West of Boston
Haloes and hand-jobs lack currency
back where I come from.
Hovelstown. South of Cheyenne,
west of Boston.
A whole attention span
fraught w/found things
made whole.
So I left Hovelstown.
East beyond
the everyday hum.
Or so I thought.
It all looked the same
to me: A whole lotta nuthin’
that weighed a ton.
Six miles north and six years gone
I escaped to a place
dusty w/amber ash.
Caterwauling from
a distant past greeted me.
It felt like home in a way.
More or less. Less is more.
It all depends who draws the line.
Brubeck’s Bar #6
Straight up baby straight up
like the blues and the ramparts.
Blakey. Birdland. Brubeck’s Bar.
Straight up baby straight up
on the 7 to Fulton under cloud shade
and shale which will tell its own in time.
Straight up baby straight up
and he’s on the phone fighting about her period,
who fucked who and the whole bar knows it,
par for a city under surveillance I guess.
And I fondly recall when my parents
would pull me in close if someone came
down the street or rode this same Number 6
yelling at invisible strangers.
Talking to themselves in a tone that,
to be perfectly honest,
stifles the bare rail cry. The infallible hum
you hear on each corner
That returns my thoughts to Heaven
and if it rains there is it cold?
Is parking a challenge up there too?
A 2016 Pushcart nominee, poetry, and musical criticism have appeared in over 500 magazines and periodicals worldwide with little reportable income. Full lengths include AmericanMental, (Luchador Press 2020) Blue Fan Whirring (Nirala Press, 2018). President, Calling All Poets, New Paltz, NY. CD reviews appear online at All About Jazz, and Lightwood, He was and hopes to be again the Tuesday night host of Jazz Sanctuary, WOOC 105.3 FM, Troy, NY.
He loves Emily most of all.
