no mystery

poems should not be a mystery
i want you to know
what the words are saying to you

easy to follow as a cleared path
in a well-kept country garden

go on, meander step by step
by fruit and flower
pine wander
an hour

a discovered treasure
will be my pleasure

just beware the sprinklers

monster hits

we were talking about hit songs
the ones you sang along with
got you moving

remember walking down the street
it was practically coming out of the ground
flowing in front of you
out every open window
in every store
fragments from passing cars when they whizzed by
on peoples faces, their lips, filling them

then she and i started mentioning a few
where we were when such and such
first i'd say one, she'd say another
we'd agree a bit, then top the other

the result was a list of the big ones
hits we loved dearly
that picked us up and carried us with great joy
ignited us
that's the magic of the hits

i know you can agree with this poem but if i get specific, start mentioning names well, your list is different than mine

skyped

don't do it often
this week with a change of zones in a major way
i've made a few skype calls from ohio

maximo a traffic guy for rai radio
this time working the night shift called from the station
gave me a visual tour of his office and co-workers complete
with large maps of italy on the wall

the second i hung up captain z. called from poland
just back from a basketball workout and maybe a beer
first mate rafal, a teammate, gave his regards

i gave both a walk around outside tour and when out front
the moment i pointed my camera at the street
m. drove in and waved

then called daughter c. in california
it ended with her taking daughter and a neighbor kid
to musical theater class
(we didn't do that when i was five)

the video calls took us around the world
with something for everyone

flight details

i got to the airport and this time didn't leave my computer in the taxi
checked in for the flight and went to the waiting gate
i overheard tourists telling other tourists what towns they saw
listing off names of places, nothing about what was there
the others listened and nodded approvingly
been there, been there, okay, okay

the lobby restroom is designed so that when i am standing there peeing at a row of urinals i look over my shoulder and see the entire lobby looking back at me

the coffee bar from hell was up and running barely
it only stays open because there is no competition
a kid could open a lemonade stand and wipe them out

i walked around back to use the restroom a second time
this time the womans door is on the right and i'm standing there on the inside, but my invisibility shield was activated cause i stepped back out unnoticed
i guess they were all busy

back at the gate a lady walked by panning around doing a thousand dollar narration into her four dollar camera saying things like, "here is the lobby, you can see all the people"

oh welcome delight, they called us to board early so three hundred people were cramming and making a jam of it to get in front of the others in the line
then after about five minutes of shoving
someone changed their mind and said would you please sit down again and we'll board at our regular time instead

then i saw an old schoolmate
my god, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry
the memories came flooding over me
the sock hops, the heartaches, the laughter
nearly in tears, the years
then i saw it wasn't her and felt relieved
one less thing to do

then they called for zone one to board
after they called zone two and three i checked
i was zone one

why can't people board the airplane and sit down? what is so tough? it's like beavers caught in an ice jam... no, i am sure beavers would do it quicker
a lady stopped in front of me and took five minutes to slowly load her overhead compartment
when she finished she turned to me and said thanks
as she let me pass
i went by her wondering why thank me?
what were my choices?

i noticed at 36 thousand feet the restrooms become a lavatory
which may relate to the fact that the higher you fly
the faster you go

over the alps a jet below us going the same way an increasingly shorter distance below us
was anyone aware?
i was ready to jump up and run tell someone, maybe the guy in the seat behind me, i guess you can't get to the pilot easily these days, maybe it was a lack of sleep that had me alerted for disaster, or maybe it was the three airplane disaster movies on tv the week before my flight
airport one and two and the jet with the pointy nose
the names aren't important

hungry i am prepared, brought the cookies she said to buy
i should have paid more attention to how she opens them at home
struggled and finally started looking for something sharp after nearly rolling on the floor i used her sewing thing i carried and they didn't take away from me

i had carrot sticks my wife cut a week before
i ate a pound of carrots but didn't eat them all and had to surrender the last three sticks and a ziplock bag in philly
they marked my card and put me though a special security check cause i admitted i was carrying an apple
they took it
but let me into the country

dear US Airways

i left my socks on your plane
maybe you heard about it

it could have been the lack of sleep
i tried to get comfortable
i listened to the safety instructions and wanted to do it right and didn't inflate my life vest until i deplaned in philadelphia
i didn't know the plane had to crash or you couldn't use it
and wondered why the others didn't follow instructions

the guards were very nice
i did everything they said
and took my shoes off when i walked through that big magnet thing
that's when i saw i had no socks

i don't think anyone took them when i was sleeping
cause i didn't sleep much
they wouldn't let me back aboard to look for them
instead they gave me coffee

i thought i took everything with me when i "deplaned"
my shoes made it home and should fit again in a few days
thank you for the plane ride
i hope you find my socks

edit me?

friends,
i've got to get up in two hours and fly to the o on the ends and high in the middle
these people will take care of you now until i get over my jetblog, i mean jet lag
i'd have links on the right side of my blog, but i can't even remove the junk that is there, like what is that stuff? i need a ten year old computer wiz
my comment on the derby is: in the best interests of all, turn off your tv
there are interesting things coming out of your computer

if you're riding the road on your harley and you look over and see tom, don't ask him for a smoke.

she's been in mexico three quarters of a year and they still haven't named any churches after tanyariffic.

say, isn't that water coming out of the top of your head, giant waiting person?

righting history

fifteen years ago i used the restroom above angelo's coffee bar
with no sign, only regular patrons knew a bathroom was added
in a small room above in the building
that dates from the sixteenth century

to my surprise the stairs and turns and side rooms,
ceilings, walls and floors remained as they were made
i remember having been in awe of the old rooms
so well conserved in their original state

last week i asked to use the bathroom
my primary reason was to visit the space
and then perhaps return again to take photos

to my disappointment it had been modernized
the terra cotta floors replaced, the old wood and walls
painted over in haste
angelo had the money and perhaps a volunteer
and the intention of doing the few clients that go there
the favor of beautification, after all
it was looking quite out of time, hence out of place

unfortunately, what was done made a shabby renewal
this transformation is the fate of much of old roma
good intentions have destroyed the past
because anachronisms are odd

an outside table

a moderately large multitude, though i've seen more
on sunny roman mid-afternoons
its germans and the spanish now
seasons pass so soon

you'd think each country had an appointed time
to take in the sights and weather
for whatever group that next appears
they seem to come together

from a table outside of angelo's
i sipped my wine as they rushed by
numbering thousands by the hour
better them than i

this internet

I.
this internet
the new greatest show on earth
information galore
slimy, quick cheap, down and dirty
pivotal, pointed and prostituted

how much do you want
how much do you need
how much can you take
how much do you care

II.
a blog is something that must be worked
tilled and toiled over
not like paying money
to name a star after yourself

now ready for that
i'd rather stand by the sea
wait for a fish to jump
and say, "that one is jack"
(that one is me)

III.
this little piece of cyber space
i'm going to measure off as mine
then work on it, lay it out
to make it shine, shine, shine, shine, shine

on the streets

on a mission for pistachios
absorbed in filtered exhilaration by the beating heart of the city
i waited for a bus
i had on a black t-shirt
an artists bag over my shoulder

an italian couple approached
"do you have a cigarette?" he asked
i held up mine i was smoking and said, "this one. I'm quitting."
then she asked bus information to via nationale

a couple in a passing car stopped on the busy street to shout over a demand for directions to the termini
i must have looked like the information guy

then a pair of french women in passable italian wanted to know how to get to the coliseum as my bus, seventy, approached
theirs, the eighty-seven, was right behind
"take the eighty-seven" i pointed

the final query of the day came later as
i left the old esquilino market
this from an older unkempt guy holding something, a pamphlet?
i nodded him off when he asked if i was a roman

though i like to talk
what he had to say i didn't need
it is necessary to qualify even the inquisitors
while bearing the necessary resignation of existence
on the streets of roma

old corners

through turning alleys of old roma
weathered angles i know well
old corners repainted
some bearing visible repairs

around me italian faces change
yet remain the same over ages
above church bells chime the hours
rolling below the great river flows

perspective

born in the winter of forty-five
franklin roosevelt was still alive
had a pair of six-guns the day i turned five
that was a long time ago

When I was a kid my friend's grandmother kept her father's old civil war uniform cleaned and pressed, hanging in the closet. The memory got me thinking so I added it up recently and discovered I was born eighty years after Lincoln died. Sixteen years after Wyatt Earp died in 1929.

Now to put it into perspective for you, kid, because someday, someone will say to you "Wow, you were born B.G. Before Google."
Google began in 1996.
Let me hold your arm to steady you.

off-day

passed fontana di trevi and recalled
two weeks ago when friends were here
we were twelve deep from the rail
all the way around the fountain and down below
today you could have driven a large bus through there

a light-sprinkle off-day in roma
is like a cornfield after the first snowfall
the crows go home
to spend the day watching crow television
eating micro-crow popcorn

for tourists a sprinkle
creates a museum day

the Ritz, our town theater

how could you resist
the photos out front pulled us in
we were guided to our seats with flashlights
older folks lined the back in the soft seats
as voices of kids on the hard wooden ones
echoed all the way from the front row
a while ago

now torn down and way gone
not a brick or stone remains of that space we still have in our heads
that place we watched the big screen
ate the popcorn
heard the big themes
sang and danced to the stars
laughed at the clowns
fell in love on the beach
and rode west with cowboy heroes

where has it all gone without a trace
i'm sure there are others who recall and smile
so, for them and for us
here's a salute to long ago and very far away
that special place

when i woke

when i woke i had you on my mind
i must have sung your song ten thousand times
and every time i start
it's like cannons in my heart
going off half-cocked
while i'm half blind

roma sunlight

yesterday i again noticed
the appealing angle of roma sunlight

how golden is the morning at eight
in late April by the river

you cannot avoid the glow
you wouldn't want to

morning bird

there is a bird in the morning
quite loud and near
i thought he was caged
in spring he returns
like blackie who visited for years

who would have imagined we'd find a new bird associate in the heart of roma
best friends you take when they appear
and birds are the same

paolo above us leaves at six ten like a ghost into smoke
then the soldier above him closes, loudly locks his door and clomps down the stairs in heavy military boots
the floor below ours has a broken step
he hits it everytime
then slams the front door and shakes the building

the bird in the morning
starts before paolo
and leaves before the soldier

hard as stone

To the store. It's eleven a.m. and she's in the air out'a here. To the store. I need water.

At Despar, as in desperate, I got milk for cereal and orange juice. They didn't have the water I wanted and with one cashier and fifty people and a couple dogs in line, I put back the milk and orange juice, pulled my empty cart home, then passed another half mile to the other side of our neighborhood to our least favorite store.

When I got there workmen were cementing the wall in the middle of the entrance and exit isle. The other three hundred shoppers jammed in the doorway didn't seem to notice.

I got milk. They didn't have skinless. Got orange juice in a strange set of containers that I couldn't see cause they were wrapped up in dark plastic, and I got water. Again, not the kind I wanted, but there were six of them and I brought the cart to get it home.

I waited in line with twenty-five older shoppers, and I didn't call them old ladies cause I know they're tough and if you blink or quit paying attention they'll squeeze in front of you. When it was my turn to go for the register on the left, straight or to the right I saw a guy come out'a nowhere and go left, so I went straight and was third in the new line. Nobody said anything about the line cutter, including me, cause we all know we'll do it when we have the chance.

When the clerk tallied up my stuff I gave her a fifty bill cause it was all I had. They usually ask for exact change but she took it and gave me over forty-five euros in change. They don't, can't or won't count back change ever. So when I saw my purchase cost less then five euros I took it and stuffed it and the receipt in my pocket wondering how I faired today. Years ago I would have counted it and helped the clerk out if she gave me too much, but that was years ago. Now I take it and hope for the best. For all the torture they put us through going shopping it is worth a good break once in a while.

I am supposed to have low calcium for my kidneys. The water I bought probably builds strong teeth and bones and maybe hardens cement for highways.

At home I had to use pliers to open the water, so the guy who fills the bottles out back with a hose must use glue on the lids so you feel it's really sealed.

I added up the figures on the receipt and found it correct. I didn't make any extra today, but I'm home and she's still flying. Next week she'll go shopping cause she always thinks ahead. I can wait around and see what we're going to eat and I know we will cause she gets hungry first.

Sail on, silver girl.

spectacular trash

very colorful, looks great
that's why they pass it out or mail it
you don't lack a pack, do you?
i have extra

what's the use
i'm cleaning up the scraps
the museo di roma in trastevere
printed well, nice pictures
two brochures on quality paper
my expired bus pass
a restaurant receipt
another thing from who knows where
on and on, taking up space

trees are cut and turned to mush
so we can rush this stuff home
put a happy face sticker on it
and throw it away
have a nice day

double up

a break in tradition from
the occasional chinese food luncheon
this sunday we went to bufetto due
meri had a salad
i ordered the giant house pizza

thirty seconds after my pizza arived
i was cutting it when it did
an involuntary triple axle grand slam
inverted one hundred eighty degrees
and smashed itself face down into my lap

after lunch we walked to the stone benches
in front of palazzo farnese and sat a few minutes
i was examining the pizza stains on my pants
when a bird flew over and shit on my hands
both of them

how was your sunday?