Profile of an Assassination
The loser thumbs comics—disgruntled, cranky—
Creeps up the Schoolbook Depository
Stairwell, cracks and throats an ice-cold black Coke,
Slides the sleek rifle from its brown-tint sheathe
Of paper bag, then peeps out a sixth-floor ledge,
To frame the blond head of the bland, grinning
President; i.e., to burn a black hole in History—
Or help anonymous others to red-ink the obit,
Those sly Wall Street Nazis playing their “patsy.”
*
Lookit! Her roses blush to ogle her Beauty.
The crowd preens, pressing their faces against
Lenses, to try to frame this National
Enquirer belle-to-the-White-House-born,
Borne so dreamily off by the cradling limousine.
Their faces press—like leaves—against the glare,
Unshuttered, buttered by the fluttering light—
The ritzy, glitzy sun—even though autumn
Is sickening the leaf-depleted, wind-stricken trees.
Dick Nixon is wandering along a side-street here—
As unremarked as a suave pickpocket:
After all, he lost, he lost, he lost: Double-crossed!
His lynchee-like face is pinched, grimacing, at recall
Of the choice, Chicago, mobster shenanigans
That let sleight-of-hand Jack hijack the White House,
That let them palm a Victory and pass it off
To a brother Catholic, “all in the Mafia.”
But no sourpuss can outdo a glamour puss!
(Yep, Tricky Dick!
No sourpuss can outdo a glamour puss!)
But Jackie outdoes—is foxier than—
Pat Nixon under the high-noon, lemony sun.
The First Lady lights a cigarette later; inhales
Chocolate combined with insecticide:
That’s the deluxe mix, plus chalk dust,
For anyone wanting to ignite 60s tobacco….
*
The “firecracker” or “backfire” ricochets
And expands outward as the motorcade
Turns its back on one asinine assassin.
The black limo is a bright artifact of Class
Struggle as it purrs infinitesimally
Slowly into the plotted sights of the jobless
Divorcé-to-be, whose rifle must bark
Blank Surprise and Crisis—and Criticism
For the white-fanged imperialist, so chic
And jaunty, untouchable in the car.
The in-yo-face killing dares to seize History,
To gut the Golden Boy of his brain blood
Via the inquisitive, expletive fury of
Gun-shots, so that the Commander-In-Chief
Slumps his bloody noggin on the Chanel-pink lap
Of his wife, surrendering to sun-lit
Inertia. Now an instant hearse, the limo speeds
The felled statesman to defective scalpels,
While Abe Zapruder shoots his ruthless perspective.
Personal Passage
On 17 February, 1993,
I jetted from Boston, home of John Kennedy,
To New Orleans where Lee Oswald loved,
Then to Dallas, where both met and died—
As if the Titanic “meeting its Waterloo.”
April 16, 1977 (Viewed from April 16, 2024)
Snow flummoxed that azura-negra night—
darkly ultramarine as the Black Sea—
but wasn’t really flogging—
just petting us—
where our asses plunked on a blanket on chilly sand—
our kissing suddenly safe—
because we were among other lovers,
the tit-for-tat, squealing “molesters,”
all also teens,
but only I brought the tutti-frutti Manischewitz—
plum-purple, super-sweet, cheapo vino,
while she brought the cooked, blackened lasagna
in Tupperware plastic—
plus plastic forks….
Everyone applauded our still-early, Spring picnic—
a ballyhooed fiesta—
spread out upon Black Rock Beach
among the gutting hoots and catcalls
of whistling bozos—
the hangdog envious—
the downcast-and-depressing nerds,
those somnambulating virgins….
My threads were denim—
as were hers,
but her oversized green sweater
played bewitching wool stitches over her breasts,
and the stars were no better than knickknacks
in compare—
once the snow ceased strafing our faces.
Who would snitch on our kisses?
The grumbling riffraff about
had to battle cold and fatigue,
but we slurped the belly-warming, deep purple wine,
and could thus ignore blissfully
any clattering car engines in the beach-side parking lot,
or the egregious chattering
of the jealous and barking lot.
Each kiss? A theft of maple syrup!
I budged my thigh next to hers,
nudged her to recline,
and she never begrudged gravity its due.
Still, we were fully winter-clothed statues,
if aching with Desire,
while the tide scattered splashes,
or dashed upon and battered rocks,
while our blue-jeaned bottoms
warmed the estival bed that is sand.
But I now was oblivious
to star-encrusted night
and the adorable crinkles of black water—
that violent theatre of white froth surfing
atop black,
with neither predominant for long.
Mortal Generosity there was in her kisses
while the tide crashed near our feet—
so diamantine decorous as was the sky—
but my blood, rampant in my loins,
was sorrowful to be contained
by my inconceivable Purity—
the foolish Splendour
or metamorphosised Ardour—
as I bade her welcome precious, happy guitars—
Springsteen crooning “New York City Serenade”
or one of the Beatles fine-tuning “And I Love Her”….
We lolled upon sand and gritty pebbles,
scraps of Music emerging urgent from the tape deck,
and I was all rigid Intensity,
and she was Sister Golden-Haired Clarity—
silvery-white, mercurial Virginity—
and the night was star-struck Liminality….
What else to do but deliver
the trophy of Reverence,
though I was cobra-erect,
i.e., poised like an arrow
to notch the target!
Instead, we hugged—
that nebulous Coitus—
and slugged back the wine—
and I felt I was sailing upon ignited flames—
just as embers do;
despite the extraordinary dampness of her lips,
and the formidable texture of her sweater-swaddled breasts.
Lookit! Chastity is a provincial Virtue,
but Charity is a democratic one,
and I was as rancorous as the Atlantic—
cantankerous as a volcano—
its outburst uncontainable;
and I’d rather perish beneath hooves—
or like a Bolshevik-overturned cathedral—
than not have her,
engrave her,
under the moon’s nocturnal zone,
for what is desired is valuable,
but what is dismissed hath none.
Amid the black harbour’s ivory foam—
exuberant as volcanoes aflame—
I had to ground myself
within a grotto of paroxysms—
to be as uncompromising as birth or death,
and fandango tango upon
eminently tantalizing Femininity—
under infuriatingly coruscating, celestial orbs—
the Champagne-buffed, black-caviar beach—
and thunder Love—
against Serenity—
unto May’s lush fireworks of blossoms….
May 19, 1979
Never was I a well-featured Adonis,
but just a scant-identified, if maladjusted bard,
as I set forth that Mayteenth
of simmer and shimmying heat—
of shimmering and swimming light—
to go boldly into that threshold,
so wild-rose bowered and sunflower heightened—
a garden jurisdiction—
where she could behold me
veritably transfigured—
all purely non-fiction, a chevalier—no longer shy or Doubt-beleaguered—
but a swashbuckling, cavalier guy,
a strong poet buckling only to Love.
Her wood-smoke aroma interrupted the rose garden
abruptly. No joke! Quick, I entered into a coma
summoned by the quintessence of almond
and chocolate: Her own saturating scent. Please pardon
my unexpected Romanticism as I describe
the hoard of gauze she was—
accorded such flouncing light
intricate and delicate and prescribed
solely to that tribe of women
up past the sawmill and the waterfall
high on the hills above Weymouth,
where the Sissiboo River shivers south;
and where I stood before her, my words floundering,
my sense and tenses all no good,
her very eyes sundering
my heart, as I sought to tell her
of my wildcat, bobcat, tomcat Love,
but my artful tongue kept getting caught—
hellishly—
as she sighed her ominous Caution,
knowing too, too well,
how Passion
is synonymous with Crucifixion.
