Falling

Some Days

John Martone

Tufo
2020
 Falling (Some Days)
Copyright © 2020 John Martone
Tufo
jpmx@protonmail.com
 Falling
(Some Days)
E io lavoravo con le mie mani e voglio lavorare.
—Francesco (dal Testamento)

Don Roberto Malgesine, in memoriam.

I answer that bird’s reproach with a handful of seed.

~5~
The city’s heart dawns in my ribcage.

Maria scioglie le nodi, and I’m no longer tongue-tied.

Rione Sanità
Dwellings attached
one to another.
Cholera bones.

~6~
Blue shutters. Pots on a sill.

~7~
The victim pushes
puzzle shapes
into a sentence.

The homeless
curl in blankets

outside halls
of marble copies.

~8~
I vanish in broken acanthus.

~9~
 Stop for a smoke at the river god’s fountain.

Don’t call him a tourist while he’s bleeding on the pavement.

Santi napoletani
Not looking up words
I read their Lives.
Somebody's late.

~10~
 Gold silver bronze clay,
I wash my feet before bed.

It’s those chestnuts ready to fall and falling. I lose track

of the days.

Nunzio’s in a glass coffin.

I catch my breath.

~11~
Silence
my city’s great secret.

~12~
A seraphim
The six walls of my room fly away.

Revelation
We’re eating cornetti at a round breakfast table.

I button my sweater the feast of his stigmata.

Cypresses, fence-posts ...

An old man walks down the road.
Everything’s vertical.

 
~13~
Charged with making
the smallest thing
he carves away.

An hour’s walk before sleep.

That small blue star
my needle’s eye.

They find phosphine on Venus.

I shrink to nothing.

~14~
Mansion
This broken bread
holds many rooms.

~15~
Blinding sun this morning.
I’ve emptied my cup.

~16~
Aphids on the windowscreen.
Everything is see-through.

~17~
The new transistor
in its leather case.
The sofa's plastic slip covers.

Every lane to myself, I circle the high school track at

night. I can’t name those planets.

~18~
 Who was that,
wrapped in a scarf like a homeland,
interred.

Saracen music. A dove on the poor man’s shoulder.

My throat’s a stained-glass window.

Tidy brick houses on Walnut St.

An apple tree’s branch
beyond reach.

~19~
Far from home.
in a bar at noon

facing the street,

look at yourself.

I suck salt from my fingers. The sky is cloudless.

~20~
Whatever I was I knotted a scarf to medieval music.

How long it took, brother tortoise, to cross the bright

field with neck stretched out and small eyes.

A shadow, and I’m a pine tree.

~21~
My music a shambles.
This morning
they come for the trash.

Her oval protrait.

The cameo carver
completes my sentence.

He’s smoking, too,

outside before Mass.

Then I learn
he’s a saint.

~22~
 Baggy suit
looks up at Minerva
necklaced with snakes.

~23~
Tomatoes are berries.
Figs are false fruits.
I’m going to die.

~24~
I close my eyes. Via Toledo runs right between them.

~25~
I walk the city all day and call it my (nobody’s) business.

Trees grow from windows under this bridge.

Posilippo
A marble foot in the ruins.
Gennaro beheaded.

~26~
Pickaxe and shovel left out in the dew, where does he sleep?

Bending low, laying cobblestones in arcs.

A thousand glass balls in this ornament shop,

and I ask directions.

~27~
Parthenope
I’d fall asleep resting on mother and will.

I move a wire and hear Italian on twenty meters.

ago e filo
A needle and thread to mend my sweater.
I use the right words.

~28~
 La Verna, Sept. 23 (san Pio)
It's all the same to me if he drove the nails and bent
those points himself.

September figlet there’s no time.

The dogwood’s a single deep red today. I’m ready.

Took an axe to the roots and planted an antenna.

~29~
Resisting an urge to lie down I move the potted plants.

~30~
September 25
The guest room turns arboretum.

~31~
I bring olive and fig trees inside.
They drop leaves all over.
I can’t keep up.

~32~
They mock you for good reason.

~33~
Your brain’s already wabi-sabi, don’t worry.

~34~
Sweater weather sparrows.

My best
birdseed
waiting.

Ippekiro—
His pages turn yellow.
As for me, it’s my liver.

~35~
How much is there,
how much there is.
A china cup in elderly hands.

~36~
I rise from bed with all these bones at once.

~37~
—It was.
I took the wind in those leaves for a living thing.

Sassafras leaves—
We’re all
all thumbs.

Path narrows
to stem,
opens
onto lake.

~38~
There’s the path
you walk with
your children

and there’s the path

you take alone.

~39~
I enter a butterfly garden.
Strangers.

I wear through shoes far from Naples.

~40~
A immigrant fingers tree rings back to his birth year.

~41~
 Climbing old stairs
to bed I'm ready
for life in that city.

He sells me anice and grappa.

I don’t know I’m dreaming.

Sun on the wall after that dream cathedral.

~42~
I’m working a puzzle
in the middle
of a forest.

~43~
Fig tree placed
at foot of bed.

The room growing close.

Its shared light plenty.

~44~
 I hear you sigh through paper birches.

I sense you near me till I stop walking.

Pinhole
in the wasp gall.
Such a big planet.

~45~
Dogwoods full of doves this morning, those berries.

~46~
 The doorbell’s loud for a 2-room place.

You sweep the kitchen back where you came from.

Tomatoes on the sill—there must be a story.

~47~
A year since I’ve seen that fox this fall field’s color.

My eraser’s in a jar that held saffron.

It’s time to draw. I slice a pear.

~48~
They feed on dogwood berries.
They nest in the arbor vitae’s depths.

My empty ink bottle

blazes in sun.
I'm in that country.

~49~
Dutch painting
Layer on layer I varnish a writing surface.

~50~
As I drive to my drawing class a steeple appears in the
distance.

Natural History Illustration

I draw a snail shell from Naples
at my table
in the prairie.

I’ve closed the circle—it’s an operculum.

My little finger fits the operculum.

~51~
That dogwood’s angular shape suggests his face.

~52~
With stained hands now I go out to meet others.

I stand disgraced in a wind full of leaves.

~53~
Heart-rate
Blinking and breathing, a sentence or two an hour.

I remember the mausoleum.

I don’t remember his name.

Bare feet or
wooden shoes.
Stone floor.

~54~
 The unpaved road
passes a hog farm.
He has cancer and a TV.

~55~
 No meat, no alcohol, no cigarettes, those shadows.

I cry a flatworm's cries.

My eye spots
receive

the fall trees’

colors.

~56~
Bicycles, clothes, and movies — my surname.

~57~


Penance
I work in an orchard I’ve never seen.

I’m that one—

I looked at him.
I raised the hammer again.

Making them proud of me I stay out of prison.

~58~
The prodigal son asks for his mother. Too late.

~59~
I stand at the sink, washing dishes.
I should have done better.

I try a fedora. My ancestor scolds me.

~60~
 I used to wash my hands
fifty times a day.
Now the whole world's drenched.

Crows in place of fruit, autumn tree.

I write songs without music in her dimestore tablet.

~61~
 I see-saw with a child. Let other people laugh.

He’d slip off as they slept to pray in those woods.

Not one of these birds is crippled.

~62~
 I miss the harbor.
I even miss

the chain-link fence

between me and the harbor.

Shorter days
the end of October.
I’m waiting for them to say, No.

Ten thousand things, and I lose every one.

~63~
Fragile glass globes
with scenes inside
in Naples.

~64~
I only want
a windowbox
to be in Naples.

~65~
It’s shabby living,
my hometown motel room.
I’m dreaming.

~66~
Hating the sound of myself I leave a full stop.

Goldfinch, it’s time for winter plumage.

~67~
It’s late.
I look for work
in an orchard or vineyard.

Yes, I can carry sacks of soil.

Yes, I can shovel and prune.

I’m a terrified worm in windfall apples.

~68~
I’m old
I know

how to
say, Sir.

Sir, I’d be
grateful

for a few
hours’ work.

Look him
in the eye;

let him
see your face.

~69~
Crumpling
cellophane,
I sit in the car.

~70~
There's a tree house
in our trailer park

by the graveyard,
don’t despair.

~71~
 Milk and cigarettes.
The beat-up cars
and the beat-up cars.

I carry a gallon of vinegar home.

That weeping cherry has one leaf left, and I resist.

40 mg Paxil.
Einaudi on the radio.
A modest window’s daylight.

~72~
Just where you’d expect
an archaic marble
I’ve put a jade plant.

Amid all these versions

of Mont Sainte-Victoire
another jade plant.

How many cuttings

how many gifts and scars—
the jade plant grows thicker.

~73~
Regrowing from any part the jade plant lives for one thing.

Having heard Bach’s

one thing turned every-which-way,
my jade plant’s silent.

Jade plant
you’re my

time-lapse
angel.

~74~
 I lean back for eyedrops then draw a cocoon.

I pick up a pinecone, am suddenly tree.

An eraser refines the pine cone's shadows.

Is it me
or the chemicals,
sunlit quartz?

~75~
Acorns under shagbark.
Black walnuts
under oaks.

Sinking through leaf-fall

into bog,
my boots have steel toes.

~76~
Catching my breath,
I stand above the lake.
My fountain pen has gills.

~77~
 Centuries-old,
pitted stone wall—
He pulls me to himself.

80 years old,
knocking olives from a branch.
Che sia così.

The spirit in that room.

This room.

~78~
 I turn pages, hoping for pictures.

I'm not my pictures of Ungaretti.

The sentences stop.

That's my
heartbeat.

~79~
A sack of groceries
the shape of a person.

My living room’s another white painting.

An hour's work
shavings from block plane or draw knife.

Plenty
to sweep.

~80~
I get lost in the woods. Then I get lost in a drawing.

~81~
Sibylline
leaves tracked in from the yard.

~82~
Went to bed thinking
it had all been for nothing.
Woke up happy.

~83~
The way back
rainwater pooled on leaf fall.

It could have been the seminary.

It could have been Pilgrim State Hospital.

I’m still in that car.

Rain
on
all
saints.

~84~
I pass three and four nests
on my way to your place
and no one’s home.

I find another
one of your beads
whenever I sweep.

~85~
Remember them fondly
one by one.
Scrub the floor.

You’ve taken your puzzle apart

and put those thousand pieces away,
box high on its shelf.

~86~
How much joy her forehead brought.

Pears. Her cheap blue shift.

Rocking. But that low table’s corner.

Surviving
a syndrome.

~87~
She’s in that shell. The present won’t help.

~88~
I went to my father’s village.
I was
there.

~89~
Packing his things when a heron flies off.

This stage of life.

The woods’ edge.
An eidetic image of deer.

Holding on.
Huntington.

~90~
That book
and falling
downstairs.

Cooking
oil.
Bandages.

~91~
Planting berries
from that dogwood

so we don’t
die alone.

Revelation

Comes down from the sky

just like Alzheimer’s,
that city.

~92~
All those years now surprised to find I’m a junkie.

DH
Had all that work
done on his teeth
only to die.

~93~
Having waited too long
the prodigal son
finds an apartment.

~94~
Her days.
The Digest's
back numbers.

Folding,
unfolding

the extra
blanket.

~95~
Setting sail
on the great sea of Being.
A table by the window.

~96~
 Shawl

Italian woman
sits just-so
on sofa.

Box of
bandaids

back of
mirror.

I’m going to spend the rest of my life.

~97~
When it was three inches tall.
I thought the seedling had died,

and now it has grown

over my head.

~98~
Days before winter a trilling of spring.

One window waves to another.

Anchovies.
Stirred into
spaghetti.

~99~
 Songlets

Just me
and my
twelve-step ...

That’s amore
out of nowhere.

~100~
That glass-brick
window

and my white
toothbrush

I try not to spill

the coffee
again.

So much sun
I’m inside
out.

~101~
Flowerpots stacked
upside down
in shed shadows.

Holding the nest in both hands

I repeat an Italian word
till it’s imprinted.

~102~
Daylong wind.
Dogwood stripped
down to rags.

~103~
Scarred for life
on a tin of green beans.
Supper.

November 1

Their camera's empty

bakelite
box.

Box of photos
spilled on bed.
Drowning then.

~104~
4x6
color

living
room.

1947
Before I was born is
like it was
yesterday.

~105~
What
am I

for
getting.

All Souls
rent paid
day late.

Picture

Bulkhead
cellar
doors.

~106~
Where’d that
world go
inside you.

A book
full

of pine
cones.

~107~
I sit on a tire.
Trees are red and gold
and bare.

Too late to help, I sleep on the floor.

~108~
His shame

I was supposed

to have been—

there.

~109~
Fish last night.

Bread in that cave.

The one thing

isn’t
a thing.

~110~
Here’s the broken one again.

~111~
Because.

I looked

away.

Stained glass.
That’s right,
Father.

~112~
Pilot light all alone.

To think I've lived so long

and never seen
an offset pipe-wrench.

~113~
There’s a window in this fuse from the blue house.

Red shutoff
crosswise.

Blue compound
brushed on threads
all around.

~114~
Time to get out my sad light.

Landscape
writing

all over
the page.

~115~
Water bottle's
bamboo roots.
(Kitchen sill.)

Having lived on an island

I re-read Revelations.

~116~
Beat-up car.
The shame I've brought
to the family name.

~117~
People flicker.

~118~
I got lost,
but now I'll wait
on those deer.

~119~
Ruby's feeding
a goat from that bottle
before I was born.

I look at that shawl

across the room
and see her.

Birdwatcher.
See if pawnshop’s got
binoculars.

~120~
Dormer window.
Do you see daddy?

I get lost
in a marble chip.

Then truck dumps

yards of them.

~121~
Raking out
marble chips
hear nothing else.

~122~
Workboots bigger than his feet.

Steps back—
hat pushed back,

but no
cigarette.

I'm using his tools,

but it's a poor re-enactment.

~123~
The brush piled high
the wine at an angle
in its basket.

When you’re done

they’ll drive by

and find it
"outdated."

~124~
Maple gold as a gingko.

Hang on
by

a red
thread.

Falling
daily

it’s that
season.

~125~
The boy in this campground's staying for winter.

The fall lake a mirror.

Go right to the edge.
Keep walking.

Grown child beside you

on lake dock
Buzzards overhead.

~126~
Apparitions

Every soul left

in this fall campground
is the Lord.

~127~
Supper.
I keep pushing
the wrong buttons.

Way out here

what happens when
pen’s out of ink.

~128~
for James Boulger

With his cancer

and his throat

lozenges still
looked out for me.

~129~
A cup of coffee’s bitterness under the crucifix.

I place a salt block shy of the property line.

Deer emerge from that color woods.

~130~
I saw the fox once
and next day
dead on our road.

~131~
(Silence today.)

~132~
Rain on lake.
Walk all the way around.

That’s a thistle.

Worst of sinners
20 yards from
blue heron.

Milkweed.
Namely
monarch.

~133~
 I chance on a lone gravestone.

Broken plastic chair he fished from.

Stob was another heron.

They moved the gazebo.

~134~
Bartholomew.
I’ll carry my jacket the rest of the way.

I dig in my pocket for a handkerchief.

Those coins.

~135~
Hours outside.

Eating fruit.

~136~
 You know who

They're so
modest

you can't
see them.

Won’t be a soul
to visit their graves
with rocks and stones and trees.

There’s a fig tree

in the empty sunroom,
like we never were.

~137~
Suddenly the empty space becomes her arms around me.

There's that taste of the plastic crib rail.

~138~
Matt

Found him
at the bottom
of that mountain,

chapter 5
in his pocket,

smiling.

~139~
Moment.
That
perfume.

Old pond

In this skin
I’m a frog
after all.

Muscle memory

Write down
the words you
look up.

~140~
The sky nothinged me.

~141~
Even as a child
he walked
in his sleep.

Have to
live with

never
got caught.

~142~
Happens
quick—like

falling
from tree.

All those times

nearly
drowned.

Finally—
like a fish
out of bed.

~143~
Reeds.
Then I cross a land bridge.
Fossil reeds.

Fox tails wanting water color.

Voice carries
over lake
stillness.

Exile
An inland eagle my Montauk.

~144~
The experience.
Living
elsewhere.

All those aisles

but drugstore won't
take me on.

~145~
Washlines and
garages
possible.

Oakwood Road.
No, I’m thinking of
Woodbury Road.

Jericho Turnpike
Potato fields.
Could write a book.

~146~
Enter
the stage of life

you won’t be around

to remember.

She used
the past

tense.

Siren
Close your eyes
and you’re home.

~147~
This is a glass jar.
Beauty will save us.

~148~
 I had given up driving.
Then that afternoon
I was driving.

Folded
father’s
sweater.

What’s happened to my pronouns?

~149~
More limestone than marble
the mind dissolves in water.

~150~
The horizon
through the trees,
more trees.

The dogwood he planted

grew into a place.

Each room with its tree.

This winter the house has
a mind of its own.

~151~
Dogwoods
under

pines in
that dream.

~152~
My small bowl’s plenty.

~153~
I address my book to a dream.

~154~
I meet up
with a stranger

on my Sunday
passeggiata.

Autumn, 2020

~155~
~156~