T'is the Season

‘Tis the Season

of candles

and trash fires

 war

in the Holy Lands

death
on the borderlands

  

 nostrums

from rostrums

And there's nothing to be done

but to look for shelter

Nothing to be done

but to ask 

for something to eat

Nothing to be done

but

Praise God with the harp 
 sing to Him with the psaltery 

as

wolves rise from their sleep 

and

shepherds watch their sheep.

WHERE'S FIDEL?

                                      DONDE ESTÁ FIDEL

Where is Fidel?

                   el Commandante

                   el Caballo

¿Dónde está Fidel?

Fidel esta muerto.

No!

El esta mirando el mar

He is watching the sea

Yes, Fidel is watching the sea…

January 1959

I was thirteen

when the Beards

entered Havana.

I saw it on TV.

Then

in February

on a Friday night

the whole family

gathered around the tube

to watch “history being made.”

Fidel

live - en vivo -

and in person

with his long hair and beard

in a silk bathrobe

smoking a cigar

in a suite in Micky Hilton's hotel

The Revolution was being televised

and it was some kind of slumber party

with a fuck you edge

I fell in love.

The next week

I bought a fatigue cap,

and a rubber cigar

and entered Erie

Pennsylvania

on my bicycle.

My friends were unimpressed.

My parents were not amused.

My uncle said, “All free-thinkers ought to be shot.”

The Revolution started shooting free-thinkers

And where was Fidel

¿ y Dónde estaba Fidel?

Fidel estaba en las sombras

Si, in the shadows

at the Stadium

watching

Fidel estaba en las sombras.

Fidel…?

April 1959

Fidel in Harlem

Plucking chickens at the Shelburne

The Revolution as BBQ

The Marx Brothers Revolution

Desplumando pollos

Communism with a comic mask

I was taken in again.

Until time

and the Revolution

started falling over themselves

The Missile Crisis
The Special Period
Prisoners of Conscience

Hugs and kisses in Moscow

Poets in jail

Queers in jail

And what about Che?

¿…Che…?

Handsome Che

Holy Che

El Christo Che

confusing love and death

in Africa, and Brazil

Che

gone

and buried

in speeches

and the Revolution

buried

in speeches

Hours and hours of speeches

Anniversaries and speeches

Decades of speeches

An era of speeches

A half-century of speeches

Impossible to love speeches

and impossible to love Fidel

Viejo Fidel.

And, finally, Fidel collapsed,

choking on speeches.

Fidel estrangulaba en discursos.

But Fidel does not die

no –

Fidel nunca morirá

because Fidel is in the shadows

watching the sea.

Yes,

Fidel

esta mirando

el mar.

DON MICHAEL, ZENO, THE ORANGE, AND ME

I’m reminded

     of the last scene

                in Godfather III

Michael Corleone

     holding an orange

                

Slouching
     in his chair

                and then       

                tumbling

                to the gravel.

I've felt that
drop in energy
that comes          

      a moment

                before the tumble.

Parsed

    by Zeno’s math

the orange

                drops from Michael’s hand

                                unpeeled

                                untasted

                                                and falls

for

                                                 eternity.

BIRTHDAY GRATITUDE & PRAYER

                (with a nod to the Merry Prankster)

That I ever was

                that

 kid.

That I am

                this

                                -old-

gently, brother…,

                -old-er-               

               

man.

That I have lived

                the life

between

step by blessed step

a hair’s breadth

from disaster.

Oh, my dears

Above ground –

                with everyone to thank

                                so thank you and

Let us proceed

Further –

Amen.

(6) FRANK'S ENCHANTED WORLD VAUDEVILLE (starring Frank)

The Finale Known as Grace

Flying House

Frank

          Honest to God

found himself

in New Hampshire

under a bruised sky

up a tree

watching green hills

          rock thunder and storm

          like an ocean raging

          all a-havoc & destruction

                   of fences and cows

                   John Deeres

                   cars

                   farmhouses

                   telephone poles

                   the dearly departed

                             with their assorted and sundries

                   and

                   farmyard children

churning every which way

          around

          up and

          under

in an in-ex-or-able roll

and in-cred-ible show

of brute force nature.

 

Frank shaking like a leaf

wondered

          how the hell

          he was gonna get himself

          out of this one

and as nothing came to mind

          climbed

                   Yup

higher up

to thin branches

new growth

spindle greenery

all precarious

          reached

              and

          climbed

     

                        Steady now

into a window

          fortune-ate-ly, for-tu-i-tous-ly, and treach-er-ously

tumbling in the maelstrom 

          and found

                   Get this

the beautiful daughter

in a white night gown

on white sheets

under a white canopy

in a white room

                   Stick with me

and Frank said,  Dorothy?

          Dorothy said, Frank?

Frank said, How did you get in here?

          and Dorothy said, The prairie is an ocean, Frank

and then

Frank heard

the unmistakable

          ka-chung

of a pump-action

shotgun

followed by the voice

of the household's host

his best friend's friend

pronouncing as sharply

as New Hampshire granite:

          I think you've got the wrong room, son

As a lucky spasm of

          grass, dirt

          flint and rock

smacked the sun

turning all the white black

all the bedrooms into kitchens

and all the daughters to

          safely lighting lamps

                   and pouring wine

for Sunday supper

          and here's the best part

The household's host

his best friend's friend

asked Frank to

          Kindly say the grace, son

And Frank obliged with all the grace he could muster:

Thank you Lord

          thank you dear people

For shelter from the rising fields

Keep us, Lord,

from the temptations of trees

          and open windows

                   Amen.

And they all said: 

                             Amen.





PROLOGUE: FRANK'S ENCHANTED WORLD VAUDEVILLE (starring Frank)

FRANK'S LIBERAL EDUCATION

     (for Miller on his Thirteenth Birthday)

 

                      Raven on my Shoulder

Born of Frank, Sr.,

and Our Lady of Perpetual Longing

the fifth or seventh of eleven -

     who can remember?

Frank was brought up

     by a free floating family

          to float free.

An independent thinker.

Frank Sr.,

an odds maker

angle player

sporting life

as honest as anyone outside the law

taught him the higher maths of

     Infinity

     Eight ball

     The ponies

And lives captured in a dream

Taught him the benefits of

     Fi-delity and Loyalty

And the utility of a pocketful of hand-shakes.

His favorite uncle

a man of the cloth

taught him how to

     Play the piano

     Shoot nine holes and various handguns

     And communicate with the higher powers.

Uncle Sugar

might have shown him

how to snap a jab

and throw a flurry,

but ain't nobody saying.

Perpetual Longing walked him along the path of

     Reading books

     Recognizing love

     Keeping his own council
     And the equality of the great and small.

When he was a baby,

his auntie, Ma Raven, poked him in the ear

and left a message

Said to listen for her rough song

and when he was ready

she'd tell him some things

In time she did -

She told him the world was divided

between the agreed upon and the enchanted

that

mirrors, reflections

and surface things

could trap you twixt the two

and you had to get into something

     before you could get out of it.

Ma Raven told him to aovid rats

     she hated rats

the two and four-legged varieties

both recognized by their moving jaws and skittish behavior

distracting you with shiny things

while they eat you alive.

Most important, she said, don't be afraid.

Before he left home

Frank understood

you could pay a price for things

     that weren't for sale

And there was nothing

     you could steal

     that would do you any good.

He learned that life

     was a tightrope walk

with a bounce and sway

     that sent messages

          through his feet

               into his heart

                    and finally his head

He learned his body

always got the message first

     and the territory between

          what his heart felt

          and his head thought

          was a minefield littered

               with limbs, lives, and intentions -

                    good and otherwise.

Every animal Frank ever met

     taught him to nap anytime

          and eat when he could.

Wind taught him

     to expect the unexpected

And stars that there's no time

     like the present.

At times Frank thought life was just one goddamn lesson after another

     and with all these lessons he'd never get a day of nothing at all.

Frank got days of nothing at all - he didn't enjoy them all that much.

By the time Frank hit the road

he was prepared

for glorious contingencies

stray teachers

and all the visible-and-in

an enchanted vaudeville could offer.

Frank was happy to be

     Foot loose & Fancy free.