Poem: "Is It Me Or Is It Not Me?"

image credit: statue of liberty crown

A man on the Astoria line
wears a foam green
Statue of Liberty hat

"Did he just come back from the Statue of Liberty?"
"Can I trust my inductive reasoning?"
Maybe he just likes to wear plushy foam green Statue of Liberty hats.
I have never been quick to trust inductive reasoning,
so to test my hypothesis I hazard a guess to which stop he will disembark:
Long Island City, I bet! All the hotels near the 59th street bridge —
it must be it!

The N train is spit out by the East River
and diligently speeds towards its station
stop. And, JUST AS I THOUGHT, the passenger with the green foamy hat
gets off,
no smiles, his head turned downward to his mobile device,
tapping away a message to his kids, perhaps?
An inductive me postulates thus: "Hey just got back from the statue of liberty! Love, dad!"

The funny thing is,
I just got back from the Statue of Liberty, as well,
but I am not wearing a green foamy hat nor do I text anyone, at this point;
I have no doppelgangers.

I am as distant from this human being with the green foamy Statue of Liberty hat as I am distant emotionally from everyone in this car.
We are all scrunched in like sardines on the train because the Q is on hiatus. No W, either.
A haggard woman with an aquiline nose (like my aquiline grandfather), like the kind of noses that busted through Ellis Island,
tells me she never comes to Queens and the days she comes who would have thought there would be such a mess. Signaling problems, I tell her; but we don't sweat. No one sweats; The small stuff! Everyone is easily leaning on each other, following the curves of the line, anticipating the next stop

But I still think the guy with the Statue of Liberty foamy green hat looks silly —
even though, like I said, I went to the island myself today, paid the twelve bucks and licked the undersides of Lady Liberty's fanny; and I am still not so silly as to wear a silly, ridiculous hat. My silliness has already been done, lying on my back in the registry of Ellis Island pretending I was my grandfather with the aquiline nose and the legal inspector asks me a question in Italian, and I say, "Did I come to America to learn Italian?!" The legal inspector tells me that he needs to know if I am literate in my native tongue or not and I cry to my mother country to let ole liberty let me pass. When my grandfather was dying my dad bought him a six-pack of beer to drink for the night. We had to sneak it past the doctors and I wonder how many times my grandfather had to sneak past people: sneak past the inspectors in the registry, sneak past the medical examiners and the anti-immigration protesters. To sneak past, again and again, to see the face of liberty sans a green foamy hat. I was silly today. I cried in the registry. Not, long fat sobs, but the kind of cry that sheds one fat tear on your face — small enough not to be noticed but fat enough on my face to feel emotional. I get up in the registry and thank the Park Service ranger — "Thanks, for the tour!"

"Make sure you see the washrooms, sir!"

But, I think, even though I had my moment of silliness, nonetheless, that I should get a hat like that for myself, put it on my head on the way to Lex and 59th street, in the rush hour traffic; pretend like I have just come from the Statue of Liberty to look for my Holiday Inn single-room, non smoking.

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Poem for a Phlebotomist's Office (Or, a Public Service Announcement for Donating Blood)

I present you with a poem to be read out-loud at your next visit to get your blood drawn.

Read this poem when you get your blood taken.

Hey, it's just
blood being drawn,
dahlin' - no cry!

So, no sweat, boo -

What else you gonna do?

Sit back, relax, let
the trained phlebotomist do
her act! - 1, 2, 3

then you're done, hon! YAY!

At least it ain't no vaccine!

So get your snack on later and be serene

Wasn't it a "walk in the park?"!

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Poem: Train Station, Hammond, Louisiana

 

photo continuance: seattleweekly

stands a peach and plum seller and his grandson,
a pail of peaches for 10,
a basket of plums for 5;
the peaches downy and yellow,
a brown tinge of grass on top of their round facades,
the plums thin, easy to bite into;
they tell me,
a family of fruit sellers,
their white pick-up truck doubles as a storefront
and their transportation,
hailing from Alabama,
with Alabama plates,
traveling farmers,
a round, happy belly, age lines born from cheerfulness,

approaching to buy something with measly dollars,
rumpled in a cheap wallet,
the grandfather goes and sits down,
satisfied,
the grandmother, reading a newspaper,
trusts
her boy to handle the sale,
the morning summer sun heating the concrete;
the glint of an Amtrak train veering into the station;
the boy shows off his produce,
grinning like a seasoned salesman,
but serious when he
points to some small, green colored peaches,
“these here are sour; I don’t like ‘em,
but I can sell ‘em to ya anyway if you like, sir,”
“No, I think I like that basket of plums over there for breakfast,”
The boy, nods, obediently,
“I can sell ‘em to ya if you like, sir”
and hands the green basket like an offering,
placing a peach in the mix for extra,
this act of kindness both part of the sale and a kind of measure of survival,
meeting his eyes just for a second,
broken blue and his hair a matte of red,
a nondescript cap nestled on his head;
he answers questions;
“yeah, we go from Alabama to Mississippi; just came from Chalmette,”
he says, politely answering the queries, as if they are expected, as if he is used to this
 line of questioning —

and I wonder where they are off to next, which town, and for how long —
and slightly envious that it isn’t me, selling those peaches and those plums,

a kind of gentle harmony, biting into the small, but full plum,
its redness firm and meaty; a good feeling to have so early in the morning,
to be a produce seller, to pass off such delicate fruit,
you have to be gentle, and courteous,
making sure you seem to be sharing instead of selling —
and trusting that you are making people happy, sated,
their tummies filled with juices, grown from the earth;
a romanticism is there, for sure;
forgetting the commercial exchange, it is as if one is just picking these peaches and
plums from where they came; hearing the pluck from the branch,
just as natural as giving a handsome tip

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Poem: "Heart Surgery"

After heart surgery, he appeared

at supper smiling, though hunched over,

as if his soul had trouble holding him

up

as if he were floating among the worn

tables and ragged cushions despite

himself, despite a ragged slit 

down his shaven chest,

once opened and bared

so intimately touched, so visceral  —

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Poem: Upon Pouring Coffee

the black, raven colored chemical that I love
to drink in the morning,
with my fat, contented cup
for my fat contented ladies,
sits perched on a landing in the sun room -

“What do you do?” she said.
And I said, “I pour coffee.”
“Oh,” she replied, retreating to the foyer.

by Greig Roselli
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Poem: Effigy

Some old folks 

are like glazed doughnuts,

crusty effigies

on the brink of plastic lunch trays.

The dribble of orange juice,

the nausea of snot —

but she smiles,

because she’s old

and happy

that her son —

well — only me —

came to visit —

a chocolate heart wrapped

in aluminum foil — 

that I went and took a photograph

of

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Poem: "Guilt-Gift"

A mother’s guilt gift to a

future man on her knee

is to enjoy his giggles, fun-loving mirth,

only to demand it back in his

trousers and school-books, his sullen smirk.

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image credit: "Remember" by Telenous

Poem: Evolutionary Biology

Stefan clung, like a primate, to his mother

when he was a kid, a little thing;

I would sometimes take him in my arms, pat

his bulbous head, shake his infant thighs — 

And he would cry — for his mother — 

offer his tiny fingers, sweet princely monuments,

Releasing and squeezing my fat adult digits,

all the while yelping for her feminine beauty.

As a dutiful father, I would

place him back in her petulant arms — 

sated his bloated body content between

her breasts — 

And she would extoll my fatherliness,

my manly concern,

all the while shielding and protecting 

some arcane ritual of evolutionary

biology

image credit: "father with baby" by marjanhols
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Facebook Haiku

his profile pic reads

want love eyes on status

an orgy of likes

Poem: “Backyard Fantasyland”

We hop around bridges, we dance with
trolls. We have a blast with ants. We
meet with nymphs and fairys.

Rabbits show the way. It is so nice
to know they have something to say.

A Badger invites us to tea, with a little
sponge cake.

A faun entertains us with a dance in
a meadow filled with dew.

All of these things happened in a five
year old’s backyard.

---

All you need is an imagination

See the mind, see the bridge, see almost
anything. All you need is an imagination.
Say, you are doing good.

January 13, 1994

Poem: Rabbit

how come life is like

the bald man

who comes to

the

table

ostensibly to spread

joie de vivre

but instead

reminds us

the rabbit we're

eating

was shot in the backyard

along with the pigs?

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Haiku in Honor of National Poetry Month

Trees staring upward
Like tops spinning in circles
Empties our love out

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On a Visit to Ozanam Inn in New Orelans — A Men's Homeless Shelter

New Orleans has an all-men homeless shelter on Camp Street. Today my cousin and I stepped inside to take a look.

 

photo credit: Ozanam Inn

Spontaneously, while walking on Camp street heading for the D-day museum, We crept behind a gate. Ozanam Inn sprung into view as if metastasized right there on Camp street, replete with a line of men, waiting in line for a room to sleep. But he didn't know what was behind the gate. I didn't tell him; he was horrified, ripped from a pleasant view into a darker corner, social inequality thrust upon a privileged. It was rudeness on my part; I had said, "Come here. I want to show you something," as if I knew what a good lesson was. To me, they were readers, workers, sinners, saints -- reading a newspaper, one, another a novel, and another dragging on a cigarette. Another protecting his bicycle leaning against the dump. For him, just a boy at my side, they were strangers, monsters in his sleep, the stay-away-from-them folks momma told you about, not the needy in want of bread, shelter -- not the Samaritan on the block. It was my fault; I deserved his "Don't ever do that to me again without telling me first" accusation. In my rush to enlighten, I revealed reality too quickly, shed the gauze from his eyes too swiftly as if I went to amputate his legs without warning. We walked to the museum and I could tell I had frightened him. He was skittish and uncomfortable, gazing into the plexiglass displays of bombers and beach ballasts, authentic uniforms; and my words, a mismatch of history and mentorship. An old veteran's wife approached us while I was trying to explain axis and allies; "Listen to him boy; you can't get a better lesson than this". You indeed can't get a better lesson that.

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Poem: “Chinese Buffet”

photo credit: wikimedia

at the chinese buffet, during lunch hour
there's a table of brash intimacy
and lunch hour camaraderie -
the sleight parent wearing a holiday
green sweater, christmas lights strung
across her child-nursing breasts;
she gestures, eggrolls pushed to
the side, the travails of I-don't-know-what-
because I am too far away to eavesdrop,
but what I did notice I've turned into miserable verse,
I must admit,
of my own voyeurism
getting the best of me,
this haphazard bunch,
articulating with words and flesh
what I can only stab at
with my fork,
ashamed at my own frog-like
existence,
crouching in the chinese buffet,
while my mongolian stew
gristles in the background.

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Why I Listen to Rilke and Don't Write Love Poems

Rilke in "Letters to a Young Poet" —

Reading again the injunction Rilke gave to his younger protege not to write love poems because they are too “facile and ordinary,” I am reminded why I do not write love poems.
It’s an overwrought genre.
Look. Love poems are preferably saturated in the oeuvre: Shakespeare’s doting sonnets alone give us all we need:

The Nike of Samothrace

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Poetry: Gone with the Wind, among others — Leuven, Belgium

In this poem, which I wrote when I was a college student at the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U.L.), and living as a seminarian at the American College, I tap into feelings of aesthetic taste, sharing intimacy — and I used the phrase "stones of erasmus" for the first time! 

     Erasmus was a student in Leuven during the counter-reformation. One can still see the dormitory house where he supposedly lived and studied. There is a saying among students that only if the stones of Erasmus could speak! What would they say?  

photo credit: spirit of paris

After a film,
poster and reflections
neatly crisp

Intently, furtive glances, to the right, then gone …
left man passes, consume in a bite, then a girl
with glasses, lashes and a bic light
smokes.
Curly Q’s and then somberness of night.
But, still the poster glows … the Trocadero, a movie
de l’amour and Vertigo, a fright:
An image of a man, a stale lacuna, a ghost of film noir
gazing, not apart, partly connected.  Dreams and visions
speak aloud to wet, litter caked streets.

Rotted lemon luminaries haze a path,
dulling humid low land streets, scarcity curtains pulled upwards,
A Peugeot passes, the stones of erasmus clamor to get out.
The posters gleam yet; characters speak and a stomach,
somewhere thirsty growls — it is filled and then …
in upward windows aching, she dresses for a silent figure fantasy.

A flicker, then bed, holding a teapot, languidly.
Une regard to a postcard, to consume.
Speeches to please, to sugar, then the tongue licks,
alors, madame …
then laugh,
like a box of potpourri; charming
half-dead, withered, enchanting

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Alpha Christ Mural from Saint Joseph Abbey With Accompanying Poem

Artist credit: A mural by Gregory DeWit, St. Joseph Abbey Church, Saint Benedict, Louisiana

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Poem: Neutral Ground

photo credit: Trevor Logan, Jr.

Neutral Ground

On the corner of Carrollton and Willow,
waiting for a bus, the # 34,
to be exact,
I sat on the neutral ground grass,
translating ancient Greek,
oblivious to the hatred.

A red boy and his friends,
in a pick-up truck,
stopped at the traffic light;
he spewed something my way —
knocked on my skull and dropped
among a soggy tootsie roll wrapper,
a bottle cap —

Vroom, like a cartoon,
You fucking bitch
and I merely turned to acknowledge
with a grin
and a greeting.

Not to turn the other cheek,
but out of habit.

I smiled, caught a glance
and turned back to my paperback

                    Greig Roselli

                    New Orleans, Louisiana

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Prose Poem: "to leave"

to unsettle from place is fearful: fear eats the soul; they say face your fears, but isn’t place a barrier between us and our fears; a comforting worn thing set as a wall; for who really faces fears; except maybe the emigrant; moving away — but the death in facing back, like lot’s wife and her salt, or orpheus looking back — and I feel shame, like salt, and I feel evaporated … all those nice things I have come to like, to feel, I will have to give up so I can touch my belly again;

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Poem: "Voting Booth"

source: new york times

their children's legs stick out of
the nylon curtains

pretending to vote

Scott says he

became political when
he was six,

Truman

was president.

Mom stays in the car,

having already cast her vote,
the voting commissioners will fuck it up, though

On the way no one knows

who to vote

dappled road

smiling

ken davis

whenever my dad
had a few Pabst Blue
Ribbons then later it was miller -
he would run down FDR

a Pinko

and Edwin Edwards -

because we knew he was
a crook

better the crook you

know -

Buddy Tauzin drove up on
the trains tracks in La Place,

ruffled

feathers draped across
the front of the caboose -

touching the crevice of a hole,
chiseled into the polished marble,
wall of the State Capitol
where Senator Long was shot
in Second Grade,
a school field trip, -
with Ms. Cerami,
we were allowed to trace our fingers into the depressed hole -

consciousness is a tumulus on
the plain of death

"cowards die many times
before their deaths, the brave
only once"

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