"40-140"
An Iterative Poem by Robert Boccelli
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40.
Flying to New York City.
American. Here.
41.
The boy,
a girl,
a cabbie,
a shipbuilder.
42.
The cabbie has a family
and he loves them.
43.
If I had to guess
his throat had been slit.
44.
He has a lemon eye
and a banana on the dash.
45.
It is embarrassing
I did not take the subway.
46.
"2016 Civic with 172,000 miles.
Believe that?"
47.
Chaima,
Hamida,
Khairunnisa (Khai),
and Sareen.
48.
Millions of ways to say,
"This is close enough."
49.
A washing machine clangs
somewhere in a scullery.
50.
A mother picks grass from her son's soccer cleats.
51.
Ten million people. An addition:
let me portray me.
52.
There is the communist bookstore
without one patron.
53.
I meet my friends
and we sit and smoke
and talk here.
54.
I decide I will not pretend to not smoke.
So we smoke.
55.
All that comes
goes along
the longest route. So
rest easy.
56.
Buy a copy of Dream Songs.
Climb a tree all alone. Stay.
57.
So many children
the Russian woman
could not count
all them.
58.
Walk.
I learn there are backyards in Brooklyn. Then,
walk.
59.
White Americans
haggle with the Japanese
speaking Japanese.
60.
It is difficult to contribute
to a place like New York City.
61.
A polite host says nothing
when you eat more than your share.
62.
Donuts, eggs,
knock off Louis Vuitton,
the over-priced silver.
63.
"And empty grows every bed,"
and empty grows every head.
Grows.
64.
I am filled with joy when I mash
a fried avocado with my tongue.
65.
An amputee whips us with his cane
across and down the chessboard.
66.
A young Russian
curses by tone
the hardships of not
being royalty.
67.
The espresso is burnt,
but the donut is wonderful:
crumbling, warm.
68.
We must never forget to share
potentiality,
geography,
and our food.
69.
Ten million people dancing.
The Earth sways.
The Earth stays swaying.
70.
The cleats are clean and the boy
dribbles his football in Sunset Park.
71.
The wedding party offers us
their extra pizzas.
We are full.
We accept.
72.
The Hasidic family laughs.
There are four of them:
Mom, Dad, Son and me.
73.
The Statue of Liberty
for free
from here
for all
from all
for me
from me.
74.
Eckford Webb (1825-1893) had finished the ship:
Union.
She burned in 1929.
75.
I bury a smoke in the wet of Sunset Park.
It is rude, but I'll remember it.
76.
When I stand to leave
I take some grass with me.
On accident
find a purpose.
77.
Bobby Bird couldn't feel the right side of his body.
He asked me for a vodka.
78.
"Please now
pinch your right arm.
Can you feel it?”
I can feel it.
(Your arm.)
79.
If the danger is
occurring
and more importantly
visible
people will rescue you.
80.
The boy's arm is bleeding.
Home, the mother
wraps the wound
in a clean t-shirt.
81.
Bobby Bird did not know
who Eckford Webb was
but listened to me
talk about boats.
82.
Two people
bothering each other
may spend more time together
than either expected.
83.
The rocks melting
in the mantle
and the heavy magma
began sludging
a baritone solo.
84.
If someone wants to talk
about architecture
please let them talk
about architecture.
85.
The country's future space voyage
shall discover
a cabbie holding his four daughters.
86.
The boy's trip to the park was fruitful.
His clothes are dirty
and he is better again.
87.
The mother groans
when she sees the stains
but she smiles knowing
she can get them out.
88.
The ferry burns
in Port Richmond
and 100 years later
we may not know
if anyone perished.
89.
She is Japanese
with long hair to her waist
and a cat's smile
and a graph paper notebook.
90.
She is Japanese
with long hair in a bun
and a dog's temperament
and so I open my notebook.
91.
Her friend of a friend
has a very nice house
and I find again
another backyard
in Brooklyn.
92.
At the house
we burn wet wood
and dying fast
dark roam
and eat hours
under moon
howling yes.
93.
Under moon
tired and silent
a boy picks up
the only rock
glowing
in his backyard
in Brooklyn.
94.
No one written into a poem
or any art
is fictional.
No one made physical
can possibly
be fictional.
95.
Staying — bye —
me — when I leave —
the grass sways staying.
Sit and stare —
wonder where I am.
96.
The heater breaks
and the cabbie lights
the never used
bedroom fireplace
and reads aloud
to all.
97.
She places her legs on mine
by the fire
and four of our grandparents
disembarked
nearby and cold.
98.
A cabbie picks up
a boy and wonders
what he has
in his pockets -
and why he keeps
his hands there.
99.
Bobby Bird had a brother
whom he ate in the womb
so he was twice as smart
and smelled twice as bad.
100.
The band plays at high moon
in the catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery
and it is impossible
to be late.
101.
She says,
"Tonight only! The jazz band in all black
funky down the end
of the chalky hall can ghoul!”
102.
You will know a car
you don't want to be in
when you see it.
Smoke pluming from,
or the scream inside.
103.
When the fire is out
we have a kiss
discuss a concert
find a fence
to punch through
into the neighbors.
104.
In unison
a Russian woman
a cabbie
a young boy
a japanese girl
and a tourist all say,
"it's a good day."
105.
A cabbie drops a boy
and a boy places on the armrest
a glowing rock
as part of his payment
and thank you.
106.
A Japanese girl was young
watching Saiyuku
when a black suit knocked
and told her to please come with him.
107.
A boy was young
watching Donald Duck
when someone broke the lock
and cut his right hand off
with a machete.
108.
The band loads their gear
while the turntables spin
singing choir-like and hollow
against the bones and ash.
109.
Above Eckford Webb's grave
a part of earth tumbles and falls
while we roll on the ground
wormlike and joyous.
110.
"It is as if that moment
exists within me
as a disparate body,
something examinable
yet entirely out of sync."
111.
"In 2017 I told the cops to stop looking
so that we could all move on
and I can think that maybe
they're dead."
112.
The child dribbled along Bleecker
with a stone in his pocket
wearing expensive sneakers
looking for a recipient.
113.
We used to say
before bed
yawning and smoking,
"Tomorrow is a big day,"
before we realized
everyday is a big day.
114.
We sit in the grass.
We talk of the shadow
of a soccerball
yo-yoing on his foot
cast in further black
by the moon.
115.
When your day is over
sit and rest in the grass
and read and write
and try to do so
of nothing that has harmed you.
116.
A cabbie walks his daughters
through Green-Wood Cemetery
to see their grandmother.
He always remembers where she is.
117.
The hosts draw the catacomb doors open
and we cough from exhaled dust
so deep down in concrete
we cannot see its end.
118.
A Japanese girl sings proud:
of family -
newfound friends -
her own vitality
and the never-ending
timbre of this city.
119.
The band soundchecks.
Their bellows escape
from airholes made for miners
into our ears and Eckford's
and a young boy's.
120.
I grab a fire rock
and toss it to her
and she catches it
and her hands are black
and she tosses it back
until it's cold.
121.
We walk amongst the trees and the dead below
under the shade of the trees above
Eckford and I
sing a song about a dinner.
122.
"Sometimes I wonder where my hand is.
Do you think the guy who took it has three hands?
Or do you think he threw it away?"
123.
A boy and his mother
dance in a cold apartment
to the sounds of a faraway band
and the rhythmic clank
of a washing machine.
124.
Eckford Webb was never much of a dancer,
but even he could not help but
be persuaded to move two millimeters
by the marimba.
125.
The walk through Green-Wood Cemetery
illumined by lantern
still outside of the artists
walking arm-in-arm
meeting each other.
126.
The cabbie tires before his daughters.
From a patch of brown grass
they form a square and show honor
in their dance and laugh.
127.
A Russian woman returns home
in the morning before schooltime
where her son does his laundry
for the first time in all of time.
128.
He took his stub out of his pocket
and waved it
with valiance and pride
like a flag of a great country
or a beautiful birthmark.
129.
She could not visit her parents' graves
but she lived and danced
like someone who could,
who knew them well and with a fierce love.
130.
Hour by hour we dance. Or the past dances,
being the artist performs only as called.
The brown grass dies and lives under our feet.
131.
Minute by minute the city ebbs. Or I ebb,
being the city witnesses the ebbs of Man.
Grass sways in the first day of fall’s breeze.
132.
Twelve-feet below Eckford
can hear it all, being so close
the tree with its breezy
leaves can be climbed
and most certainly are.
133.
A cabbie and his four daughters
form a circle with linked arms
around her grave and move
in the full circumference
of life and death.
134.
She and I with one
mutual friend hosting a party
and we kissed by a fire
with her legs on mine
I punched a fence
and she comforted me.
135.
A Russian woman watches
from above Eckford Webb's grave
as her descendants dance
with a group of hooligans
from here and there
to here.
136.
A young poet dances
foot fast in a strange land with a woman
and wonders how this became
and what will become
when the sun rises
again.
137.
The American boy sings
far from home
songs of family
and newfound friends
and his own vitality
and the never-ending
timbre of this city.
138.
She can dance and so can I
and no proposition needed
we move to the band's orders
with the never-ending dead
being very here and very now.
139.
When all is sang and done
the catacomb doors close,
but the last note stays
alive and so we dance, shaking
above these dusty royals.
There.
140.
The child dancing with us
poked my shirt and opened my hand:
He found a round stone on his lawn.
I found it clanging in the washing machine.
