"Old News"
I'm more at home in The Past,
want though I may
To live in this lonesome place called The Present Moment.
I share a stack of magazines with somebody
Who reads the new ones from the top.
The bottom,
Salted with gilded ephemera, outspent ads
And failing or faded fads, is just my meat.
Praying that I don't just blind myself to horrors
I study the Times online to behold the face
Of fascism and its disregarding hand.
I keep on thinking about it as I retreat
To scan a home screen of my high school class,
Our postage shades of mortal veins and marrows.
The conversation floats down tunnels of fortune
To the ninth grade, Joe Cittadino expelled
For setting a fire in the Chattle Building attic.
Joe died a while ago, did people know it?
Instead of hiding, as always before in silent
Anonymity, I allow myself the homely
Civic pleasure of having something to say,
Posting: Joe told me back then it wasn't him,
He took the blame to impress a girl, her brother
Was Frankie Quinn who really set the fire.
And thank you, Junior Genovese, for writing:
You are right Robert, it was Mickey Quinn.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
I anticipate people wondering what the beginning of that poem
has to do with the end.
[LAUGHTER]
And in my mind, it has to do with truth.
Now, the truth is always there and always
hard to get to and never perfect.