Crescent Moon Howling At The Fool {Reversed}: 5:} You Really Never Can Go Home

Everyone
must have been
warned to keep their
hands off. Why else would
no one utter a welcome word?
They treated me as if I were the
plague. Her message got to them all.
She alone wants complete control over me,
fuckin'bitch...

Rectangles of tracklights
cast from above receive a
foot stamp of disapproval,
superstition be damned.
From abounding cold
skies winds squall
forked at my
scrunched
figure.

Memory
listlessly trails
to a time upon a
curbside perch mere
feet from endless floats
honoring Flag Day. Countless
companies of Armed Services
from every war and time period
including The Civil War, even
The Revolution!

A hundred vendors
vie for split-second sales on
Main Street where greenbacks
are swapped for ice cream,
t-shirts, cotton candy,
hats, tonics, dolls,
umbrellas, beer,
hot dogs,
pretzels,
sunglasses,
and yo-yo's;
more stuff than
one could ever imagine!

Carnival trainers stroll by with
their animals. Politicians wave
over-enthusiastically striding by
or drunkenly falling off-balance
in moving cars. Mayor White
calls out to my father. 'Hey
Jimmy! How ya doin'?' I
didn't know the Mayor
of Boston knew my
father or why,
and I never
asked.

Police on
horseback canter
amidst their two-legged
counterparts, ahead of firemen
whose polished engines' sirens whir
in cadence with trumpets, trombones,
bagpipes, drums, flutes and cymbals.

Whenever a firetruck drives by
with its siren sounding, Uncle
Jackie gruffly announces,
'Sounds like the chief's hungry
and he's going home
for supper!'
As kids
we always
think this utterly
ridiculous but laugh
out loud. We know he's
joking!

Within the the shadows
of my father, grandparents, uncles,
Aunt Mary and her three sons,
cousins Johnny, Bobby,
Jimmy; my brother
and sisters, I
belonged.

Sometimes
she was there also,
but not very often, thankfully...
Whether mirage, fantasy or bad dream,
her presence frightened it all away.
Life's magic completely vanished
then took a haunting turn
into a nightmare from
which I may
never
awaken.

Bright neon light
from the liquor store in
the heart of Thompson Square
illuminates long rows of streetlights
that line the infamous Prison Point
arch high to its apex, converging
with twinkling starlight.

My pace quickens
as I light another butt.
It sends its trail of grey smoke
backwards to Charlestown.
A warm tingling sensation
flushes head-to-foot as
if flowing down to
the gruesome
expanse
below.

What
was I
thinking
in coming here?
A warm, sticky wetness
spreads out across my chest.
I envision open veins slowly
weeping, ebbing the perky
exuberance and gaiety of
childhood lost, purged
entirely, eternally.

Awareness and
my sense
of
being
diminish
melancholic
and disconsolate,
dejected, and listlessly
mournful. A broken-hearted
child's spirit disappears into thin air.
Deep inside, I know this will be forever...

Approaching the halfway mark, I light another cigarette.
Each quickening step draws my secret world
nearer. Ahead, the ghostly outline
of the Science Museum's garage
soothes my troubled thought.

The Esplanade belongs to me alone.
No one tarries over scenery
while in flight to
warm homes.

Dark, familiar,
indistinct, and between
two cities, it is so obvious a place
no one would ever think to look,
let alone, find me out here.
I laugh inside at Inspector
Clouseau's hilarious logic.