Madison Street: Ragman

 

A typical ragman from long ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ragman

 

April, and the ragman’s come around

with fingerless gloves, and a greasy leather pouch

jingling with the pennies he will pay

for other people’s junk, three cents a pound.

Grizzled, grimy, something of a grouch,

he speaks like someone come from far away.

He’ll buy old pipes and pulleys, bottles, scraps

of cloth and metal, magazines, perhaps

a little holy terror now and then

(according to our moms and dads); and so

it’s no surprise to all the neighbors, when

we hear the ragman’s tiny tin horn blow

announcing he’s come down our street again,

that Phil and Eddie opt to lie real low.

 

 

 

Madison Street: Realpolitik

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Realpolitik

 

Autumn 1960.  First foray

into the world of party politics.

As neighbors hang their posters up, I flinch—

amid the sea of signs for JFK

ours is the only house displaying Dick’s

bushy brows and slogan. He’s a cinch

to win, a shoo-in, father firmly states,

claiming Nixon’s won all four debates.

For weeks, I am an outcast at my school

where Sister Agnes has us pray so that

Jack Kennedy will win. The ridicule

redoubles once the charming Democrat

becomes our 35th. My mom, no fool,

in February buys a pillbox hat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madison Street: Intermezzo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Intermezzo" is the midpoint of the "Madison Street" series. It's a moment to pause and to reflect on the previous poems, as well as a preview of the remainder of the poems. 

The song referred to in lines 1 and 2 is from "Bookends" by Simon and Garfunkel. 

It really was a time of innocence, those childhood days . . .

 

Intermezzo

 

Preserve your memories, a song suggests,

they’re all that’s left you. Whether foul or fair,

they point to who we were, who we’ve become.

We’ve entertained a few November guests;

our bangled, tangled, raggy, shaggy hair

has turned the whitest shade of pale, and some

of our best friends have died or moved away.

In looking back on our naïveté,

I can’t recall, in this meandering,

if Chet and David mentioned Emmett Till

or Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King;

for troubles at our patch town flour mill

and breakers overshadowed everything

from Philly all the way to Jacksonville.

 

 

Madison Street: Nanny Brown

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes we kids believed the craziest things! 

Nanny was by far the sweetest neighbor on Madison Street.

 

Nanny Brown

 

The Grayces’ next-door neighbor, Hannah Brown,

whom everyone calls “Nanny Brown,” lives with

her aged, ailing father. Never wed,

old Nanny trudges every day to town

to dish out lunch at Coughlin High School. Myth

has it she ties “Daddy” to his bed

so he won’t wander off while she’s away.

This may be true. Last year, on Christmas Day,

we tracked his errant footprints in the snow

from Nanny’s sidewalk, past the corner bar,

then up the hill to Sacred Heart. Although

we found him, for he hadn’t gotten far,

they had to amputate the baby toe

it’s rumored Nanny’s pickled in a jar.

 

 

Madison Street: Retail Therapy

Painting Entitled "De Kaffetafel" (The Coffee Table) by Ernest Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)

Public Domain Painted in 1907

 

 

The narrator's voice in these sonnets varies. 

"Retail Therapy" is narrated from the viewpoint of a catty neighbor.

 

Retail Therapy

 

Joe De Luca was the first to go,

a massive heart attack at thirty-eight.

Next, Tyrone Lake; and though the papers said

it was an accident, we’ll never know.

Then stogie-smoking Viktor Novak, freight

conductor for the D&H. All dead

within the space of several months. We paid

our due respects, brought casseroles, and made

novenas for their Holy Souls. We see

the newly-widowed neighbors coffee-klatch,

and by year’s end, they’re on a shopping spree.

Now Joe’s kids’ dungarees don’t sport a patch,

the Lake and Novak homes are mortgage-free,

and three cleft women’s pumps and purses match.

 

 

 

Madison Street: Changing of the Guard

 

Halloween 1960. Me, a friend, two sisters and a cousin.

 

         Changing of the Guard

 

The elderly McBrides were quiet folk

whose claim to fame was that, on Halloween,

they’d hand us kids a nickel if we made

them laugh. A silly song, a corny joke

was all it took. He was an ex-Marine,

wore medals to the Veterans Day parade;

she was the quintessential Southern belle,

who’d die before she’d utter damn or hell.

Overnight, it seems to me, they’re gone,

supplanted by the Dukes, a family

of eight. Now trash cans line the unkempt lawn,

and Mr. Duke, who sports a trim goatee,

will often disappear from dusk till dawn,

while she can be heard swearing. Royally.

 

 

Madison Street: Grouper

 

 Another sad episode of bullying, but this one ended tragically.

 

Grouper fish

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grouper

 

In a stately home next-door to Mr. Cooper,

the Donovans hole up behind white oaks,

a high box hedge and windows louver-shuttered.

 

They had a son the bully boys tagged “Grouper”,

the butt of snickering and nasty jokes,

who cracked his knuckles, bit his lips, and stuttered.

 

An altar boy and would-be Eagle Scout,

he had a thing for knots. He seemed devout.

 

Though at the time too young to comprehend

the incidental whisper of a word

by busybody neighbors, in the end

we disentangled what we’d overheard.

 

His note thanked Kitty—Grouper’s only friend—

to whom he left his taws and Mynah bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madison Street: Robbie Bennett

 

 

Our little world had its share of tragedies, too.

Robbie Bennett

 

The Bennetts lived just half a block away.

When Father Flynn came knocking on their door

one sweltering August afternoon, we knew

for sure this wasn’t just another day.

Their restless eldest boy had joined the Corps,

his visits back home tense and short and few;

the other one, the timid younger son,

was hiking at the tubs near Laurel Run.

He’d lost his footing on a boulder wet

with algae; others said he took a dare.

None of us will ever quite forget

that feral keen sent ripping through the air,

our monstrous mix of respite and regret

as Father Flynn led all of us in prayer.

 

 

Madison Street: Bully

 

Bully

 

Eddie Fox is sly beyond his years,

his unsuspecting parents’ pride and joy.

A rascal always spoiling for a fight,

Eddie boasts there’s not a soul he fears.

The hit-and-run is Eddie’s favorite ploy;

his alibis are always watertight.

 

The other boys won’t flip their baseball cards

with Eddie. Moms won’t let him in their yards.

 

Last week the object of his spite became

a little girl he thought would hardly pose

a threat; but Kitty Kramer foiled his game,

gave him a shiner and a bloody nose.

Now Eddie Fox seems chastened, tempered, tame;

or is he seething? Heaven only knows.

 

 

Madison Street: Skip

 

 

 

Skip

 

The misnamed Grayces own a mutt called Skip,
who chases every bike and car and truck
that makes it down our street. This caper drives
the neighbors nuts. With every yap and yip
we wonder whether he'll run out of luck.
But Skip’s been blessed with several hundred lives,
unlike our tomcat, Chance, whose sad demise
under the milk truck took us by surprise.

Old Skip’s survived his master’s vicious rages,
endured the drunkard’s slamming of “the wife”,
two daughters’ yelps, their flight at tender ages,
but loved the third who bought a hunting knife—
an H.H. Buck—with babysitting wages,
and for some unknown reason took her life.

 

 

 

 

Madison Street: Thinking of Happiness, She Thinks of That

 

 

The title of this poem (a sonnet one sentence long) was inspired by Richard Wilbur's poem "Running".

Thinking of Happiness, She Thinks of That

 

My Dad brought home a girls’ bright red Schwinn bike

he hopes will tone his polio-weakened limbs,

but since I’m still too short for it, I sail

on gray slate sidewalk slabs, no two alike,

up by the house of Archie Ray, who swims

bare-naked at the Y; then with a Hail

Mary in my heart, take Butler hill

full-speed-ahead from Dooley’s Bar & Grille

and Jake’s Garage, a strong wind at my back

pushing me past Merriweather Lane,

my metal wheels repeating clickety-clack,

my roller skate key swinging on its chain,

till, coasting to the Lehigh railroad track,

I catch my breath beside an outbound train.

 

Madison Street: Phil

He did live down the street, although his name wasn't Phil. 

I chose the name because the root word "phil" comes from a Greek verb meaning "to love".  Perhaps the boy was cruel because he was desperately in need of love. 

I was a tomboy who wasn't allowed to join the baseball games in my Aunt Mary Ann's side yard. But I would watch the boys play from the high limbs of a tree which was also third base. 

And poor Phil was never part of the fun.

Phil

 

There’s no love lost between the world and Phil,

the creepy kid who lives six houses down,

who brags about the time he swung a cat

and let it fly; the noose up on Tank Hill

for puppy dogs that might refuse to drown;

the day he skinned alive a sewer rat.

So when they’re picking sides for sandlot ball,

Phil is the name the boys will never call.

I watch him wait for someone to relent,

lend him a bat, toss him the catcher’s mitt

or even send him to right field. He’ll vent—

for now at least—with epithets and spit,

or maybe shoot the bird, impenitent,

slouching home to sins he must commit.