Joe Dolce: Four Poems

Lemonscent

 

The lane neglected in leaf and wrapper

non-descript off the main

save fruit-laden branches peering

over grey board

the old tree stopped me dead

I detoured in pulling the nearest down

snapping the stem others were higher than reach

while looking for something to lift me

I recalled civil law on harvesting fruit

overhanging public lanes: property of owner

still sour sunfaces and green-yellow leers

can’t be resisted sliding a wheelie bin balancing shakily

one hand on fence one arm stretching

into thorny light I barely tickled the bottom

rind of a fat one

as the back gate swung open

a lemon-haired woman invited me in

to pick all I wanted

I wouldn’t want you to get scratches

helping fill my coat pockets

I like sharing

we touched hands briefly

thanks and goodbye

I left her pleasant lane

returning to a duller street

saturated with scent

of good tidings and lemon.

Joe Dolce

 

Lorca Said I Can Conceive

Lorca said I can conceive

of no poetry other than the lyric

the rhythm the rhyme the weave

of song so why then do we fear it

jump-rope tunes lullabyes

refrains of childhood games

the fee fo the fum and fi

a sing-a-long with Dick and Jane

Spot and Cousin George

Doctor Seuss Mother Goose

the Three Bears steaming porridge

Bullwinkle the Moose

cartoons nonsense doggerel

have informed who we are

bless Ogden Nash and Lewis Carroll

When You Wish Upon a Star

Picasso said it took him five

years to paint like Raphael

but a whole life he had to strive

to tell the stories a child can tell

so sing up the country lullaby

and remember ourselves to sleep

forget about Almighty Why:

in the simple lay the deep.

Joe Dolce

The Poetess

 

The door wet-toweled

from inside to prevent leakage

required a workman’s shoulder

despite a key fighting off

carbon monoxide gag

windows quickly prised open

discovering the kneeling body in repose

the poet’s head thrust far

into the old Rangemaster oven

no explanatory note

where are the two children …

 

through the imagined breathing window

geese fly in reverse

night gives way to sunset

and hands counter-clock

in the temporal shift of what if …

 

the poetess is arrested pusher-walking

two infants blocks away

a confessional diary held tightly

reveals his abuse her plan—

unfaithful husband invited to tea to talk

drugged drink better him than her she thought

 

the poetess in our alternate

judged guilty of murder

a life sentence continues writing

incarcerated recognition

in certain circles is declared a new Genet

 

the dead husband’s pregnant mistress bears

an illegitimate daughter remarrying

an understanding man quietly in Israel

the child grows up beautiful and good

 

the son of the poetess at fifteen begins prison visits

assuming the role of mother’s protector

a passion for wildlife encouraged by her love

leads to his own mystical nature poetry

marriage to an Australian photographer

retreat to the Hawkesbury River

bequeathing the poetess three grandchildren

 

the daughter of the poetess eighteen

adamantly refusing to have anything to do with the mother

dutifully champions her late father’s unrealized work

 

the poetess over time attracts international recognition

first in the US later the UK

public support and petition force her

early release after only fifteen served

cult movement supporters of murdered husband

outraged at leniency stage protests at literary festivals

 

the poetess at forty-six relocates back to US

retaining close acquaintance with newly minted

British Laureate Larkin who attributes her inspiration

to overcoming the writer’s block originally preventing

his acceptance of the Award

 

the poetess sustains two further long term affairs

one with a woman she never remarries

releasing her final volume

The Funeral Postcards

in the year of her passing at eighty-five the poems—

absolute and honest contrition

for the murder of her husband—

astound the literary world

winning the Pulitzer Prize

after death the unburnt diary seized

at the time of arrest is canonized

beside the confessional notebooks

of Countess Tolstoy and Cosima Wagner

 

the longtime estranged daughter of the poetess

at fifty-three a successful art critic

marries a man three years junior

a man in black with a meinkampf look

 

a year later she forgives

the poetess her mother

for the death of her father.

 

Joe Dolce

 

Thirty-Three Years of Bliss

an anniversary mediation

33 is the largest positive integer that cannot be expressed as a sum of different triangular numbers

a normal human spine has 33 vertebrae

the divine name Elohim appears 33 times in the story of creation

Jesus’s age when he was crucified in 33 A.D.

a religious image of the Virgin Mary from the 18th century is known in Uruguay as Virgen de los Treinta y Tres (Virgin of the Thirty-Three)

according to Al-Ghazali the dwellers of Heaven will exist eternally in a state of being age 33

Islamic prayer beads are generally arranged in sets of 33

33s are long playing records or LPs

in French Italian Romanian Spanish and Portuguese the word a patient is usually asked to say when a doctor is listening to his or her lungs with a stethoscope—

Trente-Trois, Trentatrè, Treizeci şi trei, Treinta y Tres and Trinta e Três

the number of workers trapped and also the number of survivors of the 2010 Copiapó mining accident

Alexander the Great died at the age of 33

the atomic number of arsenic

33 is—according to the Newton scale—the temperature at which

water boils.

Joe Dolce