Poetry: Selections from 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 RocknRoll 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

kid hope

 

The children are being led like cattle across the grounds.  They have yellow life jackets on and are holding on to rings around a rope.  

They are surrounded by grownups (a funny word).  The children chirrup and look blankly around while being led around. 
I go back to my reverie and when I look back one of them has somehow shed the yellow life jacket.  Another grownup points this out in passing to one 
of the minders (another funny) who scuttles back to get it while clamping on to one of the little ones.  Elsewhere on the grounds are 
a number of people taking pictures of themselves (not funny).  The one who broke out of the uniform looks blithely on.  I stir slightly with a glimmer for this ones prospects.  

Little ones it is a good life innit bouncing between a nap and a frolic to a meal and back.  
But before you know it they get ya roped and tethered.  You have provided Inspiration just now.  Luck and Hold.  Don't let the multiple kisses of institutional mort consume you - 
family-school-career-obligations-upkeep more-repeat...  Throw that yoke off!... you are gifted golden just now child ... just now  

Ahhh if only it can remain eternally unvarnished...
if only...
Ah hang in there--

Thanks for the lift kid

 

An Elliptical Labyrinth (Ob La Di)

 

The morning light has broken
Upon the wall
outside
I watch it sharpen
While sipping coffee
It broadens
over
The walls entirety
Into a full gleaming twinkle
I sip
Feeling the vibration

here

in the concrete hades

Such loveliness

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

let's 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-sequiter before feathering and loping off.

Well perhaps I'm not a confrontational sort but there you have it

just trying...trying to move along.

Saturday's Child

Given the modern malaise’s dictum that to exist is to be stuffed stuff it is reasonable to desire retreats’ entreaties

Aside  from the more obvious artificial means there can be perhaps a more elevated or at least organic avenue to meander down .  I’m hungry.

Thus I crack open some pages..

oh hell.  It’s been said  that he wasn't steeped in culture and yet his stuff is upper case all the way, encoded in delicate mists of shroud. 

This technical mumbo minutiae numbo stagnates - give me the meat that fills. 

I gasp along hoping against hope for a gut issuance.  Oh my babies cmon, crap the pome that needs the exorcise and that

resonates the empty room... Forget it.   Ah well, ‘The Joker’ comes on the airwaves and sometimes classic rock steps up.  Cat splayed royally recumbent in the corner always giving out

sound concision melodiously relates that effort is a drain/drag but shoot some  days I’m a gamer so I per sue:

Fuck it fuck life fuck death fuck school fuck parents fuck families fuck friends and enemies fuck jobs (god knows) and fuck god (the people’s not the mystery - Ahh the catholic ingrained  -  I hope god’s gotta sense of humor) but Hey!  Fuck hope!

Fuck art fuck professional expertise (self-evident in this presentation) fuck fuck but not nature and not animals hey ya gotta have sentiment no? Fuck expectations fuck demands fuck pressures life goes on death goes on longer

Right fucker?

Fuck

Stuffs got us by the stuff and all this speed has left life in the lurch taking it (any of it) serious is seriously discouraged

Pardon my distraction

My immersion in desolation

Tit-fer-Tat - happiness for holiness

At the current there is not much else known

Diligence comes due

The strive to surrender

A Good Clean Break

realities routine's are a stone crusher

all of it

the jobs

the relationships

the striving

the failing

the achievements (I'm guessing)

and more begets more

all the do's of you hafeta do

you can get tired beyond exhaustion

tired of your self

your thoughts (if you are inclined to that sort of thing)

and relief is much needed

some quiet 

a long walk 

to 

the middle of

nowhere

some surcease

the compassion of a dog's eyes

sense of reprieve

yes madness no

i cannot -

hear

for all the talk talk ...

see 

for the smile displays a horror

the 

odoriferous stench 

of the inevitable inimical political scientifical 

is a rough toughie 

I refuse the obligation when the 

taste 

rankles to a treacle so 

keep talking -

while I  

touch 

a leaf 

to  feel my life

Tom Pennacchini is a flaneur living in NYC. Has had stuff published at The Free Poet, Mojave Heart Review, Jalmurra, The Scarlet Leaf, Poems for All,  Free Lit Magazine, Backchannels, Loud Coffee Press, Mason Street Journal,  Portsmouth Poetry, the Fictional Cafe KGB Lit Journal, Synchronized Chaos, Spillwords, Oddball Magazine , Ink Pantry Magazine and Literary Revelations Press.