Listening to Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”

In my brother’s apartment

there is a poster of Louis Armstrong

holding his trumpet and laughing

sitting on the palatial steps of a hotel

he wasn’t allowed to enter.

My brother has finished lugging rocks for the day

and sits with his eyes closed, carried away.

And yes, it’s about time

for him to have some fanfare

for getting up at dawn’s first grayness

for sitting on someone else’s steps, laughing

not halfway, but wide open

with all his beautiful teeth.

Published in Bowdoin Magazine Spring 2014

Thank You

Thank you

Laurie,

for bringing over chicken soup

and lifesavers

when I was sick, washed out,

alone in my single apartment.

The sound of you

clanking my pans, the squreak of

a can opener

listening to my tinny radio

on a sunny day in May

fixing me a treat in the kitchen--

does something to me. 

outside              somebody's thumping

reminds me of a boy,

12 years old, playing basketball,

the backboard

an abandoned road sign

it's my brother,

wearing a blue Tshirt

never a white one-we had no white sheets

white towels--even our dust bunnies were red.

from my bedroom at home I could

shut my eyes

and hear flies buzzing on the screen

someone downstairs talking to the cat

the hardback books settling

into the bookcases,

someone else

to call the electric company

when the power went out

someone else

to light the woodstove

cold mornings,

someone else to sit beside me

when I was sick, and tell stories.

Thank you Laurie, for clanking pans

for reminding me of the house

I lived in once, the one where everything

had a sound,

everything

had a color.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To answer this age old question we must

understand the nature of chickens.

There has been entirely too much focus

on the road aspect

and not enough

on the soul

of the one crossing it.

Knowing chickens as I do—

their pecking, their endless interest

in bugs, worms and corn cobs

It would not be work ethic

that caused the chicken to cross that road

there are no chicken palaces

or works of art or chicken inventions

nor loyalty, certainly—

they will fly off at the first chance

nor brains—

flying off, they will end up right

in the fox’s mouth

but they do have curiosity and

an interest in bugs, tender new shoots

and warm patches of sun.

They will lie on the other side

of the road all day,

utterly content.

We should be so lucky.

Reading at the Forsyth Chapel May 2013

Here is a link to my reading at the Forsyth Chapel in the Forest Hills Cemetary. The clip is called "Sam Cornish and friends" (Boston Poet Laureate) and was filmed by Boston Neighborhood Network. What a beautiful place to read.

I am at approximately minute 9, 23 and 30.

https://www.bnntv.org/tune-in/shows/around-town-may-8-2013

Ancient History Lesson

Ancient History Lesson

First, there were floods

Lots of them, and they always wrecked the crops.

Everyone starved.

Then there was irrigation. And fighting

over water. And battles.

Everyone was slain.

Later, there was religion. Thousands of gods,

then one god (whose?) then more battles. Everyone

was converted or slain.

After long periods of nothing happening—

(except the usual—marriage, children, death from disease,

parties and music, drawing and inspiration, the rustle of wheat)

suddenly war would break out.

This goes on for 5,000 years.

Everyone hated the others for no reason

or every reason we know: the crops, the rights,

the look on his face, don’t look at my daughter that way.

And what will we be remembered for?

Airplanes and electricity? Voting?

Or more battles where everyone was slain. Followed by

long periods where nothing much happened.

First published in Sonora Review

The Heart

The heart                                                                                           

On August 19, 1996 I realize

the idea that love

is physically located in the heart,

that pumping thing

inside your chest,

is not as arbitrary as I thought,

a convenient symbol for valentines and poems,

that it could not be placed somewhere else--

the left ear or right foot for example,

or the hands--though they might come in second,

their need to touch coming from a place

we do not control.

I had seen you again, a few weeks before my thirtieth birthday

and again dragged myself over the same ground:

Could it work? And again the conclusion, probably not,

over and over, like the woman

who sits outside the Boston Public Library

and runs her fingers along the hem

of her skirt, all day long

each nubble, each tear.

People pass by and look away

believing what she seeks

is not there.

I know where it is.

At the BU track I run six laps.

A boy starts to cry as I start out

in a language I don't know

or none at all

a wail that comes from his chest and

does not end.

A mile and a half later he still cries out steadily

not giving up.

The wail gets inside me

but I do not stop.

I am here to say you are wrong--

with your stethoscopes, your psychologists.

It is my heart alone that pumps the blood,

pushes me forward

around and around this red, dusty circle.

Boston City Hall Prose and Poetry contest winner 2013