Here are pages 26-35 (as of now) of Old News.
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cake
why won’t frankie talk to me?
when i say hello i get barely
a nod back. i bet it’s because
when his wife was
preaching jesus to me i laughed
and cracked a joke and she got
pissed: oh, i get it ,she said,
you’ve had enough, huh?
and she went ahead and told
frankie i was a godless asshole
or something. what was that joke
i cracked? i don’t remember
except all i meant was what was
god but doubt in solid form
you pick up a stone and throw it
and that’s the missionary position: pitcher
we wanna pitcher
we wanna get stoned
have the cake eat the cake
be the cake
let cake cake finale of be
but yeah, i’d lend you my car, too
if i had one and you didn’t
christ
Know Your
originally
when i first met frankie he asked where i was from
we stood in the middle of the block, facing my
new rowhome
well we moved from 10th and spruce, i said
they used to call that the tenderloin, he said
i actually grew up in northeast philly, i said
that’s where i’m from originally, way up in bustleton
i remember when that was just woods, he said
i remember when they built that all up
i said yeah, my grandfather built his house up there
still plenty of woods, though, if you think about pennypack park
he said pennypack park, no, i don’t think about pennypack park
i laughed a little, said oh yeah, what do you think about?
he looked at me, unsmiling, then looked at my house
The Evening Bulletin,
SAVES WOMAN FROM SUICIDE
Man Knocks Poison from Her Hand—She Suffers Burns
a suicide attempt of Mrs.
Sadie Mesner, 35, 4520
Tackawanna st., was frustrated
last night
by her father-in-law
he stepped into
the room as she was raising
a bottle of poison
to her lips
with a blow he dashed it
from her hands
the liquid spilled over her
face and chest, severely
burning her
she was taken
to the Frankford
Hospital
death of the author, or, the good book
pick up the paper and read
WHITE HOUSE BACKS
and a car goes by and it doesn’t explode.
could you make out the make of that one?
i could make out the scrape of tailpipe on asphalt.
what it says to all these dead people. to any one
of them. i want from you what you are not. loose
change from your pockets. old pennies, maybe,
wheatbacks i can stretch into souvenirs. remember
the time you were a souvenir? remember the time
i was oprah and you were
visited you? or vice-versa? there was a figure again,
standing against darkened woods, motion grown
through weathered clothes, a real city--large sycamore
guarding the years, a father at last, an angel whoever,
the question again of where are we going. the
recurrence of the question that urges me to question
it. i’m going to a book, to being in the book, to being
the book. i want to be the good book so to be opened
and read and for that to be love, which is impossible.
The Evening Bulletin,
AT SOMERS POINT
Workers Tearing
Stumble Upon Old Tunnel Like
Captain Kidd’s
two centuries ago this spot was by
tradition the rendezvous of smugglers
and freebooters and now accident has
led to the unearthing of a hidden
underground passageway, lined
with bricks brought two centuries ago
from
of pirates’ captures and the ill-gotten
cargoes of the smugglers’ crafts. wild
interest permeates this village as they
await the result of the probers below
ground on the old Jeffe Braddock property.
but needs must be a whiff of the past
before we can delve into this pirate tale.
established records tell how smugglers
haunted this coast and here cached their
gains. here, too, land pirates had their trap
and upon the shores built false beacon fires
which led ships at sea, misled, to seek to
enter the passage between the present Longport
and
on the coast, where the point pirates could
set out upon them in small boats and loot
the cargo. digging of a post hole has un-
covered the passage. strangely enough,
the hole was being dug to take the place
of an old post put in thirty years ago, and
had this first post been a foot to one side,
the tale would have been told a generation
ago. but it was not, and it was only a few
days ago that the post hole digger’s spade,
about five feet down, struck an iron bound
covering of wood. the wood, decayed, fell
apart beneath the workman’s touch. the
passageway bored straight toward the present
house. and for the time, the house holds
the answer to what lies at the end of the
passage. for the residence, built years ago,
has no cellar, and its foundations lay flat
upon the ground. but it will be necessary to
cut away some of this foundation work before
the excavators can go further. so far, they
have thrust an iron bar as far as it will reach
into the unexplored part of the passage. the
bar does not touch the end. the passage from
the square chamber of the house wall is about
nine feet long, and three high, so a man can
crawl in it, but not stand.
Lew Blum Towing
on the side of esposito’s pork & beef
a kid shoots a ball off the wall
practicing his layups
his form
in his oversized red
jersey
there’s no basket
no hoop
only his form
his practice
and the big sign at
which he takes
aim
little charlie brown xmas tree
we dumped how much water into that thing its leaves burned up anyway
and gone by the start of fall: bare, crude fork stuck in the sidewalk like
a spade, still there, stupid. metaphor for my marriage, em’s marriage.
continues digging. did you call the citizens alliance for whatever about
it? did you? no, i was busy, i was busy shaving the morning from my face,
and from the answers, which i know from sleep, that big past on stilts
confusing talk with walk, stubble and dry skin flaking down an old
bathroom sink, army green. army green as that one i brushed my teeth
over as a boy. that’s my grandmother’s house, which she’s lived in for
60 some years. she’s long shed her first language. can’t speak a word
of it. ages ago, she says, that was ages ago, who cares. she cares where
my wife is on christmas eve. she’s out with her friends, i say. then her
face lights up: you know what i remember, she says, tapping my hand:
rumbleseating – oh, that was something. we had so much fun going up
and down broad street, making noise, we’d holler at people on the sidewalk,
it didn’t matter the weather. they started making cars faster and faster
at that time, you know, it was so much fun, and that was the depression,
you know, and before you know it no more rumbleseating.
news in brief
The Evening Bulletin,
Push Hunt For Davidson
Missing Man Suffered Loss of Memory, is Belief
the former postmaster remained a mystery today
mr. davidson left his home several days ago
saying he was going for a walk
he wandered off in the direction of a woodland
and has not been seen since
police and friends continued the search
dragging raccoon lake and a lake
near the creek
friends and relatives scout the theory
that he has ended his life
“he was in good spirits and had nothing
to worry him,” said his nephew
* * *
Sioux Sue for $700,000,000
Ask Damages from
from Custer’s Time
the sioux indian tribe of the dakotas,
seeks to recover damages aggregating
practically three-quarters of a billion dollars
for lands and property taken
by the white man
many years ago
the suit will hark back to the days
of the gold rush
into the black hills
and of custer
* * *
Parrot Laughs at Firemen
Four Fall into Pit While Fighting Blaze;
Chickens Rescued
plunged into a deep pit
the firemen were extricated with difficulty
guffaws at their plight were heard
emanating from a shed
these were from a parrot
the parrot’s rude chatter
was stifled by a douche from the nozzle
of a firehose
if i had a nickel for every time i was a nickel
it feels good to say “president obama”
today,
of sliding a quarter into the parking meter
hearing it land on the others. convinced,
happy, i walk over the news, jingle my
keys, conviction. on
parking meters—i wonder where they put
them all. in the basement of walgreen’s,
i imagine, piled up high. tower records,
it used to be. that corner stands out, remembers
nothing. em, whose first language is spanish,
used to confuse remind with remember.
can you remember me to stop at the bank,
she might say. money’s why we broke up,
more or less. she reminded me of my great
grandmother who loved money and gave
me a two-dollar bill one christmas. save this,
she wrote on the card, so that one day it will
be worth more to you than me. that has two
meanings, one for each dollar, and when i
look at the bill now, at the sad face of thomas
jefferson, who ultimately was not as interested
in the type of currency on which we now see
his face every day, thomas
warned his powerful friends that banking
institutions are more dangerous to our liberties
than standing armies, i remember myself
to owe something to somebody. some somebody
for some somebody. nobodies notwithstanding.
