Category: Uncategorized

WE ARE ALL SURFACES IN THE ENVIRUSMENT

My love 
Hangs around 
Like mold.

I Infiltrate 
Your porous 
Wood

Sink into 
Your 
Remembrains.

—-

Don’t 
Mind me…

…Just evading

Lapses to 
Rid your 
Infrastructure 
Of me;

Fortifying 
Myself 
—Stronger 
Than ever 
Inside You.

—-

I am the 
Twenty-percent 
That know 
How to 
Survive

Your vinegar.

—-

Undetected 
I cunningly curb 
Your interest

Til you’re

Cupping at 
The seems.

—-

Curve for me.

Show me 
How 
Your heat

That 
Grows me

Cannot 
Contain 
Itself there

Inside your 
Surfaces.

—-

Allow me 
To snake 
Through 
your veins

Like water;

Weaving 
Through 
Your textures,

Tainting Your 
Would boreds,

Inking them 
With life.

—-

Isn’t it 
All So 
Exhilarating—

—How Even 
My most 
Toxic 
Release of 
Spores

beats 
The drone 
Of your

Tidy 
Polished 
Home. 

I HAVE BEEN WADING

On the 
Ocean of 
Missing you 
For So Long,

I’m getting 
Scurvy 
Over here.

—-

I have the 
Cabin Fever of 
Missing you.

—-

The Creatures 
Of us

Live on in the 
Deepest parts 
Of my memorseas.

Not a day 
Goes by

I don’t 
Hold my breath 
To Dive back in 
And pull them out;

Basking them 
in the sun 
Of mynd’s surface.

—-

Our sea monsters 
Shine brightly when 
Allowed in daylight.

—-

I’m keeping 
The map;

Charting course 
To our 
Buried treasures.

I haven’t 
Forgotten 
Where 
X marked

Our spots———- 
—So Many Times.

BALDILOCKS BUMBLER VIRTUOSO

Watch me 
Blow thought 
Bubbles into our 
Re-space-o-ship.

—-

Since You Shut 
Your Electricity off,

The pixels of me 
Still spend all their

Tokens and free time 
Grinding, Bouncing, & 
Reflecting in Our lights.

—-

A play palace 
Despised, I

~backstroke~in the 
____ball pit____Full 
———Of our gazes 
——into each other.

—-

Though you stopped 
Paying admission,

The bare moments 
of us—-Still Dance

|||Encased||| in their 
<<<>>>

<<<>>>

[Turns out,

This space was 
Always 
self-sufficient].

The show 
Must Go On.

I’M HERE TO(O)

Fetishize 
The face.

Face it,

I do not 
Miss 
Any–

-But 
Yours.

—

Take off 
That mask

Slowly 
For me.

No need 
To be Shy 
Or coy,

I know 
What’s under 
There.

I’ve seen it 
All 
Before.

—

Show me 
Again

How you 
You.

It’s been 
So long

Since 
Anyone 
Worth 
Looking 
At

Has Looked 
At me

Physically,

Viscerally,

in My 
Direction.

—-

Before our 

Total Dark

I mourned 
Our sight loss

Like 
I had

My childhood, 
Dog.

I knew 
We 
Were going,

So I 
read books

In place 
Of 
Your face

To Supplant 
Our Deterioration.

I Wrapped myself 
In The Comfort 
Of fiction,

Between covers 
and frayed spines.

—

Shipping 
Is delayed

On shared 
smirks

In the 
Unfor-see-me-able 
Future.

—

In this 
Envirusment,

We are

Flesh and 
[Thus,] 
Fresh Out

of 
Knowing 
Glances.

—

I see now,

There is no way 
To Properly grieve 
the Relishment

of your 
Idiosyncrasies,

As we are,

Relegated 

To only 
A Past-time.

YOU WERE NOT ROUTINE DENTAL WORK

The worst Part 
of losing you 
is that _________ 
___________ 
_____________.

—-

Not some 
Superficial filling 
I could replace.

You were that 
Real enamel Deal.

—-

Over the years, 
I’d developed 
Quite the sweet 
Tooth; taking 
Bigger Bites than 
I Could chew.

—-

I ached from 
Your erosion 
For Months;

Numbing myself 
Preemptively 
For Your extraction.

—-

You Didn’t 
leave a 
minor cavity.

I required 
A full-blown 
root canal.

My nerves laid raw in 
the deepest parts of 
me from your loss.

—-

You were ripped 
from my mouth 
and placed back 
into that of another.

I have 
No right 
to be sad

Only sad writes; 
Gumming at 
Our leftovers.

THE BABY

Words in 
My brain 
Are crying 
Out of me.

They say 
It’s time 
For them

To be 
Birthed 
Out from 
My Mental 
Holes &

Into the 
—World.

—-

Words 
Have no 
Need for

Sucking 
Their 
Thumbs

To self- 
Soothe.

They 
Are the 
Food & 
The Shit,

& We—-Are 
The Worms.

1

I never formally met Bobby Kennedy, but I did once alter the course of his life for maybe five minutes. Since then, I have always felt a certain kinship with him. Had he only lived longer, who knows what he might have achieved.

My relationship with him began on a beautiful fall afternoon back in 1964, less than a year after his brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. It was a few weeks before Election Day, when President Lyndon Johnson would be running for a full term, and Bobby Kennedy would be running for senator in New York State.

I was hanging out in the storefront clubhouse of the Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan, trying to figure out how we could distribute piles of cartons of campaign literature. We had all kinds of neighborhood characters dropping by, sometimes giving us political advice, but rarely offering to help out.

One of my favorites was an elderly man with a long white beard, who told us his name, but then confided that everybody called him “Uncle Sam.” I can still remember two of his sage observations.

“You want to know what is wrong with the name of the Republican Party?” he asked, while rolling the “R” in Republican.

“Sure.”

“Re means against; public means the people.”

“Great!” Carlos observed. “The Republicans are against the people!”

Smiling at his bright pupil, Uncle Sam was ready to disclose his second observation. “Do you know what is right in the middle of the Democratic Party?”

We all just shrugged. Uncle Sam waited, wanting to give everyone a chance to guess. And then he told us:  “The Democratic Party has a rat in it,” again rolling his r’s.

We just shook our heads. The man was perfectly right. We invited him to join our club. As he left, he said he’d think about it. But in the meanwhile, we should consider changing the name of our club. “Eleanor Roosevelt, she is a living saint. But think of getting rid of ‘Democrats’ from your name.”

2

As much of a character as Uncle Sam was, he did not come close to Mrs. Clayton, who burst into our office one afternoon and demanded to know where our Robert Kennedy glossy photos were. Indeed, where were they? We all looked at each other and just shook our heads in shame.

“Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have any?”

We sadly agreed.

“Can any of you please answer this simple question? How can you call yourselves a Democratic club if, just weeks away from the election, you don’t have any of Bobby’s photos?”

Mrs. Clayton was a very nice-looking Black woman, maybe in her mid-sixties. And she seemed quite comfortable expecting answers to her questions. But I couldn’t get past wondering why on Earth she was wearing a fur coat on such a warm day.

“What? Do I have to do everything around here? Who’s going to drive me up to Kennedy’s headquarters on 42nd Street?”

None of us had a car. “Mrs. Clayton, if you can get some Kennedy glossy photos for us, I’ll be glad to take you up there in a cab.”

“You’re on, young man!”

3

Fifteen minutes later we arrived at a large storefront that served as Kennedy’s campaign literature depot. There, I saw cartons piled eight or ten feet high along the walls and a whole bunch of people, most of whom looked very busy. I heard quite a few Boston accents among them.

Mrs. Clayton walked in as if she owned the place, and for all I knew, maybe she did. She buttonholed a middle-aged guy with red hair and the beginnings of a potbelly, and told him that she needed a few carloads of Kennedy campaign literature for this boy’s club on the Lower Eastside.

“Who yah with?”

“The Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats.”

“Never heard of ‘em.”

“We’re on the Lower Eastside. We’re a Reform Democratic club,” I replied.

“Oh, we already sent a whole pile of stuff tuh the Regular Democratic club down there – the Lower Eastside Democratic Association. Why don’t you get some from them?”

“Are you familiar with the Hatfields and the McCoys?”

This got a big laugh out of him. “Mrs. Clayton, you can take whatever you need.”

He called over a couple of guys to help us, and a few minutes later, Mrs. Clayton and I were sitting in the lead limousine in a caravan laden with enough Bobby Kennedy glossies and other campaign material to give out to every Democratic voter in the entire city.

When we got to our clubhouse, Kennedy’s workers and our own people quickly filled up our entire space from floor to ceiling. When they were ready to leave, Mrs. Clayton‘s parting words to us were quite direct, “When you need something, all you’ve got to do is ask for it.” Then, she got back into the limo and rode home in style.

4

After Mrs. Clayton left, the rest of us started going through some of the cartons. Whatever else might be said, there surely were enough Bobby Kennedy glossy photos, many of which showed him with smiling crowds of people. But there was far too much campaign literature for us to use, even if every household got dozens of different pieces every day.

“What are we going to do with all this shit?” asked Martha

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea!”

Everybody looked at me. While I was apparently the quasi-leader that day – not to mention the person who’d helped Mrs. Clayton deliver the goods – they were hoping that I was serious.

“Let’s dump whatever we don’t want in front of our dear neighbors, the Lower Eastside Democratic Association. You know, when I was at the Kennedy headquarters, they told me that those bastards down the block froze us out of our share of not just the Bobby Kennedy glossies, but of all the rest of his literature. So wouldn’t it be poetic justice to dump what we don’t want in front of their clubhouse?”

Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, especially since, without a car, it would have been some job carrying all those cartons. And we might have even gotten arrested for illegal dumping.

“OK,” I agreed. But we need to make a good faith effort to distribute as much of this as we can. I really do hate to waste anything. And also, dumping this stuff would not be fair to Mrs. Clayton.”

So, we all went back to going through more of the cartons. After several minutes, Harry called out, “Hey, what should we do with these?”

He read us the title of a stapled packet of printed pages: “Senator Robert Kennedy’s Address to the Mizrachi Women.”

“Who the hell are the Mizrachi Women?” I asked. I’ve heard of Mizrachi salami.”

“Don’t they carry that brand at Katz’s Delicatessen? Maybe that’s what they’re referring to on that big sign they have on the back wall,” suggested Carlos.

“What sign?” asked Harry.

Carlos was laughing so hard, he had to hold up his hand for everyone to wait till he could speak. Then he said, “Send a salami to your boy in the army.”

Now we were all laughing.

Finally, after we had all settled down, Martha explained that the Mizrachi Women were a Zionist group that promoted education in Israel. That certainly seemed inoffensive enough.

I said that I was uncomfortable about distributing this twenty-page handout because it appeared to be pandering to Jews. “Look, I’m obviously a member of the tribe, but I think that while it’s fine for Kennedy to address this group, distributing it may be going a step too far.”

“So should we just dump them?” asked Martha.

“I have a great idea!” declared Harry. Let’s give them out to people on the street, but only if they’re obviously not Jewish.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed.

That evening, as I locked up, I felt we had gotten a lot done, although now we had to get rid of all that shit. On my way home, I saw a middle-aged Black couple standing under a street light. Their heads were bent together, but they weren’t talking.

Then I noticed that they were thoroughly engrossed in something they were reading. It was Bobby Kennedy’s address to the Mizrachi Women.

5

The chances are, you never heard of Samuel Silverman and you’re not at all familiar with the Surrogate Court of New York County, aka the court of widows and orphans. Each borough of New York City has two surrogate judges, who appoint lawyers to handle inheritance cases of families who can’t afford their own legal representation.

So that’s a good thing, right? Not always. And certainly not in the surrogate courts of New York and many other cities. Often lawyers, in cahoots with the surrogate judges, charge very high legal fees, depriving the widows and orphans of most or all of their inheritances.

In 1966, Senator Robert Kennedy decided to put a stop to this practice at least in the Manhattan (New York County) Surrogate Court. Looking long and hard, he finally found the right man — Samuel Silverman, a justice of the State Supreme Court.

The patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joseph Kennedy, had amassed a family fortune that would be equivalent to at least ten billion dollars in today’s dollars. His hands were far from clean, but he provided his sons with seemingly unlimited funding to run for high political office.

And so in turn, Bobby Kennedy funded Justice Silverman’s campaign in the 1966 Democratic Primary for a vacant Surrogate seat. Almost no one in the entire borough of Manhattan had ever heard of Silverman, let alone had any idea of whether or not he might be a good Surrogate.

But none of that really mattered. What did matter were Senator Robert Kennedy’s endorsement and Joseph Kennedy’s money. But Bobby certainly put his father’s money where his own mouth was. He campaigned tirelessly for Justice Silverman.

6

One Sunday afternoon in late May, just a few weeks before the Democratic Primary, Bobby Kennedy, accompanied by Justice Silverman, was scheduled to tour the Lower Eastside, making stops in each neighborhood. The tour would culminate in a giant rally in perhaps the busiest intersection of the entire Lower Eastside – the junction where Essex Street and Delancey Street met.

When the caravan arrived in front of our clubhouse, there was Bobby Kennedy sitting in a huge black convertible, and sitting next to him was Justice Silverman. Both of them were smiling and waving to a lively crowd and even reached out to shake a few hands.

The problem was that they were more than an hour behind schedule, and had been long overdue for a rally before what might be the largest crowd in Lower Eastside history. When I approached the lead limo, the driver told me to hop into the front seat.

“We already got lost three or four times. These damn streets don’t have any numbers like they do uptown.”

“Hey, Boston’s even worse,” I replied.

He laughed. “You got a point there.”

“So you want me to be your guide?”

“Absolutely! We got one more stop to make – the Lower Eastside Democratic Association.”

“OK, I said. They’re just down the block, but if you’re really in a hurry, I know what we can do to save some time.”

“You’re the boss!”

We slowed as we approached their clubhouse. They had a small crowd, and when they saw Bobby, they went wild. They were expecting about a five-minute stop so that Kennedy and Silverman could each say a few words and maybe shake a few hands.

But I told the driver to speed up and I’d get him to Essex and Delancey in less than two minutes. When the people in the crowd realized that we weren’t stopping, some of them starting cussing and shaking their fists in the air. I looked back and saw Bobby and Justice Silverman laughing. When he caught my eye, Bobby gave me the thumbs up.

At Essex and Delancey, the police cleared a path for our motorcade, and Bobby and Justice Silverman climbed a ladder on the back of a large flatbed truck. There was an elaborate sound system, and despite all the ambient noise, Bobby could be easily heard even blocks away as he addressed the crowd.

I could not believe how many people were there. Traffic was completely cut off for as far as I could see, and there must have been several hundred thousand people covering every square inch of ground.

I got out of the limo and read the label attached to the ladder. It said, “Property of Joseph Kennedy.”

Meanwhile Bobby was teasing the crowd. Of course, he knew why so many people showed up. There was just one person they wanted to see and hear, and regretfully, that person was not Justice Silverman.

I remember his saying, “I know that all of you have been standing out here in the hot sun waiting to meet Justice Silverman…”

There was a vast roar of laughter. Nobody had ever heard anything that funny. They would probably remember that remark for years. I certainly did.

It didn’t really matter what Bobby said, or what Silverman said that day. Many of those people would vote for Silverman just on Bobby’s say-so. In a few weeks, Silverman would win in in a landslide.

7

Two years later, the Reverend Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy would die from assassins’ bullets.

And now, after so many decades, I still cry whenever I hear Dion’s mournful song, “Abraham, Martin, and John.”

Here are the last four lines:

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby? 
Can you tell me where he’s gone? 
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill 
With Abraham, Martin, and John.

New York City Poems

into it with another sound and

New York City Poems

By Tom Pennacchini

A Bay Wolf in the Apartment of Eagles

Come the dawning 
Regardless of mood 
I like 
To take some moments 
To 
cut 
the 
Rug 
in the morn light of my room

dip 
move 
vibe and shimmy 
I do the spasmodic 
To the 
Radio

Amusing me self 
And digging 
The reflection of my Moves as 
Silhouetted 
in the Van Gogh prints 
On my walls

Oh yeah 
I Got It 
A Rock’n’roll kid 
from 
Get to Gone

It’s my 
Days 
Dawn

and

Regardless of mood 
This is my private morning 
Clarion Call 
and my 
Free Flying 
Fuck It All 
  
Lone Folkie

There is a squat/stout duffer in a windbreaker and a Mets cap on the outskirts of the park  
playing a rickety 5 string and hoot ‘in and holler’ in. 

I have no idea what he is singing.   
There is no discernible melody.   
Every now and then he stops/ freezes/ puts his forefinger in the air  
to take some sort of measure  
before plunging back into his flailing guitar.   
After another stuttering burst he will stop/  
then let loose with an elongated cry to the sky/   
punk operatic/ style 

nobody seems to stop/and listen/he does not have a container for contributions and probably would not get much trade/ 
he is playing/for his own/self/and that is / enough   
It’s/utterly senseless/ wholly out of key.   
Beyond the realm of anything/  
resembling cohesive musicality  
/rambunctiously obtuse 

yet imbued with an innocence that casts proficient excellence into a pallid light.  

His songs/ performance/ like life/ a messy and inconclusive/ thing/

You can have/ your polished practice and Carnegie aspirations/  
and make of that an evening/ with class 
but I like the way this codger lets her rip/   
this ragged chanteur/  
airs it out/ no class/ no talent/ but lotsa / style

Shine on

Shine on oh perishing republic of dreams 
oh community of outcasts 
Art in the essence with no need 
for product or commodity 
Convivial souls rabid rebels minds afire 
Provincetown dunes Christmas Eve 
Greenwich Village the 20’s to the 50’s 
Innocent fervent glass of beer cafeteria a quarter 
Shine on oh perishing republic of dreams!

Winged Ones

Bustling old fella dashing biddly bop by dressed to the nines 
with briefcase stuffed under his arm equipped with fixed maniacal grin jabbering to himself while confirming his expressions 
to an equally jazzed and jaunty westie he calls Ralph trailing exuberantly behind 
lets me know 
that there are actually still some living beings out there 
to learn from

Narcissus Stereo

Whenever I am in a roomful of actors (christ don’t ask) I am buffeted and overwhelmed by waves of nausea 
for some truly baffling reason they identify as artists but never discuss art 
they do however love to dither on politics and dish presidents oh and 
movies natch but Rembrandt or Brueghel nahhhh

They are ostensibly interpreters of script but never discuss literature excepting Shakespeare which they have been dutifully schooled upon 
(what the fuck – – art and …  school?)

shame can be a necessity (we’re people after all)

where’s the sense of it?

Put In Place Out of Place 
  
I have been shut down occasionally vis a vis my mutterances on the street corner and while attempting movement on the frenetic city sidewalks  
I like to do it in order to sort of clear a path and in order  
to facilitate and free up navigation-  
at times I’ll say “I gotta do a little bit a that swivel and swerve” – or as I zig and zag out a maneuver – ” just the slip n slide” whilst moving and weaving thru the throngs 
Other times I’ll emit a bit of a shriek  

Or 

Announce constructive critiques regarding their aptitude for city walking like  
“Another dolt – doing the diagonal “!  – admonishing the herd – “I am begging for mercy “!  “Good heavens – cease and disperse the cluster “! 
Their compass clearly needing alignment (my god do they drive like this?) – 
Must make sure that shit is correct!  I am trying to move freely goddamnit! 
“I gotta circumnavigate stone agony”! …  “Becomes imperative “!! 
Perhaps I’ll be clogged by a stroller 
“Nightmare in perpetuity “! 
A Yammerer on the phone AND a stroller- 
“You know they’re out to torture”!!

Then there are the odd times in which I need to be schooled – 
One time I was loudly griping about a construction obstruction (it is all over and everywhere) and a yob kinda bloke said ” its NY – Stop complaining”…  
I readily complied. 
Another time I was wading through a crowd announcing, “I know my babies ain’t shy” whereof a charming lass turned to me and demurred “How do you know I’m not shy?”  
I fluttered – gurgled some kind of non-sequitur before feathering and loping off. 
Well perhaps I’m not a confrontational sort but there you have it 
just trying…trying to move along.

New York City Poems

Chelsea Hotel #2 

A sparrow perches on the subway platform at 36th Ave. I’m alone and waiting for the W train. I can’t keep track of each fallen sparrow. Leonard Cohen wrote that, not you. Wait, no, it’s, I can’t keep track of each fallen robin. The song is about Janis Joplin. In an interview Cohen said he regretted revealing that Joplin was his muse. Mostly because of the song’s reference to her giving him head on the hotel bed. I think being a dead robin is worse.  

The sparrow darts off into November’s bleak sky. I can’t keep track of each fallen sparrow. I watch its silhouette shrink and I remember the crows that circled Mt. Haystack’s peak when we went in June. I was Joplin and you were Cohen. I teased you by loudly labeling the crows as an omen. You stared in awe at their formation. I was always too expressive, with my feather boa and unruly locks. You were always too silent, consumed by your meditations.  

I don’t know why I envision this. You and I were not notorious lovers. A piss-scented subway platform is not the peak of a mountain. Riding the W train is not being with you. A sparrow is not a robin. Neither of these birds are Janis Joplin.  

Naivety 

“Copyright@1998 by Michael Cunningham. Originally published in DoubleTake Magazine, Fall 1998. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Brandt and Hochman, Literary Agents, Inc.

Three Poems

Two Poems

Red Hair, Blue Jacket

Firstborn of the Dead

Piano Lesson (2019)

Soir Bleu (2019)

Big Band (2019)

Howl (2020)