

grateful for any kind of sandwich, Spam or plain jelly.

He had a temper, threatened a couple of umps

but left his Buck Knife on the bench.

He flashed it for a junk dealer though.

We'd filled the truck with riverbank rocks

which the Reverend said were pig iron

that would sell for scrap to buy uniforms.

But the dealer laughed – and we hustled

our Reverend off a step ahead of the law.

Shit, Heights kids didn't need sissy uniforms.

It got worse. A lifeguard at the Pond

told our shortstop the Reverend was

a fraud and it got back to him.

He wiped his face with a red bandana

and talked about his shotgun, but calmed down

enough to go out sandwich hunting.

The twelve-gauge was about as real as his so-called

church the centerfielder said. And most of us

agreed. But hell, he was our coach.

Two barrels blazed away any weapon doubt when

Reverend Grier settled a domestic spat: gunning

his next door neighbor's boyfriend down.

He claimed he saved the woman's life –

but served time anyway; the victim healed.

There really was a church, a storefront.

I wasn't as good a ballplayer as he told my mom –

but once I didn't stink at bat like Spam and my glove

was leather not pig iron: one rapturous game.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Rockwell Cover**

Who knew what

the sewage treatment

people called

that swimming hole?

The umbrella spray

from a pipe smack

in the middle led

Heights kids to

christen it

Sprinkle Shit Pond.

There was a perfect

Tarzan swing

so good that when

you launched

yourself, arms

jabbed out,

hands flashed

open,

it was like being

shot from a canon.

A cement mixing

tub swiped from

a construction site

served as a boat.

It was a regular Norman

Rockwell magazine

cover scene

at that swimming hole

by the railroad tracks.

Landing knee-tucked

cannonballs

caused tsunamis

sometimes sinking

the skiff and they wreaked

havoc on sprinkler

rainbows thousands

of toilets triggered.

And the mossy film

on sluggish bullfrogs

and horned pout

made them as easy

to catch as just

about anything.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**More Money Than God**

No paperboy or girl

had the patience

to hang on

to a Heights paper route

for very long.

And Barney was tired

of the ones that stole

and the excuses:

singsong litanies

of customers that would

pay real soon or probably

never in a million years.

And even though he heard

enough of that wearing his

bookmaking cap he opted

to get the Heights run

around first hand.

Lugging the heavy

canvas bag folks said

would kill a man his age

he braved any and all

weather as if every

gambler in the city

had wagered

on a heart attack.

After finishing he'd relax,

drink a couple of daiquiris

play gin rummy with painters

and roofers at the Hitching Post.

And men at the bar

would shake their heads

wonder why he didn't retire,

travel, and live

more life than this—

probably had more

money than God.

They'd interrupt without

even an "excuse me"

and Barney would

take a wager as small

as a quarter or half a buck

and never write down

a horse's name

or who'd paid or cuffed,

even those in deep

arrears across the street.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Shoot**

I remember boys

whose mothers

had short names

like Peg or Flo.

Easy even for their tots

to yell when they felt

rightly or wrongly

put upon and such

reports would spark

feminine fists flying,

dresses or bathrobes

not hiding much

at the end of the fray.

They had mouths

like the guys

at the basketball court.

Fuck this and that

to eternity,

especially the spooks

or whatever word leaped

to handle race that day.

Their older kids were

embarrassed as hell

but who'd offend a mother

who'd kill for you?

First time these well guarded

sons and daughters got tickets

for a Providence College game,

you'd think they were toddlers

understanding their first words.

Women in the stands

their mothers' age said,

"Darn," when a jumper was blocked.

"Shoot," when a free throw was short.

Women who seemed unaware

that the starting five

was black.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Quarry**

Dismayed that the furious

kicking and jumping

caused no dirt

or gravel avalanches

on the quarry fringe

the Heights gang stripped

down, stashed clothes in brush

then dashed to the cool

mud hole where rescue

from an up to belly

button burial

left arms in danger

of leaving sockets.

But it was just half-baked

quicksand and for all the trying

no slime ever reached a chin

and kids had to roll around

to complete the glistening

lagoon creature look.

Lumbering to the pit

by the pump house

and climbing to its roof

perfect for diving

into the murky water

it didn't matter

if kids were rinsed or not

when the law arrived.

Escaping up

the tricky hills,

it was one step up

two back

as the flashing

cruiser light spun

its jailbreak blue.

Risk of capture slim

as cops took their sweet

time deciding if any urchin

was worth a soiled

uniform or not.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Calculating

I don't recall him driving

any bus I ever rode

but that was said to be his trade

and the Heights powers likely

used the good pay against

number of kids, formula

to force him out --

raised his rent as high

as a penthouse window

his talented jock of a son

could have smashed at will

with a baseball hurled or driven.

I think there was a daughter

maybe too beautiful

to even bother with my

long term memory.

The remaining kid was a joker,

practical and spoken.

Fresh out of the Navy

barely of drinking age

I recognized the old man

at Murphy's Lounge strolling,

crooning and strumming

a ukulele.

I might have requested

a tune, "An Irishman's Dream"

as I usually did when lit

with a musician near.

I could have

conjured up a test rivaling

the Federal Housing Authority's

to avoid tipping him–

United Transit pension

versus what remained from selling

back my unused leave to Uncle Sam,

then factoring in the drinks

crucial for dexterity through

the clown stage of the evening

and the additional

rings of the register required

to make myself handsome

and the rare woman tolerant

of my antics, beautiful.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**What Was Boss**

Even though I was unlicensed

George let me chauffeur

him around in his yellow

'56 Ford winter nights

the Project lawn was too cold

for strumming or whittling

heads of South Sea God

good luck charms.

One hung off my neck on a rawhide

skate lace along with St. Christopher.

George favored pointed

half-boots with zippers,

a black sportcoat

but never a tie.

After a shift wherever he was

working at the time: sunglass

factory, wire works, cinder

block plant, he might be found

guitar in hand on that Prospect

Heights grass.

He'd also sip brandy,

build a cigarette or comment

on current rock & roll.

What was "boss," what not.

Keeping a sentry's eye

on passing vehicles he'd offer

reviews and savor the rare

Porsche, MG or Corvette.

Years later, the lawn lost out

to parked autos and not

the luxury kind but in the rain

in the right light the blacktop

struck some as a placid sea

and they wondered if God,

Saints or the late George

himself had whittled, rolled

or strummed up that

"boss" mirage.

True believers had unshakable

faith in a second coming

of the turf.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**1933**

The tree shadows

lying on the tracks

suggested train wreck

vandalism but our mile

or so walk

jumping on and off

the rails into East Providence

was to hop a freight back.

The sole cargo was Heights

kids except for flour

sacks we emptied

out the doors like cake

hating fools.

Climbing to boxcar tops

on cool rusty rungs and standing

tall we were pasty copies

of our movie and history

text hobos that the creaking

rails recalled even though

the speed didn't make leaping

off at the Sunshine Biscuit

Company dangerous.

Kids who stayed aboard

tempered the return trek

with images of wide-eyed

next day listeners

who'd never ventured

an extended fantasy

excursion back to say

1933, Great Depression

train riding.

Ties were tallied

and the tree shadows

the moon dropped

across the tracks

like ghouls and corpses

were included

to sweeten the tale.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Caddy Evenings**

Tanned brown as some

of the country club

wives, Wilson had

blond hair, crew cut

about the length

of grass you'd find

edging a green.

He was one of those pro

caddies collecting

unemployment off a mill

job I suspected.

I can't tell you

his first name – it was tough

enough corralling his last.

I picture him next and it

was the only other place

I'd ever seen him away

from the caddy shack or at work,

sitting on the cement step

outside a Heights door

where he lived a while

thanks to the hospitality

of a black woman.

She'd join him evenings

and well into the better-than-

any-country-club night,

drinking quart bottles of beer

and the tips of their cigarettes

served as fat fireflies

dancing for children

peeking out windows.

His teeth were bad, but he never

slammed the brakes on a smile.

No big shot members complained

when he was plainly high and smelled

that way because he could advise

the right clubs to use

as if his surname and given

were engraved on them.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Bad Water**

Dislodged rust and iron

deposits from the older

pipes tint the water.

Wouldn't trust bottled

stuff as far as I could

throw a full container

that harks of what

used to hold the chlorine

at Dunnell's Pond.

As good an excuse as any

to drink some out of state

or country brews

but not enough to launch

a tour of the Heights

that's behind

menacing fences now.

Funny, in my day there might

as well have been an invisible

wall for the most part but that

was then and drugs are now.

And speaking of substance abuses

and side effects I had better keep

my beer stomach and head on straight

the way Alka-Seltzer acts in brew.

Barkeeps would toss my ass out

like once in Lil's Lounge

a long fizzy hand crawling across

the bar like a Hollywood monster

from a water main cracked and haunted

in dangerous Federal Housing.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Protection**

Could pass for a Madonna

the way she holds the kid,

but she's teaching it to curse.

She's a thief and a con,

fights like a man.

I hear she's like two women

in bed, but someone always shows

up with a shoplifting request

when she seems in the mood.

She welcomes me

when I'm falling apart,

and barkeeps are jury foreman,

serving guilty verdicts.

I'm her soap opera and game

show companion.

Sometimes when she's working

the malls I baby-sit

the rocking horse crazy kid

shouting his lesson:

EAT SHIT AND DIE,

like a miniature judge.

Returning, she ignores my distress,

lassos the cowkid with a hug.

After a marvelous show,

pulling jewelry and what-have-you

from everywhere like Harpo Marx

emptying his overcoat

I'm in her arms,

blindfolded by her breasts,

my jittery fingers are bouncing

off her back

like firing squad bullets

struck powerless.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The First Thing**

A girl named Marla

in the Heights

had been smoking since

she figured out matches

weren't for play and school

was good for nothing

but truancy.

She could hold her booze

better than those old enough

to buy it for her and she fended

them off too.

Nights, dressed in black,

she danced on corners

to transistor rock & roll.

Her long blonde hair

was a beacon luring

guys who thought

Heights girls were easy.

She'd jump in a car

as if she weren't spoken for

and sometimes take me

along as a backseat decoy.

She'd brag later

what a jerk that night's

chauffeur had been and how

fast he drove with us

blinding his horny eyes.

She'd steal my words, say

the sap's rear view mirror

was the size of a hole

in a dungeon door

and he was her prisoner.

That would crack up her

boyfriend less than

the thought of someone

thinking a kid like me

knew the first thing.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**An Old Guess**

There was a violin rumor,

and a definite sax and guitar

in the Heights.

I kept an ear cocked

for the fancy strings.

I heard the horn

when I could con my way

into the Canopy Club.

The closest I got to music

was a jaw harp

from Ray Mullin's store

after being inspired

by Honest Abe

twanging one in a movie.

A painful experiment.

I ceased my dreams

of ever playing an instrument.

Still, I envied a guy who strummed

guitar on summer nights.

He never sang and there

was no particular tune I could

identify but I guessed the blues

since he died young as did his first

wife, her brother, his spouse

and her sister.

The guitar man did

have a daughter by his second mate

who had a marvelous voice,

sang the National Anthem

at a Triple A baseball game.

He told me so himself at one

of those earlier wakes.

I kept my old blues premonition

to myself at his viewing as a violinist

might have hidden his talent

in a '50s Housing Project.

I silently wished his daughter

a starring role

in a joyful Broadway musical..

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Consolation**

My uncle said you

had to lace

the hockey skates,

hand-me-downs

from my cousin,

with rawhide.

There was no rink,

Heights kids played

on a swamp

that was half dump,

tires sticking

through the ice

like the best

seats in the house.

There was a washing

machine

with a ringer

and 55 gallon drums

in various degrees

of exposure that might

check or kill you.

My goal was crafted

from an old love seat.

I used a borrowed stick

once Rhode Island

Reds property.

But the puck

my eye stopped

hit like the whole

of the NHL

was behind it.

Curled up half-sighted

on half-dump ice, my skates looked

as new as their rawhide laces

and the ice they rested on

could have been Boston Garden

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Island**

(For Joe Morris)

No nun would have admitted

novels like _Lord of the Flies_

or _Catcher in the Rye_ existed,

so it was up to a hard-drinking, brawling

bird farm sailor who cursed in Spanish

and mixed quotes like John Donne's,

comparing men to islands,

with tales of boot camp bullshit,

raging seas, lurid Med and Caribbean ports

with their plentiful women, gob loving,

hot and wild, as well as riveting accounts

of Manhattan and D.C. adventures–every

word tacked instantly in memory by kids

hanging around the ninety-block

who pretended they were on the deck

of his carrier or one of Conrad's

oft mentioned barks,

instead of some spotty, rare grass

in Prospect Heights

under a tree that survived numerous

cherry bomb and hammerhead plots

to topple it and countless

pocket, dagger and switchblade

wounds plus annual

creaking Tarzan swing damage.

Those diversions were traded

for sounds that might mimic

a conch and strategies we'd employ

if stranded on the fly isle

as well as plans to bolt school

a la Holden Caulfield and also

adopting his bad attitude.

We read our asses off!

I discovered Irwin Shaw's "Sailor

off the Bremen" on my own, figured

our "Sailor off the Intrepid"

would have kicked

his treacherous ass better

than Charley did.

Some of us joined the Navy

and learned that ninety-block

sailor told no lies and found ourselves

grateful that he'd taught us

the Heights wasn't the island

outsiders pretended it to be.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Me and The Dragon-Python Man**

Christ, did birds visit my sleep,

pluck away seed meant for lush pubic hair?

Shit, swimming naked

at the Boys' Club was embarrassing,

everyone my age was sprouting.

But things changed

when the Dragon-Python Man

was released from drug rehab.

Man, did he stand out,

short hair, Hawaiian shirt,

python and a dragon

tattooed on either calf.

Tough bastard, had to be,

going to hairdresser school.

I was crawling in the grass

after a poker game

searching for lost change

when a big-mouth bragged

about some girl.

He used those little words

you could say quick

so grownups would miss them.

Dragon-Python Man topped him,

saying he'd had a shave party

with one of his girlfriends.

I didn't know what the hell he meant

until he dropped his drawers.

He was bald as me!

Jaws dropped and so did cigarettes.

I snatched two beauties,

smoked them so fast I almost puked.

After that I was strutting at the Boys' Club

like a guy who'd just been shaved by a starlet

but I still stuck my little prick

into the pipe replenishing the pool

trying to imagine what the big-mouth

with all the little words

had been bragging about.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Opening Act**

Pete didn't live in the Heights

so he warmed up to us

just to meet a girl

in the twenty block.

A nice enough guy,

he worked hard in a textile

mill, and had a Buick

red and new.

Once he took us out

to Colt's Drive

in Bristol

where he pulled up

alongside a couple

of girls and the one

named Johnna

didn't ignore him.

She was a beauty and we were

thankful just to watch

her smile, a hand pushing

blonde hair over her pearl

pierced ear while leaning in

like a suspicious hitchhiker

to find Memphis in his eyes.

Well, he did sing Elvis songs

better than the King.

He'd performed free

at the Heights hall on the very spot

where the Hungarian priest preached

broken-English sermons.

When people said Pete's bumping

and grinding was just

an opening act

for the big drug show,

we thought of Johnna

and couldn't fathom

his choice to romance

chemicals.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Labor Day**

I never sang

Georgie Porgie, puddin' and pie,

kissed the girls and made them cry,

well maybe when I was six

or seven but I did kink his hoses

damming the water until he got his face

close to the sprinkler

checking what was wrong and then

a quick H2O smooch for him.

He was tongue-tied, wore an Army

fatigue cap and ran

Groucho Marx style after us

shouting "Lay Day, Lay Day"

as if he were a pimp and not

just wishing school would start.

When he retired from Housing

Project maintenance

he ditched that chant.

The only guy who bothered to

translate him besides maybe

the priest who heard

his Saturday confession

used his imagination,

said he probably

switched to yakking

about Heights kids being

too dumb to fuck

with the gas lines

on the city bus he took

round trip to Crescent

Park whether the chowder

and clamcake stands

were open or not.

There was further speculation

and joking on his activity

at the bus trip end

and also his virginity

but it was slight given

the worrisome state

of our own.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
_Cuisses de Grenouilles_

Once Ray's cousin Dave took us

fishing at Lincoln Woods.

Driving through downtown

Pawtucket on the way, we passed

the hot wiener joints by the Main St.

Bridge and my mouth watered

picturing one snug in a steamed roll,

mustard, onions and meat sauce

like frosting on cake.

As if reading my mind, Dave said

they were poison and should be outlawed.

The fishing spot was out of _Field & Stream:_

tall trees, lily pads, turtles on rocks,

no tires or car transmissions like the swamp

behind Prospect Heights.

But for all the clear water and ambiance

we didn't catch the string of pickerel

our minds had stocked in the pond.

Dave talked a lot about the bullfrogs

croaking and splashing away our afternoon.

Might return at midnight to catch some

for their legs (which he said in French) and laughed,

swearing they were the best food on earth.

He wouldn't agree to take us

along in any lingo.

When I got home my aunt

was visiting and she gave me

the third degree about Dave.

Did he talk about girls?

drive fast and reckless

or drink booze?

Well, his eyes _had_ been glassy

but I didn't rat him out

and wouldn't have for a dozen

hot wieners even had I known

our _Field & Stream_ day that

Dave ranked heroin right up there

with _cuisses de grenouilles._

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Swamp Stocking

A naked boy emerges from easy river

currents at a broken wall.

Picturing himself a frogman

who bombed it, he whistles and waves

at a long, slow train shaking the trestle.

A fly rod he found in a dump and left

to fend for itself, is twitching

like a skinny puppet.

The boy shouts, "marlin"

and puts on a show.

Placing the catfish's

stiffened head horn in the crook

of index and middle fingers,

he bends them around the side

horns and holds the white belly

up to passengers like a tract.

Threading a Venetian blind cord

with a no. 2 pencil on the end

through a gill and out the mouth

he imagines swinging his catch

to scare girls.

There's a swamp behind the Heights

where sun turtles lounge on bald tires

like old men in hard winter coats.

Red-winged blackbirds perch

on a dead V-8 engine

like greasy hands

sliced when ratchets slipped.

The boy frees the catfish.

Swimming like a drunk it recovers,

hides under an ancient washing machine

with a sprung wringer.

Water bugs make the swamp blink

like eyes peering

out coach windows.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Angling**

I recall this one

childhood friend,

his big laugh, crop of thick

dirty blond hair and a set of eye

teeth like a German Shepherd.

Did the description

on the wanted poster

after he robbed and killed

the proprietor

of a small variety store sound

anything like my version?

However it read,

it took six months to work.

They nabbed him in Syracuse.

Released after fourteen years,

he took freedom as lightly

as loan company cash

and gold chains as heavy

I imagined as the fat strings

of horned pout that swung

off handlebars the time he

decimated a Seekonk Pond

with half an ocean fishing rod.

Was he grey and somber

on the second post office

bulletin board poster?

Were his teeth replaced or blank?

Easily apprehended, he quickly

confessed to the robbery spree

as if he missed his prison cell.

Add twenty-five years to his

2015 release date and just hang it

up like a "Gone Fishin'" sign

luck failed to place in that variety

store window.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Gimp**

Plastic playground gimp

shaped like linguine

sold by the foot in new

car lot colors

that suited a textile city.

Square weaving first,

I kept the over and under

of cardboard box

flaps in mind,

and thinking of mothers

braiding shiny hair,

I mastered the round.

Both styles merged

in a green and white

lanyard with a whistle

and imagining I was

a lifeguard at the pond

visible through the chain

link fence, or Malibu,

I heard the noon horn blow

at Blackstone Webbing,

a mill that wouldn't hire me

a year the Beach Boys were hot.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Chewing**

There was a honeysuckle vine

on the chain link fence enclosing

the Heights playground

where a kid hugging

a mayonnaise jar collected

bumblebees he'd plucked from blossoms

as if their wings were cellophane

twists on penny candy.

Once in a while softly kissing

one into his mouth

he'd swallow without chewing

like you were supposed to do

with a communion wafer.

When a priest preached

about children that were special

in the eyes of God,

the jerk next to me whispered,

our Bee Boy qualified and would

be plucking flies off shit if he were not.

A nun in the pew behind us overheard.

As we stood to go to communion

she grabbed our collars, said no,

you're out the state of grace

and banged my innocent head

against the guilty noggin.

The very next Sunday I went to a Mass

without nuns and for spite chewed

the host as if it was a Necco Wafer

half fearing God lodging

bee wings between my teeth

no floss could budge

for punishment.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Popcorn**

I remember sitting on a bench

in the carousel building with Steve

at Slater Park, "Moonlight Bay"

accompanying the shiny

menagerie's spinning.

We had no money

to ride but Steve

suggested

let's get us some

popcorn at least.

A mother had just

bought her kid

a jumbo box.

I thought Steve was kidding

but in a flash he picked off

that treat

as if it contained a hundred

brass rings.

We gobbled it

on the other side

of the duck pond

and for all the quacking

not one got a nibble.

We hustled back

to the Heights.

Steve kept the bag,

for proof or a trophy

I guess.

Sometimes when

a memory of him visits,

I push his Vietnam fueled

suicide from my mind

with a rerun

of that long gone act

of petty theft.

But my memory edits

and updates,

makes everything right

and I'm the thief

snatching the handgun

Steve holds

against his head.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Tone Deaf**

The kid rumored

to play the violin

had a grandmother

who lived in the 100 block

and paid kids buttons instead

of pennies for doing chores.

His younger brother was tough

so any taunting was quieted

by his fists, a fate

that some who knew it first

hand said was not as bad

as the screechy music

likely would have been.

Their mother was another

story, a shapely woman,

hair as black as

her son

was known

to color eyes.

She wore it pulled

tight like strings

on the maestro's

defamed instrument.

I'm tone deaf so

I would have been in

no position to criticize

and my errand pay

always spent

so there was never

a need to

defend myself.

Even though

I was no fighter

I had a dream

I could undo

their mom's blouse

one arm tied

behind

my back.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Hygienic Knowledge**

I'd already locked eyes with her

so I figured she'd have shouted

my name, made a scene

had I bolted the diner

so I sat and ordered

an open roast beef sandwich,

tried to lose her and myself

in the newspaper

horse race results.

After I chose mashed and corn

she asked if Meg's fingernails

had been dirty.

When I shot a puzzled look,

she said, don't play dumb

the one you picked up at Edna's

Lounge last week has had filthy

nails all her life.

Didn't notice, I mumbled.

Jesus, was all she said,

nothing about when she lived

in the Heights

and my ten-year-old eyes

had seen her tits as her

hubby threw her bodily

through their screen door.

I guess she saw her hygienic

knowledge as evening the score.

I recalled parking with Meg

and getting nowhere fast.

My efforts were half-hearted

after the _Bible_ quotes

so there were no infected

scratches seeping

to repulse that waitress

but she used the counter

for a shuffleboard anyway,

firing cherry Jell-O at me

after I'd yelled out lime.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Vandalism**

I was sixteen when my friend

Leo helped me install a front

seat in my father's '51 Chevy

at a Cumberland junkyard.

The car, a saintly blue

had a windshield visor

and a lens-looking

thingamajig on the dash

for ease of gauging traffic

light changes.

Since someone torched

the original, I'd been

sitting on a kitchen chair

minus legs I'd found

at the dump that

I'd nailed to a wood

and metal milk crate.

It worked, along with a death

grip on the steering wheel.

Sometimes I'd get it rocking

strictly for the hell of it.

My father's next transportation

was a '49 Plymouth and when

its windshield was smashed

my friend Leo said that piece

of work was too tricky for him.

I failed at finding

a temporary fix then

a jobless ex-con who lifted

weights in the block

across from us offered

to do the job and cheap.

Since my father kept to himself

I often wondered if those acts

of vandalism just came

with Federal Housing or owning

cars that looked to be a sputter away

from the junkyard.

Was the destruction aimed at me?

The answer's never as clear

as a vista free of old auto glass

on the brightest recorded

summer high noon or as pitch

sinister as nights I considered

a name overheard who's dead

and buried now.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Hollywood**

She insists you call her

that, even writes it fancy-

like on homework, quizzes

and exams.

She's never without

mirrored sunglasses

and no doubt

wears them sleeping

like she does when

she allows sex

on a favorite grassy patch

behind the cemetery.

Partners might stare

at their reflections

trying to prolong

_their_ screen test.

The chosen are eligible

to find their initials

scarred into her thighs

with a sliver

of broken Wild Irish

Rose bottle glass

she constantly fingers

as if a good luck piece.

When she makes good

in Tinseltown,

she says she'll know

the fans most devoted

and loyal

because she'll carve

autographs the same

way and they'll push

their shades to the end

of their noses to brag

how dry their eyes.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Seamanship

One finger curled snugly around

a clothesline hook imbedded in brick

nearest the door, until hands and feet

master the brick trim jutting out

no farther than dollhouse steps,

a sneaker toe gains purchase

on my iron curl accomplice.

The other hits the narrow ledge

as a paw tenses on a windowsill

before clawing to the top

of a screen that feels secure.

Slapping at copper until my mitt

fits over the flashing rim

I drag myself up to the gravel

and stink pipe terrain and among

rubber balls, jacks-sized and better

sit one or two of major league

caliber, stitching still like new!

They are all mine for the keeping

or generously tossing or wickedly

flinging at a hungry sewer.

My Heights never looked so good!

I'm standing on a carrier

deck surrounded by a squadron

of lesser bird farms and a body

could vow to join the Navy

and cling to the oath when

back on earth and plot

clothesline theft—

get a head start on the knot

tying angle anyway.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Emperor of Prospect Heights (See Cover)**

Call it the letter T in green

or a cross with hooks that

could host a crucifixion

and I suppose some might

have named the clothesline

a sort of savior one time

or another but to most kids

the structure provided a limb

for doing pull-ups

or a dependable appendage

to fold legs over to look

the world over upside

down, but more than that,

a few daring souls discovered

it was perfect for mimicking

an acrobat aloft on a big top

partner's shoulders—just sit

on a solid green wing and

with a hand on the post cap,

carefully stand, heels dug into

hooks for purchase then arms

folded, lay claim to the title,

Emperor of Prospect Heights.

Someone might have done

a single of double flip exiting

that royal stance but I never

saw anyone with the bragging

rights hanging off a neck chain—

a cross painted high gloss

green and the bearer itching

to fight or argue the deed

or a bed sheet

as a celebratory banner

fit for St. Paddy's Day.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Monday**

Dresses dancing

Clothespin castanets

Winter snapping still

Torn drapes tossing

Breezy carpet dice

Swirling linen dreams

Wringer of dawn

Steam iron days

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Cave That Drank Summer**

No bat with a wing span to brag about.

No fugitive waving stiletto or pistol.

Never a shadowy monster either.

A man-made pond drains here

and it seems summer did too—

city valves shut tight near Labor Day.

Who recalls any raging water

sweeping a boy off like bottles

marked and launched to reclaim

in the river a mile away?

Can't say any specimen glass was ever found.

What brave soul will find that cave's end?

Well, say it is winter, the floor is sandy

and you waddle to a near-standing place

near rocks coated with candle wax.

No one ever has gone deeper you suspect.

Names appear overhead and flicker

in candle flame like banners planes pull.

There's "love" and stronger words!

Sex happened here!

Is that a blanket or a corpse?

Take it easy, just newspapers;

all folded open to obituaries!

It's mighty cold and after risking a few

more yards you build a fire

rolling up that old news tight

and the cave that never once gave you the creeps

smokes you out as if you'd committed every crime

police blotters in the faulty fuel list and

a million times more serious than mere truancy.

Sprinting from the cave that drank summer

tripping through the deepest part of the pond

shell you hear sirens wailing out your name

and all you hope is to outrun the smoky stench

that fits you like it would a firebug—

except for a few whiffs

for bragging.

Return To Contents
**Fantasy in the Clouds**

Before the Shriners took over

for a week with their circus,

all the racetrack meant was collecting

losing tickets from gutters to store

in cigar boxes as if they were cash.

Sneaking off with older kids

I wiggled under the fence

like a hungry raccoon.

The Fantasy in the Clouds

act featured the Ortons working

their tall poles

switching and swaying

like they were trapped

on palms in a typhoon.

Oh, those poles must have been

fifty feet high!

And the way they leaned!

How could they not snap?

I feared for those performers

like I feared for my ass when I got home.

Then we met a girl dressed in a brief

Eskimo suit passing out samples

of Cliquot Club soda.

Even at eight I was keen to her

beauty, imagined the Ortons were risking

life and limb to gain her favor.

We hung around like an entourage

and vowed to be forever true

to Cliquot Club.

Suddenly she whirled and tilting

dangerously as one of those poles,

kissed each of us precisely

on our curious lips.

She probably thought we'd scatter,

pledging our allegiance to Pepsi

or Coke, but we stood fast

and she gave us more!

I dumped all my losing tickets

including two, hundred dollar duds

and began collecting Cliquot Club

labels and such.

I spent what I could of that summer

in slender trees several bottle caps

off her soda in my pockets for luck,

leaves bussing my Casanova lips.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Apprentice**

Warm enough for tee shirts,

Spring, 1959, still two weeks off

and Bobby under a bumper

jacked forty-nine Ford installing

a junkyard-new differential.

Talking pinions, rings and gears

he cussed them too.

Thirteen and he could

fix automotive anything!

I didn't know how

a dipstick worked or much else

and it seemed I never would.

Smoking a Lucky his feet

dancing, he was harmonizing

with the Coasters

hit "Charlie Brown" playing

on a taped up transistor radio,

sound far lower than Bobby's

when revved on Muscatel.

Bobby leaped into that primer

grey Ford and the differential passed

a test no legit mechanic would

have had the balls to attempt.

This lucid memory lingering

is a mystery as so many fade

to vague or disappear.

Sometimes it's as if my hands

were once young

and played a bit part

but maybe screwed the task up

royally like the Charlie Brown

song clown but all the same

daffodil buds continue to be

ratchet heads calling for Bobby

to snap blossoms on and I've shocked

myself and the world filling in

so well after the docs tagged

Bobby far beyond repair.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Mr. Fix-It's Dream Deal**

Not long after my father died,

I woke up at four-thirty A.M.

from a dream that featured

a low mileage Cutlass,

three years old!

Eleven crisp tens took it:

racetrack daily double loot.

It was a gift for my dad I drove

from Maryland to Rhode

Island as if proof

of an afterlife was tucked

in the glove compartment.

I rushed through a door

almost knocking down

my mother's ironing board.

She was pressing a white shirt

that fit when I was seven

but she was more concerned

with a failing washing machine,

asked me to take a look.

An old-fashioned model,

it served in our Heights

Housing Project days.

Situated close to the TV screen

my hard-of-hearing father was lost

in a Red Sox game

and the volume was high.

Reluctantly, he peeked out at the black

Oldsmobile and quizzed me.

He was amazed at the cost!

Shaking my hand as if I were Carl

Yaztrzemski, he recalled

the thirty-six edition he bought

for twenty-five and sold for eighty

during a scrap metal shortage.

I fixed the emergency wringer

release that was gummed up

in the snap it takes

to forget most dreams.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Boxes**

The majority of the yards

had no grass

even in summer

so when the snow fell

one kid imagined them

all beautiful women's

faces after applying

cold cream.

There were thirty-five

brick blocks and each

reminded him

of the brown U-Pic shoebox

that was home

to his white mouse.

Once Casper chewed his way

out and nestled

in his keeper's sheets.

The pink eyes glowed

like rhinestones

in a snowdrift

but that was the last

that was seen of the pet.

The kid never forgot

that disappearance

and years later contemplating

the Rockies, he suddenly

tasted cardboard while rooting

for the snow to cover the pines,

pink sun blurred and doubled

in his welled up eyes

as if a beautiful woman

just told him

to hit the road,

any road,

dirt of paved.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Toughest Part**

I don't recall what I was after

in that closet

one day at age seven

when the chair

I stood on collapsed.

Sucking out the tooth

chip lodged in my lip

I spit a glob

of blood against a wall.

That incisor

unlike its kin is decay

and abscess proof.

A dark tribute to coffee

tea and tobacco,

it lives beside a cap

not tinted to match.

It looks like

an artifact from a dig.

Two score and eight

years later came

an anniversary spill.

Reaching for juice

I passed out, chinning

shelves on the way

to the floor.

The tooth survived

that second attack.

When I came to

blood from that old wound

explored my white beard.

The answer to the closet hunt

mystery was not jarred free.

I could not imagine

ever being seven.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Handshake Cold and Rotten**

The owner of the Laundromat

had the proof,

having shaken hands.

It was the texture of their skin

that drove the white women

who chased them crazy.

He claimed he paid protection cash

to the biggest Heights "buck" by choice.

Only way to go and by God,

no one broke _his_ windows

or his double doors

that wore evenly because

each month one side

or the other was locked.

But if he ever renovated

he'd use the revolving kind

like a fancy department

store or bank.

And speaking of money he shook

his head and swore

that there wasn't enough loot

in the world to keep

Heights folks, black _and_ white,

from leaving shit in diapers.

No way to escape granting free spins

when turds outraged customers.

But that said, it was forever race,

in sports, business, politics and sex.

All traceable to that hand

he'd shaken, long and firm,

for every wrong reason!

Christ, did he ever wash it?

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Freestyler**

Give

to the Heart

Fund in lieu

of flowers

the obit says,

and I

remember

thinking

years ago

that his

would

surely burst

through

his chest

after all

the tills

and trowels

of freestyle

kicks and strokes

flashing

hydraulic

garlands.

And I

imagined

acres of

swimming

pools

as still

as midnight

gardens

in winter

to end

my memorial

meditation.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Adult Carbonation**

At nine I dreamed of growing bold

enough to scale the barbed wire

around the Berry Springs soda plant

to steal empty bottles to trade

for nickels at Donna's market.

One day I said, whatever a nine-

year-old says, when pulling all the stops,

and went for the money and more.

Sneaking into the building,

I grabbed a quart from a conveyer belt.

Workers chased me, but ducking

into traffic, I escaped.

Horns were blasting

like the end of the world

or at least free soft drinks.

With all the excitement,

I hadn't checked my prize.

Shit-piss-fuck: soda water!

In an old sewer pipe by the river

I drank it anyway

having risked my ass you see.

I gagged down every swig afraid

adult carbonation might kill me.

I began to peel the label

in one piece with a fingernail

to pass the time but couldn't

chance losing the deposit cash.

Never dreamed down

the road trembling

fingers jigsawing labels

into accordion strips on bars

after yanking all the stops.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Sixty-Eight and Four**

Barney or Greg dropped off

the newspapers.

Sixty-eight _Pawtucket Times_ ,

and four _Bulletins_.

(In autumn, sounded

like a lopsided gridiron score.)

In the Heights, just us, the people

next door and one on Notre Dame;

two stops on Princeton, and another

on York was how it began

then Kenmore marked

the start of what remained of the dash.

Building momentum, newsprint a blur

flipping and spinning into storm doors

and maybe I'd hang the canvas bag

on a fence, count some out,

finish Paul Street, one jacket arm,

headline black.

Could work Poirier the same

before knocking off

Oregon, Rosella and Manual,

leaping fences and out-sprinting

the nippy spaniel on Pollard.

Just Byron left before solving Beverage Hill

and twice a week, the paper route moved

like the traffic on that Avenue

during racetrack season.

Wednesdays involved a late finish

fat advertising to be inserted.

Friday was collection time.

Forty-two cents the price, and people

didn't quibble over nickels and pennies.

After a NEHI or Royal Crown at Farley's,

back to the Heights to do the counting.

It was fourth and sixty-eight on a trick play,

breaking tackles down Princeton,

powering across Notre Dame

as if the weight of quarters and halves

were all it would take to spirit me

into a McCoy Stadium backfield.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Money

Robbie's big '48 Buick was as black

as the beauties that hooked him later.

Who knew what it cost back in '62?

It never fired up, so a Confederate

buck would have been a swindle.

A gang of us tried to push it

to a junkyard on Water Street

with Robbie at the wheel sitting as tall

as if he had a license and registration.

Rolling pretty good

down Hospital Hill we were

hanging all over

that Buick 8 as if it were a float

in a, _you get what you pay for_ parade.

When a cruiser forced him to brake,

Robbie told the cop he'd run

him the fuck down someday.

Eyeing the car's power

supply the lawman laughed.

But the threat got Robbie into cuffs

and maybe that was the entry

level arrest he was after.

We got off with a warning and damned

if I ever pushed the likes

of Robbie around again

but I think of him when

I see that year Buick

at an antique car show.

Our nostalgia dusts its mirror

finish for our old fingerprints.

With glassy eyes he confides

a few pills in me and we're so smooth

we own it for a wooden nickel or two.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Street** **Songs**

Palm

Of

Prospect

Heights

Knuckles

Of

Notre

Dame

Fingers

Of

Princeton

Pembroke

Yale

Cornell

And

Wellesley

Just seem

Bound

up in Ivy

They tap

Out

Tunes

On

The

Keys

Of

York

It takes

No degree

To name.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Codeine and Paregoric, 1955**

As far as I can see codeine's main deal

is to calm a hacking cough and it does.

The opium is lost on me and the same

with gum-soothing paregoric.

Hell, who hasn't tasted them?

What nut would claim they rivaled spinning

on a stool and nursing sweet things

at the pharmacy or reading comics

until the druggist threw you out?

Anyway, he sells both potions

as if they were the milk shakes

his smoky fingers prepare.

But he never fixes any treat

with a dose of invisible in it.

All I can do is imagine

hiding in the phone booth

the druggist says isn't some game

in a penny arcade.

After closing time, I emerge

to gather stacks of comics

thick as _The Yellow Pages_.

Reading by flashlight into dawn,

empty Whitman Sampler cups

carpet the floor and crinkle

as I climb the rack where _Playboy_ lives.

No druggist's mitts throttle me

and I'm not nabbed like a junkie

thief with lungs and gums shrunken

by codeine and paregoric.

I escape into a morning sun that's a shade

more yellow than the druggist's fingers

wagging at me that the library's downtown

and who knows what else at the quack

of a God he blames for prescribing me.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Sir Parapet**

The walls that signaled

a narrow bridge over a conduit

draining Dunnell's Pond kept bodies

from falling and cars from skidding

into the ditches on either side.

One smartass kid dubbed the structures

parapets but castles and the Middle Ages

weren't for me as my fantasies lived

in movie and TV forts

like Apache and Laramie.

He could have called them Laurel

& Hardy for all I cared.

Two bronze plaques read:

Built by

Works Projects

Administration

_R.I. 1940_ –

I won't swear I read them

as a kid but fifty or so years gone,

I took note most likely hooked

by the one marker gone missing.

Having abandoned cowboy

and cavalry dreams

I enlisted with the medieval guy,

christened myself Sir Parapet

and in a flash of breastplate

and helmet I approached

Castle Smartass.

Witnessing the emblem pillage

and crumbling cement

faking a cannonball strike I tossed

the remaining W.P.A. relic

into a burlap sack and toted my spoil

of war to a scrap dealer on Water Street–

demanded to be paid off

in pounds, pence

and shillings.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Second Grade**

New house

construction

in the field

between old

wooden

St. Teresa's

and Monticello

upset everything

including green

snakes,

hundreds of them

weaved into

a creepy ball

for kids

to speculate

what sport

it would

fit best.

Circling

the vipers

some tried to

count heads

and whether

the orb was

kicked

or carried away

or the moon

untangled it

as if an

eccentric's

stash of string

was a question

every dream

and nightmare

handled

differently.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Inhale!**

Taking a home-from-school

short cut route I'd stop by

the Kenmore Laundry

where an attached shack

missing a wall

was handy for a smoke

break if a gutter served

up a worthy one.

A hiss of presses,

rattle of hangers, faint

radio music and cleaning

fluid odors merged

to elevate my inhaling high.

I collected a souvenir

from one visit, a hard

spot on the sole of my foot

thanks to a rusty nail

that resulted in a tetanus shot.

First kiss and brief feel of breast

in that rickety three-quarter

shack too.

Her lips were chapped

and her tongue tasted of tobacco.

It was rumored a kid

who broke into the laundry

got more than that.

Stolen shirts sent him

to reform school after a cop

spotted a monogrammed cuff.

My shack oasis memory

is a sparkling shirt,

white, lightly starched

on a hanger not folded:

imagine me wearing in it

under a tux, shiny lapel sporting

an aromatic short cut

of starry nicotina

blossoms.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Orthopterous Insects**

I played in tall grass

by Douglas Box

snatching grasshoppers

like Superman

grabbing bullets.

I imagined that field

devoured like

a Biblical plague

but some kid

always did it with fire.

In eighth grade

I made a speech

about grasshoppers,

called them

"orthopterous insects"

every chance I got

for the sound of it.

Years later, I applied

for a job at Douglas Box,

but didn't get hired.

Walking through my old field,

grasshopper memories

made me a punch-drunk fighter

jabbing at nothing.

Thanksgiving was close

and grass was mocking

plagues and tempting firebugs.

I lit a Lucky but didn't toss the match.

Rain began to fall like Noah's

as I yelled, "orthopterous"

as if someone in personnel would

be impressed and reconsider.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Our Silent Applause**

The '50 Mercury was parked near

where the city erected a big

lifeguard tent in summer

after pumping Dunnell's Pond full.

But the aromas of canvas and chlorine

seemed as distant as the leering

moon or our first piece of ass.

Easing across that winter sand

it was as if we'd found a treasure

filled pyramid instead of a dull

gray souped-up Mercury.

But those interior lights

were gold enough for us.

The guy and his date

weren't studying

a map but they were lost

all right, so abandoned

in their land of spit and squish

they didn't sense our overheating eyes.

She was in the driver's seat.

Right leg over his shoulder

like half a sawhorse,

her left knee kept beat

on the steering wheel

and from that moment on _Adam_

and _Frolic_ magazines were obsolete.

Each thrust was an encore

for our silent applause.

Lights finally out, we ran

up a hill to watch

that '50 Mercury pull out,

glass packs rumbling,

a directional softly

winking the message

we'd been a wonderful

audience.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Next Week**

Bob, the Dunnell's Pond night

watchman, had a game leg and a scar

that parted his bald head.

On his licorice-dark shift he was alone

with crickets and cigarettes,

lacking even a radio unless

we came around with a transistor.

We never went straight to the tent

where he sat astride a backwards chair.

First, we'd upset the resting water,

scaling a couple of pounds of rocks.

The night gave them extra eyes

eyes and they skipped better.

We tried to break the red and white

plastic balls on the ropes that marked

off where swimming was allowed

but never shattered even one.

We weren't strong enough

to hurl rocks across the Pond

so Bob escaped bombardment.

He said little when we visited,

just smoked his damned cigarettes.

He brought no lunch, had no bottle

of booze or dirty magazines,

and he never commented on

the radio rock and roll we blasted.

One time, just as we got the nerve to ask

what battle had screwed up noggin and limb,

Bob claimed through a mask of smoke

he'd once knocked a guy clear into next week.

Not knowing whether to applaud, laugh

or be scared we shut-up for a moment,

along with the crickets, then gave

him a hand and called him Big Bad Bob.

We lit many a cigarette for him

even put on a station that played Sinatra

but we never got the month, year or day

he'd launched a man into calendar orbit.

He mostly just stared out at that still pit

of water as if his victim had landed there

and our skipping rocks helped

hold his worthless ass down.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Old Warnings**

The _New Yorker_ photo

shows a kerosene lamp

on a bridge

where a car

has plunged

through

a guardrail.

I'd forgotten

about those lamps

that looked like

Mad Magazine

"Spy vs. Spy"

bombs and the metal

rings on slim

chains for handling

and that once I'd slung

one down an embankment

on Prospect Street

near Dunnell's Pond.

I feel the bouncing

on my calf, the bruises,

burns and soot stains.

Swish of fuel,

ominous thud,

shadows eating

the pale orange

gasps of flame.

Hard fumes that smell

like arson

or sabotage

fill the library

reading room

and I wish

I'd launched

a kerosene lamp

into the Blackstone

just for the sweet sibilant

sound and additional

recollection drama.

My corduroys hiss

as I reach

into my back pocket

for my handkerchief

to wipe my fingerprints

off that slick magazine

article.

Return To Contents
**My Mother's Life Enough**

If the feeding tube

were not the only link

left to this world

I would have found a way

to move her to the window

to check if the sight

of a Housing Project close

in structure to Prospect Heights

would have jogged what remained

of her memory.

I tried singing along

to big band radio tunes

to coax a reaction.

I talked family.

I moved her fingers along

my palms lines and prayed

she would find my identity.

Nothing worked.

One day for the hell of it I slipped

her reading glasses into place

and by God she jumped

as if she'd seen a headline

declaring war

or my father's obituary

which she'd missed

because her mind was stuck

somewhere in girlhood

when he died.

This event I make so much of

did not last a fraction of the time

I have taken to report it

but surely was life enough then.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**My Birds**

At the E. P. Reservoir

I tangle a heron

in nylon fishing line.

Its pleading cries:

"No, no, please no!"

jolt to mind

the woman

a killer once stuffed

under ice there.

She haunts that water

that people drink!

Why harass that bird?

Blame all the sparrows

and pigeons missed

with string, box,

stick and stale crusts

as a kid?

Bolting as the game

warden's jeep nears,

I figure, heck,

he'll cut it free.

Returning in autumn

on a midnight dare,

it's breezy with moon

enough to hang

feathers on heron bones,

to frame a dream

of the dead woman

surfacing alive.

She resembles Tippi Hedren

and judges me innocent.

In a gargling voice, she assures

that angry beaks won't blind me.

The wind flaps leaves

like faulty film.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Agawam Hunt C.C.**

When there was no work

to be had at Wannamoisett

and I was extra broke,

I'd painfully walk

to Agawam Hunt –

a sure thing,

but no amusement

park even though

the hills rose

and dipped

like roller coasters.

The catch was that

thirty-six holes later

you felt your muscles

and bones had

built those rides

and their rails had run

across your shoulders

a full summer season.

Unless you trudged

the links twice

there was no payday.

And you might stagger fairways

like _three_ drunks if another

member's clubs got divvied

up in your bags.

You'd never guess it

was the same game played

on those two courses the way

Wannamoisett money spent

so easily and Agawam Hunt cash

was the white-knuckled kind.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Wannamoisett**

A mile or so from the Heights

the sixteenth hole fence was an easy

over or under at sundown.

Some kids trespassed to dive

for lost balls in the ponds,

but we teed off with clubs

that were mongrels like all

the sports gear in our lives.

My uncle Ed gave me an old putter

and my hands stung

driving with that wood-shafted sucker.

Hacking away, we called ourselves

names of members we'd caddied for.

My aliases were Duffy and Dwyer,

the men whose bags I'd lugged most.

One was a southpaw which made it tough.

But they were the best forever,

always the first twosome out

and they'd breeze eighteen holes

like getting them done was the prize.

The stand where some golfers bought

caddies a coke and peanut butter

crackers was never open so early.

Who cared? You could finish

in time to get another loop if you had

Duffy and Dwyer who golfed

like each hole

was as full of cop fear

as our sundown sixteenth.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**M-1 and J-1**

Towels hot and clean

out of a dryer

in a locker room

where clothes

fit into numbered

wire baskets

that tags on bands

snug on ankles

or wrists identified.

Who knew the aroma

of them would seep

as deeply into memory

as the "M-1" or "J-1"

gym and swim times

stamped in chocolate

and gray membership

cards worn around

some necks

on shoestrings.

Super scapulars

of a substance

so indestructible

that ones lost or thrown

away are bound to turn

up and often do

when terrycloth lingers

against the stubble

on an old face

Return To Contents
**Heights Kid Gone**

Pointing at Jarrell's

ball turret gunner poem

that filled a blackboard,

the teacher said

it was perfection.

Since the Nam War

was in progress

his purposes were

nicely served.

He marched carrying

a placard downtown

Saturdays.

I had no trouble

with his stand, matter of fact,

fully agreed with him.

I memorized the poem,

recited it often

to myself my running

days before two discs

bulged and reduced me

to walking but they never

curbed my mumbling.

Surely, I slurred it once or more

drunk in a bar.

It wasn't the teacher's

hyping of the poem

that hooked me

but the image

of the lifeless gunner

hosed out of his turret

scarred my psyche

until my kid brother,

dead for two weeks,

in his new Dodge Caliber

parked in a Cape Canaveral

garage made war death

nothing but chalk

any teacher's

pet could erase.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Lash LaRue**

At age ten, I showed no mercy

To vulnerable willow trees

Clocking each and every bough

I never rested until I found

One with snap, span and sinew

To create an imitation Lash LaRue

First cowboy to wear all black

Johnny Cash acknowledged that

Dubbed King of the Bullwhip

He did the stunts in every script

Dead in ninety-six at seventy-nine

A photo with caption hit the _Times_

That bragged: "Lash could pick

A flower with a whip flick."

Six months prior in Tinseltown

He felt himself comeback bound

Like twelve marriages and divorces

Life was remounting cranky horses

I considered horticultural damage

Maiming a few whip trees in homage

But middle age supplied an excuse

So I snapped a wet towel salute

Fit to yank a willow up by its roots

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Morning Air**

The silence

that took back

seat to last

night's fireworks,

compounds morning

stillness.

Lazy breezes

nudge

the stalled

pungency

of gunpowder

and jostle

bonfire soot

off maple

leaves onto

ball caps,

into the bags

newsboys

and girls tote.

Revived

salute duds

hissing

and cracking

like bad

airwaves

are on tap.

But for now

a gathering

chant ascends,

joins the restless

quiet in chorus:

"Read all _..._

Providence

... _Journal_

... _Record_

...paper."

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**"Look For A Star"**

_Circus of Horrors_ was the movie

we'd just seen at the Strand

and that was the first time

we stopped by the bakery

not far from the Falls.

The clerk dressed in white,

hair shampoo ad black.

She was fine and yes she did

have day old pastry for half price

so we hung around

describing the film,

blood red

as the jelly in her donuts.

Talk got looser and better

and we popped in every Saturday

movie or not.

The half price and stale

soon ended and we looked

down her blouse

as she bent down reaching

for our free cream puffs

or anything we wanted.

We envied the sugar and fillings

and frostings that stuck to her.

Licking her lips

while pushing her hair

away from her face

with the back of a wrist,

she answered: of course,

her nipples were chocolate.

Fifteen and all the sweets

we could eat and peeks

were more than enough

to remember her

and a horror flick

with a theme song

that made the top

forty.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Forest & Gasser**

Forest said

always be grateful

for a rotten tooth.

Rubbing your tongue

over it will kill

booze breath.

At the time,

he was dating

a girl called Gasser.

(She walked so fast

her body was always at a tilt

like an accelerator

in her system had been floored.)

They coupled in a fort built

with stolen cement forms.

Gasser's mother broke up

the romance

and Forest took off

with the racetrack

where he learned

that vodka is odorless.

He got his rotten molar

pulled and bragged from

that day on his heartache

over Gasser had been just

tooth pain.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Suzy's Snack Bar**

Its gas station,

origins

faded fast

when Suzy took over.

Well, her poor boy

sandwich _was_ a Cadillac:

peppers, hard-cooked

eggs, lettuce,

tomato (native),

cheese, ham,

oil & vinegar.

It was assembled

on a toasted roll

with the same

precision I used

to whip

her pinball machine—

the only one

in the city

I could beat

in '61.

Then the snack

bar turned

into a lounge

as dark as pit oil

and you could dream

your beer washing

down one of Suzy's

famous sandwiches.

But all the buzzers,

and bells in the beer,

drinks and shots

never grew flippers

on the jukebox

or bowling machine

no matter how much

alcohol you mixed

with your quarters.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Thrill & Swill**

Leaning on the back

of the front seat

tensed as if

at a gripping

drive-in

movie instead

of speeding

up County Street

in a red '56 Ford

my knuckles

whiter than

the driver's

as he slams

into second so

hard that stick

shift should have flown

off the column

in his lust

for speedometer

needle burial.

Hitting a hundred-five

at the pig farm

I wonder if its stench

ever convinced

a cop that traveling

even at the pace

of light was justified.

Ending at an A&W

heads topsy-turvy

with the thrill

and swill of the race

we choose the carhop

over the root beer

as our prize

but from her

rising voice

no thread of

checkered flag

dangles.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Itching**

Guilt covered me like lice

when I saw the woman

I'd run out on staring

from an obituary

and it took three

days of itching

for recall to kindly

delouse. Whew!

We had reconciled

in a barroom near

a playground

we'd frequented

when Heights kids.

She was very

pregnant, I'd lost

my driving rights.

Offering a ride at

closing time, she said,

"Take the front."

We held hands.

while her drinking

partner, a ghost

of a woman

with roach black hair

and bulletproof

thick glasses leaned

in closely from

the backseat.

Nearing my destination

lounge, I thought of movies,

guns held to driver heads

when I heard the

smoky, whisky

voice order,

"Go with him,

spend the night."

"I can't! Not like this!"

We squeezed hands

and leaving I felt

like a louse

imagining the globe

of her under my

irresponsible

touch.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Ballad**

Marty worked for UPS days,

had a security gig nights.

He lived in the Heights

with a lady named Alice

a mother of nine.

The only thing they didn't share

with the kids was their bedroom

that was padlocked twice.

Marty and Alice had 2 more children.

"If you love babies," he said,

"You gotta love shit and piss."

A teenage son was the best

dancer in the Project.

Little Eva's "Locomotion"

was his feature number.

Brain cancer killed his sister.

Marty got yet another

job managing a cinema.

The dancer gave out free passes

and I took my date to a matinee:

THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE

JASON ROBARDS JR. &

STELLA STEVENS.

Some film mavens say it's the best western ever.

The theatre was empty except for Alice

snoring in the back row.

Two grandkids too young

for the coloring books

opened on the floor

near an aisle light

sucked on crayons.

My date thought the film was boring,

fell asleep on my shoulder.

The tots filled their diapers.

The smell ran through the theatre

killing the popcorn fumes.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Catalpa Tree**

It's at the south end

of a parking lot

legendary for its wealth

of orphaned pennies

available for reaping

before succumbing

to wizardly snow

only to bloom after a thaw

gilded with verdigris

but still worth a red cent.

A stream sports puny

rapids as the rains allow

but rarely will a seeker risking

spine and knees gathering coins

toss a prize for luck.

Wiser to merely rub a emerald wish

off while recalling a childhood tree

and its pods called Indian cigars

situated across from the Heights.

Dried leaves for tobacco of course,

crumbled into a corncob pipe

sparking at least dizziness

or a dubious high

certainly a puking bout.

Some oldsters wonder

if their youths should be

thanked or blamed

for abstinence or addiction

but given the wherewithal

would not merely climb but smoke

catalpa again and cool each draw

with hand cupped stream waters

and gargle green copper

just to grab half a blink

of the world's attention

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Pretty Much Defunct**

Moonlighting as a dishwasher

at Howard Johnson's my father

had a tie that was crazy

with the little chef logo.

Of the twenty-eight ice cream flavors

my mother voted maple walnut best.

I was partial to orange sherbet.

The HoJo aura whirled

beyond fountain treats and family.

A spirit stronger than found

at a Woolworth's counter or any

neighborhood concern.

Just recalling it rolls

back twenty, thirty or forty

years as if staring out a booth

window at the weather

as a child.

What appeared between blowing leaves

dust, rain and snow was a mystery

but at least an adult could slip

into the dark, windowless lounge

where just four kinds of beer

existed on tap

where a better chance existed

to decode what light and glass

confused when a relationship

as brittle as a stale sugar cone

got fingers drumming like hail

hopeful that a corner table

could become square one

despite its circular fate.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Guppies**

Nearly convinced

I bought the used five gallon tank

when I was a kid on Benefit Street

at LaPierre's Guppy World

and anxious to authenticate

that childhood recollection

with a visit,

I pulled up across from where

an old City Directory said

the building should be

but number 412 was gone.

A guy walking past as I left

my car said a fire burned

that business to the ground

many years ago.

My long stares would not conjure

up any image of it.

I had no memory of the Happy

Hour Club nearby but figured

I might gain some details,

reminiscences or acceptable lies

in there by simply buying a beer

for someone nursing

a draft out of necessity –

perhaps LaPierre himself –

but I'd quit drinking years ago

and didn't need a temptation

to mourn flashy fan-tailed fish

that never failed to entrance me

as a youth,

boiling.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Permission**

Jay shouldn't have asked

if he could kiss Marie

because by the time

Gary told it he had begged.

I was twelve when I overheard

the story and all the joking

about a guy sixteen

who'd never been kissed,

never mind sex.

I thought no big deal

if she swapped some spit

with him or not

but I was too young

to realize how short

life was.

Grownups whispered Gary was too old

for Marie and the Heights corner match

would end in the sewer.

As for Jay he was busted

for armed robbery

among other crimes

but broke away

long enough to hurl a chair

at a court room window

in Denver as if it were a mirror

calling him ugly.

He vanished beyond

even rumor after prison

but it was hard times

and early death

for Marie and Gary.

To me the whole affair

reeked of luck being the one

refused permission to blow

even a kiss at Marie.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Thrice I Must Admit**

Colors sneaked home

from the dye house

on my father's clothes, even his socks.

Wet floors got his shoes stiff as bark.

He always wore a suitcoat.

(The only time I ever saw him

in a jacket was in an Army photo

wearing one like Ike's.)

I don't think his apparel had much

to do with appearing what he was not:

it was pockets that were crucial.

Pockets I'd rifle through for change

among slips of paper with horse

names and numbers to bet and beer

checks a kid could use for tiddlywinks.

(Where are those disks, octagons

triangles and squares

bearing tavern names to mark

a beer owed you?

Now, it's common shot glasses

upside down you can't take home.)

My father's pockets held pencil nubs,

fingernail clippers, reading glasses,

crossword puzzles, Vicks cough drops

not worth a suck, cheap Pippin cigars

and newspaper stories that amazed him.

Wintertime an overcoat doubled

the pocket count.

One coat never shed

the other until spring.

Hiding from myself in my father's world

of pockets and colors I'd imagine

never working in a textile mill.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Cold Cuts**

Laddie, an old mongrel,

that lived in the Heights,

block number ten

would watch me

while I was sitting on a curb

trying to set torn up

newspaper and brown

grass on fire

with my magnifying glass.

Once he was rubbing

his ass along the ground

as if he had worms.

His teenage owner chased him

trying to step on the strips

she said were bologna casings

hanging from his poor asshole.

Succeeding, she cleaned her sneaker

in a patch of grass and looked at me

as if I'd shared my lunch with Laddie.

To change her notion

I petted him like he was a TV star,

and attempted to flame a sports page

in his honor but it just smoldered.

Years later, I met that very

same neighbor in a bar.

Her teeth were bad, she mimicked

the lady with a cleft palate

who'd lived next door to me

but never mentioned Laddie

or cold cuts and neither did I.

She did claim however

that I'd lit a cigarette for her

and expertly

with my magnifying glass

when I was knee high

to a grasshopper.

I couldn't put a finger

on that event but I wasted

half a book of matches lighting

a Camel bobbing in her tipsy

lips like a stick

of misplaced matter in need

of stepping on.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Less than Half Relieved**

Artie's deep right field introduction

at the diamond by the river

to a gal he said would not only school us

in sex but continue perfecting the finer

points until sunrise, was nothing

short of embarrassing.

We knew her by sight

at Sunday Mass as well

as her parents.

Artie said don't sweat it,

her thunder thighs would quiet

to a roar for virgins.

We were fairly confident

she wouldn't indulge us

for love of Artie or teen

advancement

and she proved us right,

granting our deflowering

a reprieve and leaving

us less than half relieved.

Next thing we knew her dad,

drunk and raging, threw her

out of the house as if she'd

brought the crabs home—

clothes, records and books

following like a posse.

She was nothing more

than pregnant and a stock

car driver competing

at Seekonk Speedway

soon owned up.

She went to work part-time

at a variety store we frequented

and it took a while

but we finally faced her again

buying soda and cigarettes

when her belly was twin big.

First time, she pushed our money

back as if we'd been the ones

to say no that night in that ballfield

where home runs were rare.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**The Manager**

Dooley would hang around

the Heights after dark.

Sometimes he'd yell at the sky:

"Hey Jesus, bring me Giant

Narragansett Imperial

Quart of beer if you exist!"

All his arrest clippings circled

his dishonorable discharge

on his bedroom wall

as if to demonstrate the Army

wasn't mistaken.

He knocked his girlfriend up

just to sample mother's milk

he claimed and didn't even like it.

Hanging around Heights corners

I loved to watch him slip, stagger

and nearly topple as if though

rehearsing a slapstick act.

I enjoyed his ranting lectures

and recall one piece of advice

not punctuated with profanity:

"Whenever you fill out a job

application, always list yourself

as a manager, the easiest scam

in the world."

When I asked Dooley his salary

for managing all that brew,

he tried to kick me in the nuts.

Last time I saw him he was sipping

whisky at the Indian Lounge.

His beard was Savior perfect

but his troubled eyes said what

the sky at last yelled back

called for something stronger

than Narragansett beer.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
The Mystery of Paul

Chuck Berry's "Sweet Little

Sixteen" was high on the charts

when Paul and his Mohawk were

shown the Catholic school door.

I was thirteen and what the nuns

despised I applauded but not enough

to shave any of my skull.

Some said the hairstyle was on the right

head since it resembled a perfect slick

of pussy hair and Paul was the only

one getting some anyway.

Rivals who counted his curly, golden locks

as his only advantage licked their chops.

I wondered if the way he started

holding his arms oddly high

while fighting was some tribal rite,

part of the transformation.

No one ever doubled him over

with a fist to the gut

as many predicted or wished.

He didn't sport moccasins,

needed no help jumping

the race track fence to hit

a daily double for cash that

would fund the best camping

gear, pellet guns and beer.

After Paul vanished,

speculation branded him a gigolo.

No one thought to ask when

he returned short a Mohawk,

piloting a classic Thunderbird.

Newly licensed I got to

take it for a spin.

He raved of Florida women

and a statistic that astounded him:

two out of three he calculated, moaned

they were arriving instead of coming.

His brief visit stirred up

rumors he was a gangster.

How he made his living remains

a subplot in my continuing mystery of Paul.

Chuck Berry provides the soundtrack,

when I juggle the Sunshine State semantics

Paul introduced and I continue

to rue having never heard those

three Dixie bronzed syllables.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Francoise, Nicole and May**

The yapping toy dog is Myles.

The guesthouse owner goes by

Françoise when she's not Nicole.

She spouts off names of everyone

in a wedding party

crashing there come midnight

using a different facial expression

and accent for each one.

A Confederate General once lived here

but he somehow remains anonymous

as one of the buildings downtown

a recent tornado wrecked.

One downed structure revealed

a Royal Crown Cola sign

painted over bricks next door.

**A NICKEL CURES FATIGUE**.

I remember five cents

buying a bottle and watched it rise

to seven and then a dime.

That's 500 and some miles north and 50 years dissolved—

May's Bakery across from the Heights

chocolate frosted donuts

the delicacy, RC washed down.

Haven't seen the like here in Petersburg, VA.

Oh, there's a bakery thrift store nearby:

3 loaves white, ninety-nine cents is all the sign says.

I remember relaxing outside my childhood May's oasis

on a large padlocked box for storing

predawn bread deliveries.

Sometimes I'd shake a Royal Crown bottle

holding my thumb on the top like a hose

without a nozzle, expertly shooting a frothy

stream into my mouth.

I can't supply a reason for that approach

or any sticky battles. Who'd waste it?

No donut eating strategies jump to mind.

No tornadoes live in my storm memory

but I could name some

Rhode Island hurricanes along

with as many souls who stood before

or behind that bakery counter

as that concierge herself orates

on her best business week or month --

a practice that delivers me

to fatigue and sleep some jittery nights.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Hurricane Carol**

When I'd returned from sea for the first time I was homesick as hell

and holding just enough for a bus ticket and a Peter Paul Mounds bar.

The Norfolk bus arrived in Manhattan at one A.M. and the Greyhound

for Providence wouldn't depart until six.

A red-faced cop saw to it no one dozed in the Port Authority waiting room.

Striking the bench with his Billy club; he'd escort you to the street if he caught

you nodding off twice.

After the blue alarm clock left for another round, a tall disheveled man

in an ill fitting trench coat approached, putting me on guard.

I tensed as he ran a long nailed finger over each seaman stripe before requesting two bits.

His eyes stretched so high and wide, he might have wanted the coin to slip

into a back-of-head slot to restore his blinking.

After I swore I was broke, he asked my destination and when I told him, he launched

a frantic tale of Hurricane Carol and his aunt's vacation house.

Stripped of its clapboards and shingles clear down to the frame it flew

half a country mile and believe it or not landed precisely on a long gone Rockefeller

gardener's bungalow foundation, man murdered no less.

I didn't know exactly how to respond, so I related my storm recollections,

my mother in the hospital birthing my brother, wind hitting the fan and street flooding

the rival of white water rapids,

rolled up towels doing their best to halt water seeping under the door.

Boring as shit and a waste of breath, he yelled,

rushing away in hysterics like there was an insert slit in his back

of his head fit for silver dollars to restore sanity.

At home, I spent my leave days as lonely as standing after

lookout mid-watches on the USS Mullinnix.

All the kids I grew up with in the Heights were working or in the military like me

excepting the one I'd always tried to avoid walking to and from school.

He'd report detail by detail any movie he'd enjoyed on a weekend and if he failed

to finish he was like an old serial, continuing stronger next day.

Besides that, not one coming attraction was ever lost on him.

His silver screen eyes had not been idle since I had seen him last.

We nursed Royal Crown Colas at May's Bakery and staring out the window at the street

where I'd splashed in my bathing suit after Carol quit, grabbing rubber balls

that the sewers coughed up.

I didn't catch typhoid like people shouted out windows I would.

I interrupted a review of James Bond's latest: _Thunderball_.

I asked my learned film friend if he recalled Hurricane Carol and how I'd nearly been hit by a bungalow floating into the Project from York Avenue and how the red dog

from block 30 straddled the top.

Was it the stuff of an Oscar winning film?

He looked at me in a startle as if he sensed some defect in my psyche that might be redeemed by coins inserted in slits aft of my ears.

I invited him outside.

We measured off adequate paces to just short of the gutter

to pitch pennies against May's chipped Bakery foundation.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Chocolate Milk**

Maybe my mother cutting real milk

with Carnation Dry fueled my return

to crime or I'd recovered sufficiently

from the Cott Soda Plant Caper,

nearly nabbed gripping a sickening quart

of soda water like a running back

in the Petty Theft Bowl.

Or the Donna's Market Episode

that saw me apprehended exiting

with a poorly hidden yellow

water pistol.

I recall my daring dairy leap off the straight

and narrow as if yesterday and not

pushing six decades.

Up at daybreak, I slipped out with a pocketful

of off-brand Oreos.

Casing the streets of Prospect Heights

as if a blood thirsty drifter,

I quickly spotted a victim sitting on a step

and as a matter of fact there was a choice,

chocolate or white.

The former a treat but better with a vanilla snack?

Shit no, a thousand times.

I sprinted to the second swamp, a body of water

less cluttered and polluted than the first.

Sitting on a log, I savored my snack

like a grownup does coffee and raisin toast.

As I repositioned the cardboard stopper disk

to create a Nazi ship named Evidence

to bomb with a rock,

a turtle's snaky head broke

the surface and combined with sun

sparkling off the doomed enemy craft

to create an idea for my next larceny.

I'd snag a bunch of turtles at Woolworth's.

The half-dollar sized with roses

painted on their shells.

Releasing them here or maybe the duck

pond at Slater Park might do a good

deed erase of my sin but I really

didn't give a shit as I belched like a TV hood

who'd overindulged in hijacked wine

and caviar—so loudly and expertly a chorus

of buck bullfrogs jealously responded.

The sinking of the Evidence

shut them the hell up right quick.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Cages**

Nick couldn't picture pulling out of Rhode Island.

Bullshitter, he called me, when I said I was bolting west.

He added: bet you won't make a year if you really go.

I hadn't been out of the Navy long enough

for mere words to squelch my wanderlust.

He lived with his wife and two babies in the Heights.

We worked together nights at a storm

window factory at the bottom of a hill

where we'd sledded and played as kids.

Walking to the job after a couple of short beers

at the Hitching Post he'd often break into some

happy shadow boxing.

But other times I'd stop by his apartment

and she'd say he's just too sick

which meant he'd sensed she planned to be dancing

again in a cage at the Gaiety Lounge.

Some shifts he'd finish but a phone call might send him

flying out the door to make a scene at the Gaiety

worth a night in jail.

Even when I showed up in a '55 Ford the last day on earth

I'd assembled storm windows he didn't believe I'd split.

A six months stint in Colorado and I was back.

Nick was alone and never once said I told you so

but he announced proudly he was scramming for Chicago.

Either that or a year in jail under the habitual offender law.

Over shots in a downtown Providence bar he swore

it would be the Windy City or nothing.

I gave him my gold watch I'd gotten cheap

in the service and twenty bucks.

But he never saw train, bus, plane, or stuck out

a thumb or told what he got for my timepiece.

He did the year and we painted houses for a while after.

Last time I saw him he asked if I'd ever screwed his wife.

I hadn't and it was a good thing,

since I had enough booze in me to own up.

Later that year Nick put a greasy spoon fork in the face

of a guy who'd merely mentioned her

cooped-up dancing at the Gaiety Lounge

where I'd never been fool enough

to even peek in window or door.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Can't Dance**

It would have been a kick

had I arrived in the parking lot

with blood covering

my new white duck pants

looking like a butcher's apron

since the block dance was held

in a parking lot near Tarpy's

a wholesale meat concern.

My father's '51 sky blue

Chevy had wounded me.

Often the transmission

would lock in low.

No big deal, jump out,

lift the hood, locate

the linkage, give it

a couple of shakes

and you were golden.

But heavy traffic

made me careless.

I found the end

of my index finger

hanging off.

My shiny penny loafers

suffered a few drops before

my handkerchief

stemmed the bleeding,

spared my trousers

and Madras shirt.

After Novocain and eight

stitches I drove to the dance

careful to use second gear for first.

My case wasn't like lightning

leaving a pompadour

on a bald man's head.

No member of my hand

had ever tapped a beat

and the throbbing under

my finger's gauze and tape

turban didn't signal otherwise.

It wasn't heaven

that bit me just a Chevy.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Swings**

In the back field, baseball thrived in season

and kites when the weather summoned and stores

stocked up, mostly the common quadrilateral,

paper type, rare indeed to witness the box variety.

Cornered by the blocks numbered 33and 32,

there stood a tall skeleton of swing days past,

no do-it-yourself quality like in new house

yards we scampered through going to school but a solid

structure made to last, sturdy gray pipes a grownup's

mitt would fit around and three or maybe four

"A" frames, spine atop and trusty end supports.

No actual swings that I recall, perhaps a rope

and tire served that purpose on occasion.

Those lonely iron bones must have been forlorn

without the singsong "Alligator Purse Lady" and shrieks

of kids pumping legs so frantically that chains lost tension

and control to snap playfully like so many circus whips:

a sensation known oddly as the "bumps."

I reckon some soul might have tied off a boldly sailing

kite for boasting use, after it defied its flimsy

skin by exhausting record balls of string.

Think a tyke's toy, cord hiking step-by-step a clown up a stick!

A kid with some balance and patience could climb an "A"

frame leg, white knuckled, grip by grip, sneaker alertly

tailing mate; the climber finally sitting down to relax

at the summit, legs bent, might cling upside down to gain

a sloth view of a dusty ballgame or kite handling action

or laugh or scream off the day's humiliations.

Safe and easy shinnying up was an option

then hand over hand gliding across the challenging length,

like a traveling side of beef at Tarpy's Meats.

A bystander could get lucky, witness a showstopper for the benefit

of the dark-haired girl in block 32 with dimples, her ears

pierced with gold who'd advise flirts, "go home," in Portuguese.

No idea of the combined feet and inches this feat involved

and no one knew enough to say, when watching a kid risking

a smashed groin in a blazing ascent to perform

a version of high wire act by strolling that stretch,

in hope of a hint of smile, sidelong glance in awe

that promised soft, tender words later rolling off

her sweet bilingual tongue–

no, it wasn't until years later that "Break a Leg"

didn't mean crutches and too damned late to fill

kite tails with a yard or two of that timely phrase,

zigzagging, soaring and dipping to inspire

a dreamy daredevil's likely futile bravado.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Bricks**

After I condemned our spirit and back

breaking landscaping gig outside Boulder,

a fellow employee said hell

it was not all that damned bad.

Describing his worst toiling, ache by ache,

blister by blister he provided a work

narrative fit for department of labor files.

Nine-hour days for a week

he loaded bricks one by one,

onto a truck bed for a mere penny

per hideous rectangle.

I awarded him a Charles Dickens trophy.

I took both employs home to my cellar

room and tossed and turned and whirled

them in with my hometown of Pawtucket's

Red Star Landscaping and Lapham's

Nursery; both known for hiring

just about anyone and paying low.

I swore my warm body wouldn't

apply at either when I returned.

Lawn tree and flower denial moved

to farmland considerations

and the former stretch of it

the Heights sat on.

I wondered if a bored kid had

ever counted all the bricks

in a block and if that number rang

true for the remaining thirty-four.

Did the worker at the kiln, loading

those bricks onto boxcars headed

to RI do better than a red cent each?

Rehashing this mix many years

gone, a multitude of steps trekked

over memorial bricks leading

to libraries and museum doors,

I considered all the Heights kids

dead and read all their names

stamped on the fragile brick

walks of my aging—

errant grass and weeds intruding

to free them, make handy

for revolt, protest or flipping

accidentally over.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
**Benches**

A kid could stride on the highest length

of green backrest preparing for higher altitudes

around and about Prospect Heights or just sit,

soon sore-assed on that slim and enduing wood,

pretend holding buckboard reins, outlaws in pursuit

then cautiously leaning back and upside down, arms

sprawling like death by Winchester, Buntline or Colt.

Heights maintenance ignored those refugees

from serene Park Place downtown.

The slats free of initials, hearts and profanities

weren't fit for additional carving: no simple peeling,

the aged coat was deeply cracked and petrified.

The lesions you would think easily treated with sanding

and a gallon or two from Handy Hardware.

Crayon smudging by a child, thinking a job

in exterior decor was noble but...

That's it–officials viewed those dying

amenities as educational so what to do?

Sacrifice them to student aspirations?

A young carpenter type ripping a saw

off the business edge of a wax paper box

painstakingly marring sections as if a convict

or P.O.W.; another youth struggling

over bolt, screws and rivets with pliers

and screwdriver lifted from the Gulf or Flying A

and the comedian or seer stretched out

under tabloid pages until its next task

as balled-up mischief fuel.

And don't neglect the masonry minded, pounding

on the cement supports with dump-found hammers

or a brick from the once level and handsome square

between bench and sinking walk that ended at the five-

street intersection across from Pharmacy neon.

How many wondered if those sorry bricks

were extras from building the blocks they lived in?

After the benches were fairly beaten away

by brute acts of harm and all that remained

were the trios of buttresses maintaining the shape

of a cold thin seats stick people might comfortably use

like many of the Heights folks that have

so diminished in memory.

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Forward or Back)
Closing

# Inscription on my copy of

# Poems from the Gwitch'in Land

# (By Kenneth Rehill, 1945-2006)

# To Tom McDade,

# My Poetry Maestro

and fellow Kid-From-The- Heights

complex & all!

Return To Contents (Or Scroll Back)

