one thing today

This collage just fell into place. Magic.  we meet at Bryant Park he wears a la coste shirt with a tiny pink pig undeneath an orange umbrella  he needs to shop at Whole Foods he talks to a woman encircled by trays, cases, rows and shelves of cheese do you have wisconson cheddar cheese? excuse me" cheese? cheese. yes. cheese. she goes off in search of  cheese. she comes up empty. maybe she didn't even look for it and did something else.  it was over there in the corner. the other day. when you served me. I don't remember. you did.  a maybe manager man joins the party.  cheese buyer shows the brand he wants on his phone. we don't carry Boarshead.  you do. we don't. do.  he gets on the phone with the person he is shopping for.  I tell him I'll be outside where people are eating sandwiches across the cheese street in the park.  in the park, he asks me what I do.  I say ... pretty much loaf. what is this loaf? loaf...

                                                              el tipico bueno di a aqui  rising and  seeing what kinda day the day will be. Early Gary setting up his two chairs and small wooden table. the birds sing along to Barbers Adagio for Strings.  the old determined woman stomps in the sand take in the shifting beauty. the tall nude balls and chains with their broad shoulders and bad tats and beautiful wind up brood of shorties.  Fab Barbie John  is like a great 60s TV next door window. My new story  My Abuela and the Bully, wine, late day light, grilled dinner, maybe, ice cream, laughter, talk, book, bed.

Donald Dean Kelly died on June 5th. He was my big one. We were twenty six when we met. We walked past each other in the Village late one night and we both turned around. He was wearing a giant parka with a pulled up fur trimmed hood. Gushing beard, big ugly 70s glasses. I only saw the tip of his nose. For me, it was love at first nose. We went to a bar and had beers and I played with the ring pulls on his his pants that zipped down the front. He told me he was a conceptual artist/ live-in babysitter. He once wrote on an egg and mailed it. He slept over and in the morning, I walked him to the subway. He grabbed my arm - "wait a minute." He came out of an antiques store and put a kaleidoscope in my palm. His wordless goodbye. And thus began our many years of promised land and civil war. Most days, he mumbled and stammered but, once in a blue moon, he landed a story or a joke river stone smooth just like Carson. He once found an 8 by 10 foot mirror on the street. We bled when it...

  This is the Carrington House. It's between the Grove and the Pines and is the first home on Fire Isle. 1912.   Truman Capote, wrote Breakfast at Tiffanys  there. I'm gonna go over there today and take a close look while I eat a donut.

 

My nephews lovely girlfriend was first in her class. A bright light. I read them my new short story ... Mi Abuela and the Bully . I decribe the aftermath of a hurricane in my hometown circa '65. The movie marquee reads My Fair Lad. My Fair Lady was the hit big hit that year.  They didn't get the attempt at yuk. Breakfast at Tiffanys?  Nope. Audrey Hepburn? Who she? Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Tina Turner? Same.  I didn't live during the Civil War but I know who Abe is.  OK. Beatles? Yeah, sure.  But come on. Shape up, open your orbs and ears, chillin'.  Do the long past due work of childhoods end. Learn. Explore. Enjoy.  Willie Shakespeare? What's he sing?