Ambling within beech tree bouquet
shrouded nomads towering into oblivion
harmonizing bagpipe kaddish
behind mama & papa’s
cathedral hilltop liberation smoke house gleaming,
I stare up finding shade & shadow break through heliotropic branches
and fall into shoka ikebana
leaving space for the dead to drink,
the living to starve at supper table.
Amongst crazy wise brush broken shells
stale coyote shit hardened to gallstone twigs berries
I find fox mortise-and-tenon skull
free of flesh void of coarse nectarine coat
overturned by stump silver prayer bowl over-flowing kernels
O! wont you nibble buck?
O! wont you suckle doe?
Howling wolf moon red-eyed marauder
salivating burnt blood
rears in Western sky
skull in hands flesh holding bone
Buddha free fall through vacant parking lot
saturated with rain fog settling out upon no-thing.
Hollowness where fox eyes saw good dreams
buck toothed hares scurrying in the between;
life & death razor canines & loose meat tongue
All around shrieks & howls,
empty bellies scouring dimly lit world for wounded gazelles
broken bison summer sun
cardinal flying too low above ground
All around hunters prowling four-legged
hunters scavenging wings spread mountain range
circling overhead
All around weeping & slobbering wails
my mother knelt at hunter green marble two-body
stepback urn, gold nameplates translating void
Santo Anthony Giampapa
Carey Grant paisanorth Boston
hipster son of Sicily immigrant cousins Alfonso & Rosalie
locked in youthful embrace
O! where blue overalls worn white
smell of old hot Monza motor oil,
white curdled butcher coat stained with blood of lamb!
Rose Norma Caporale Giampapa
She who passed by her window morning yawn
all downtown boys squawking,
Jane Russell took residence in Michael & Jenny’s
Tapley Square south side parlor
O! where blackened lungs are broken angel wings
breath is the exploration & you need not
wheeze in second story window
peeing into plastic bag chaffed by tube!