Issue 9
Page 4
The Lost Generation
Raised up on cigar smoke in geometrically defunct rooms
How can four guys in a pool hall feel like a packed Madison Square Garden?
Danny Rocco, making collections
Eddie Stix, running numbers…
Feels like I imagined it,
As my grandpa Dan was being lowered into the ground
As they handed my mother his American flag from the war
I remembered the abuse she and my grandmother took
From a beer swilling, gallivanting, hero of the German theater,
I’d spit on his grave now
It’s too far though, Calvary cemetery is a two-hour drive
That’s how I’ll remember the man,
Not even worth a drive.
Every Man
A snuff film is always just an awkward stay away,
I misunderstand nothing
Shamed in public,
A lack of interest in humanity…Your humanity,
Sobriety, volunteering, community harmonium
I don’t give out merit badges
Picking the leather coat out of my childhood home’s closet with the dried blood caked on,
I turned around on a windy Long Island City evening
Lit a bogey and my compassion went up in flame
Seeing a buddy on the concrete, just a puddle…
I’ll cry on the coldest days,
It has nothing to do with the squall.
Be patient
Be patient,
Be ready.
© Rossella BLUE Mocerino: Red Tempo
Intolerance
On the mantle,
Dogs, parents, the past…
Ground into a fine powder
Plant a tree with it
Show it tours of your home
Let women who infiltrate the cavern know the history.
I could be anything
I chose this,
To make you aware that you aren’t aware
Reconciliation is not an alternative
This is the sweetest fruit from the most thoughtless of trees
Ask your local produce person
“Where did you set such a ripe piece-”
With a hand to their heart they’ll say the truism of all truisms
“He knows his harvest, he knows his crop, you are the idolator just eating what he bore.”
I didn’t tell them to say it
Just one of those intellectual so and so’s
Who got it right,
For once.
A Visitor
Peering eyes through white hexagonal fence slats,
“What are you writing?”
“Poetry. Who are you?”
“I’m you.”
I tip my hat,
Going back to scribbling about women, horses, loss, and misgivings.
Nothing to see here.
A Junky Ending
Staring through a sea of grey topcoats with no features
Wanting a moment of silence, a cold one, a warm one, or no one…
You proceed to the agreed upon corner
Shaking hands with someone you don’t know,
Retrieved is the baggy of indiscriminate relief
Like a pinball machine, you go off, lit up.
The one day you are too much
Taking one dose too many,
Frothing at the mouth
Doing the no doze Charlie on Delancey street
Gyrations to a sun god that has betrayed you so many times.
Fornicating with myself in the Port Authority restroom
That’s how I wanted to be remembered,
Just how I lived.