1:} Things I've Never Thought To Tell

So many aberrant
events and unspeakable
memories consumed my childhood
nearly every day that they became unremarkable
to me. Inevitable, inescapable and relentless, the physical
and emotional assaults deadened my spirit into habitual apathy.
Dominated by her volatile temper, passivity meant survival, submission
an offering to lessen the frequency of aggressions. Life was incomparable
to, and especially incompatible with anyone else's.
My zest for living became forever benumbed
by a belt buckle or punch in the face.
Or even worse, belittlement,
rejection, coldness
and the cruelty
of isolation.
The
familiar
nature of
my life is not
monstrous to me.
These are things I've
just never thought
to tell anyone...

Ballooning

under swells of icy
turbulence attacking
from the rear, I pull my
coat snug with pocketed fists.
Drifts of rust colored leaves randomly
burst crackling into artistic vortices as I pass.
Cars with neighbors returning home from work
fill crisp air with exhaust fumes as I light a butt.

It’s only four thirty in the afternoon and
I have sovereignty over my journey,
knowing she won’t be back ‘til late. .

Peace of mind and a quiet heart
accompany me. The haunted
house on the hill diminishes
in my wake; where familiar
companions, fear and
dread, lurk in the
nightmare
that is
my
life.

Mission Hill’s
prominence also
wanes as I pass the
Museum of Fine Arts.
In stony silence it poses
in the darkening foreground,
nestled among the dying foliage
brushed lightly into graying shadow.

Charlesgate East
outside Kenmore Square
I actually lived here on
the fifth floor during 1980.

They cloak the Muddy River’s languid
flow through The Fens beneath meadows
kindling starlight across seas of India ink.
Cloud colonies gently swirl about in revealing
glimpses at their ghostly source of brilliance;

A crescent moon distended low on the horizon.

 Metal wheels hammer rolling thunder to earth.
The pervasive odor of electricity sparked by
trolleys is inescapable. To and fro they hiss
screeching under the weight of masses

who yearn for the asylum of blissful
havens. Up ahead come streams
of students flowing down
the brightly lit towers
of Northeastern
University

in formations
like schooling fish
that dart in unison through
the carping traffic. Within the
anonymity of the herd, occasional
eye contact engenders a smile or nod,
but most stare off in pensive indifference.
Farther along at Hemenway Street cacophony

melds with melodic sound. Its growing volume muffles
horns, dampers air brakes, obscures shouting and pads
stomping feet. The Game Room, secreted below the
sidewalk, vibrant in neon seductiveness, pitches
pursuit of amusement, frolic and play for a
mere quarter. The comforting mirth of
human companionship, nestled in
enchantment, distraction and
daydream, eclipses
the cold world
outside.

I hurry
through the
beer scented,
smoke-filled bar to
use the bathroom and
blow my nose. With a few
quarters from my pocket I hone
a newly acquired skill. I’ve watched
the masters at play and simply monkey
their techniques! I light a cigarette, then
in perfectly timed sequence manipulate two
powerful rubber flippers that precisely nudge

three heavy steel balls into rubber-launched orbit.

All done without ever tilting the machine, of course!

Upper bumpers propel them rumbling toward targets
that explode in flashing hot colors, building to sum
and summons the loud ‘crack’ of a free game!

On warm feet, empty pockets stuffed with
cold hands, I plod ahead. Darkened
shop windows reflect the
mysterious location
where subway
emerges
as trolley

and trolley
rolls into subway
through the bowels of Boston.
At Symphony Hall and the intersection
of Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues,

I barrel headlong to the old block recently

demolished into the mesmerizing gazing

pool of the Christian Science Center.

Six long years ago when the
Uptown Theater was still
standing here and I was
all of eight, my sister
Kathy brought me
along with her
friends to
see the
Beatles’
new movie
‘Help’ and is
still as vivid in
memory as yesterday.

The bitterly exposed length
of the Christian Science Center
now directs my dash to the shelter

of the Prudential Concourse. Echoes
fill the interminably narrowing walkway.
Processions of bright shop displays
proffer unaffordable goods.

Outside, waterless
marble fountains
overlook pools,
empty of
water
and coins,
edged in vacant
cast iron benches.

Far in the distance

the tunnel converges
upon bundles of ant-like
people who swarm frenziedly
through arctic drafts cast earthward
by the newly constructed tower.

November's polar furor
sends me in goose bumps
across Boylston Street through

Copley Square then cascades windswept
behind me up Gloucester Street. Frigid squalls
eddy around the crosswalks of Newbury Street. Over

the expanse of Commonwealth Avenue the snappy

tempest impels me. Marlborough Street churns

a biting gale force. The currents waft me
across Beacon Street to my escape in
the alley behind its brownstones.
Moving through the dark back
street, I cross the indistinct end
of Fairfield Street to emerge at my
destination. Anchored in shadow, the
trestle of a concrete rainbow arches Storrow
Drive’s crawling mass of lighted metal and rubber
to the pot of gold on the other side:

The Esplanade!