June 6, 2009
Welcome to my working draft of a book of poems, chronicling a spring visit to Rome, Italy and the Amalfi Coast. Please comment on the poetry and let me know those that you like and appreciate, those which do not appeal to you, and offer critiques. These are drafts and your experience with the poem will help me.
Eventually there will be 50 to 60 poems offered. Check back frequently for the latest, or, subscribe to the Feed, or if you would like, send an email to poetraybrown@earthlink.net and I will send you an email whenever a new poem is up.
I also want to invite you to read from my primary poetry blog, The Poetry of Ray Brown, http://raybrown.wordpress.com, where many of my poems are available.
There is now a Ray Brown FACEBOOK FAN page. You are welcome to join us there to read about the background of the poems that are written, about our Readings and other information concerning our involvement the New Jersey, New York City, and Eastern Pennsylvania Poetry world. There are some discussion groups and photo albums of Italy to accompany the poems.
Click RAY BROWN FACEBOOK FAN PAGE (link) and become a Fan. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ray-Brown/93692175185
Ray Brown
Frenchtown, New Jersey
The Emperor Constantine’s mother, St. Helena
had Pontius Pilate’s steps
brought to Rome in the year 326 AD
a documented version of archaeological theft.
Now reinstalled across the Piazza
from Sans Giovanni in Laterano,
the church of popes.
No human foot may touch
- the 28 white marble risers
– the Scala Santa
wooden boards installed above,
grooves worn deep by pilgrims
who ascend on their knees in silent prayer
struggling to follow the path of Christ
to acknowledge the human travail of the Diety’s
trip to mortal condemnation.
At the top, the Chapel of the Holy of Holies,
- the Sancta Sanctorum
where only the Pope may enter to pray…
Tell me, if only the Pope may enter….
does he take a squirt bottle of Windex with him
and clean the fingerprints off the inside
of the bullet proof glass?
Or is there a nun, who enters quietly
at 3 AM to clean,
when the doors to the Chapel of St. Lawrence are shuttered,
the calm darkness of the night has fallen over the city
pilgrims and the clerics resting
having completed their reflection
on their day and on their God…..?
If a sister does visit to clean,
what does God say to her
when she asks him to pick up his feet?
Ray Brown
Photos of the Scala Sancta, the Sancta Sanctorum, and the Piazza di San Giovanni in Laterano, are posted on the Ray Brown Facebook Fan Page.
Every few feet in the nave
brown wooden boxes dot the columns.
Way stations for the penitent.
Structural support – the foundation for generations.
A time when a baker’s dozen
of these boxes could not keep pace -
dispatching sins
and dispensing penance
for scores of humans troubled by their failings.
A screen or curtain
to blur the face of the priest
like the hazy fuzziness on the screen
checkers the complexion of the TV reporter’s witness.
15 to 30 minutes in a line
3 minutes in the box
and another 5 minutes on the kneeler in the pew -
Sinner — then Saint, once again.
The Brown Boxes required only three things
acknowledgment of failure and frailty
a prayer for God’s forgiveness
and a resolve to sin no more.
In and out
and leave a few quarters in the votive candle box.
This could be handled
by any human who felt regret.
It was straigthforward start again -
when one knew the past was forgiven.
Then the Church contemporized guilt
asked people to stand on their own two feet
instead of kneeling in humility.
Sit on a chair in a room with the light
of stained glass reds, yellows, and blues
new age music in the background -
Failing to respect basic human nature
where guilt is marinated in darkness
not nestled and comforted
with the soft strings of a folk guitar.
Forgiveness only alive
in the stern voice
of one who knows wrongdoing when they see it.
With its own Enlightenment,
the Doctors of the Church
lost two generations
to the Doctors of Psychiatry.
$250 every week on the couch
of one who makes no judgment,
dispensing drugs for emotional depression
who believes no God exists to soothe a vulnerable psyche.
Contemporary desert wasteland for wandering souls.
Can the Doctors of Theology
make their own penance and start again?
Re-create for a new generation
the real message of forgiveness.
Sinners fall to rise again
move on with the winds of self-confidence at their sails
secure in the knowledge that they are sinners
but that their God forgives.
At least they could set up a toll-free line
1-800-Confess
or a convenient Twitter system
to list sins anonymously as committed
or a website
with boxes to check for original (serious)
or venal (less serious)
and a place
to insert an e-mail address for a Blackberry penance.
It would be less expensive -
Ray Brown
The Basilica of Sans Giovanni in Laterano
was once the Pope’s church.
Twelve — 12 foot tall marble statues
of the 12 apostles line the naive
stand watch where for 1500 years
Cardinals and commoners have trod.
I was upset at the entrance
where the marble bowl for holy water
used to sign a cross of belief and reverence –
stood empty –
A dried up sponge sat alone in the bowl.
I did not seek some magical potion,
only the simple touch of my fingers to the water
to refresh me as I entered the house
for my conversation with my God.
I snapped with other tourists digital images of the ages.
“You never could take pictures in churches, could you?”,
my wife asked.
“It is because they are no longer churches
but museums — shells of their former selves.”,
awaiting more than the Easter resurrection
but a new birth of belief
which only God could know will ever come.
Now empty on Sunday
ranks of clergy filled only by foreign nations of faith
or places where a religious life is a way out of poverty.
I pass a votive stand where I plan to light a candle,
say a prayer for myself and for my cynicism,
until I notice coin-operated electric bulbs
at the end of white plastic sticks –
contemporary versions of piety.
The only thing real — a little gray-haired nun
who sits at the door to the empty cloisters
collects two Euros from those who seek entry
to gaze on the haunts of religious orders
now as close to permanently vanishing
as the legions which once strode triumphantly
along the streets.
She flashed the smile of a Sister
the one which uplifts you from your youth
then joked in Italian that we could contribute more if we wanted.
I entered the marble cloistered garden –
unique columns lining the portico
twisted twin, inlaid marble mosaics -
then hesitated –
he was real, wasn’t she?
Please, I pray, don’t let her work for Rent-a-Nun.
Photos of the Basilica of Sans Giovanni in Laterano and scenes from the poem are posted on the Ray Brown Facebook Fan Page.
One of my fondest childhood memories
walking to Columbus Park in Hoboken
to feed the pigeons with my Italian grandfather.
He spoke little English
at the time I had forgotten Italian
but we each spoke the same language to the birds.
My grandmother broke some stale Italian bread,
crumbs placed in a paper bag.
These were the times that wild birds came closest.
I felt I could talk to the animals.
There were pigeons on our farm in the country.
They would sit on the sill over the Quonset hut door
as we pulled up in the salvaged Army jeep
which was used to cart the milk pails
down to the end of the dirt lane.
I envisioned putting a little messages,
capsules on their feet
to carry notes to my friends
with whom I played Army.
Years later I read of someone
across the Delaware River in Bucks County
who still trains carrier pigeons
intending to enter them
in a Paul Bunyon competition with Fed Ex.
Today in Piazza Navona
I watched the pigeons clinging to the sill
along the walls of Sant’Agnese in Agone,
congregants since 1652.
A bicycle, a father, a small boy
appeared in the lens of my camera.
The picture of two memories taken:
one in the camera
the other in my mind.
I noticed a lady giving breadcrumbs to the boy
urging him not to be afraid
showing him how to encourage
the pigeons not to fear him.
Concentrating on the pavement
the boy squatting with crumbs,
hand outstretched in friendship and in supplication
gray stately pigeon, casually approaching.
Above the camera lens the whole scene unfolded.
She held a pigeon in her left hand
with a tiny nail clippers in her right
manicured its claws….
What to make of this?
Was she an Albanian immigrant
doing a job
which Italians no longer wanted to do?
Photos of the Pigeon Manicurist, the Young Boy, and the scene in Piazza Navona are posted on the Ray Brown Facebook Fan Page.
Today only, the water on the fourth floor is not hot in the shower
but on the roof, a glorious orange tiled balcony
with four teak chairs,
a square table where the Roman sun
convinces me that today’s eco-friendly water
was acceptable for 212 Euro ($271.00) per night.
A beautiful ocher palazzo,
wooden beams, stucco, and a spiral stone staircase.
A magnificent place to sojourn -
a stone’s throw from Piazza Navona.
Down below I watched the city awake from its slumber -
an American dad with his 10 year-old son
out for an early morning walk.
Restaurant owners sweep the cobblestone street
start to roll and place their tables
no need to unfurl their awnings.
The narrow streets sheltered from the sun by 1,500 year-old homes
eclectic exterior coverings festooned with
varying plants that appealed to each occupant.
A clothes’ line strung between windows
where they do not have to decide
to stop using a dryer
since they never got around to buying one in the first place.
What did they do
before the motley collection of TV antenna
that dot the roof tops
like the great windmills which I passed
in the “thumb” of Michigan last Fourth of July
dotted the landscape on the way to a wedding?
Who climbed on the terracotta roofs
to install them?
What did the pigeons think
as they alighted to carry the message
of the urban blight
to their family and friends network
through towns and the city of Genoa
where Columbus was born.
Across the way the granite dome of a church,
Sant’Agnese in Agone,
defining the faith which rebuilt a country
when the legions of believers in conquest
became believers in faith.
Photos of the scene from the Terrace on the roof of Hotel Teatropace33 are posted on the Ray Brown Facebook Fan Page.
I needed to buy chestnuts from the street vendor
via dei Giubbonari, near Campo De’ Fiori,
my father would have wanted them.
He grows chestnut trees in New Jersey.
Each fall my son helps harvest
their sharp pinned covered shells.
I struggled for years to find the solution
to unshucking the fruit.
Was it the temperature at which roasted,
or length of time,
or the angle or numbers of scores of the shells,
or a pan with, or without, water?
One day I even tried a recipe from the internet
where I boiled them in wine.
These from a street vendor in Italy
opened easily.
Our transaction complete
he picked one more out of his warming tray -
offers it as a gesto sincero of the service
he was providing me.
Far different than the ones
my father brought outside of Yankee Stadium
in the Bronx
after watching
DiMaggio on Old Timer’s Day
and pudgy #8 – Berra hit one to us
seated in the short upper deck in right field.
Trying to resurrect
memories of the old country in a new land,
the New York vendor
set the standard for me.
Until I met the geniune thing in Rome.
Brought some castagne wrapped in brown paper
to be shucked, seated on a Roman stone
which rested in the same spot for 2,761 years.
Shucking castagne
appreciating the real thing –
“cosa autentica”
my father and the chestnuts.
Campo de’ Fiori was bustling
in the bright springtime sun.
Maneuvering through the tent booths
of the Italian farm market
this Medieval fair
provides color and excitement—
fresh fruit, nuts,
and a festive bright pink “Ciao Bella” t-shirt
for my Italian-Mexican-American granddaughter.
Here I found
Newark Airport’s shoeshine stand’s international twin
seated on a rickety fruit box
with a plywood board
and a shining rag which had seen better days.
His four year old daughter picking through something
on the pavement next to him.
I brought packages of Italian tomato seeds
for my 90 year old father at home
then passed a lady in black,
whose face I would not see
squatted in the foot path between two stalls
swaying—now undulating—back and forth
staring at the pavement
the top of her head exposed
her wrinkled palm open—
a human collection plate propped up by her knee.
In 1966 in New York, my mother had taught me
about “beggars” in the streets.
Most unemployed men.
Appearances deceived, she taught,
while they appeared “down on their luck”
it was drink, not luck,
that defined their station.
So at age 17 in Manhattan,
cock sure that the world’s ills were there for me to fix,
I told him I would not give him a quarter
but would go to the Automat with him
buy him the cup of coffee
for which he begged a contribution.
He proved my mother’s point.
This elderly Italian lady though
could not be faking the seven round hematomas on her skull.
I did not see her face
a face of sorrow she did not care to share
or did not know she could.
As I reached into my pocket for some Euro coins
whose value I did not yet appreciate
I was sure my mother would have understood.
Vacations are perfect for laying
and talking in bed.
Relationship reinvigoration.
Back home
beds are for sleeping
or making love when we are not too tired.
Back home
beds are for guilt trips in the morning.
We would not be caught in the morning in bed
just laying and talking.
Back home,
if we got caught talking in bed in the morning
I would make an alibi -
that we were merely making love, merely having sex.
Love in the morning is
what you call laying in bed, just talking,
when you are on vacation.
Since when do nuns have cell phones?
There is something incongruous
about a nun on a cell phone
during the Way of the Cross
outside the Coliseum in Rome
holding a candle with an orange paper wax catcher.
I like my nuns in old habits of black or white,
when things were black or white,
or perhaps an occasional sky blue like Mother Theresa -
not talking on a cell phone waiting for the Pope.
Who pays for that anyway?
Nuns are impecunious, aren’t they?
Shut up in a cloister – no pun intended.
Praying for me so that I don’t have to pray for myself.
On whose Friends or Family Plan are they?
Or is it just a part of God’s plan?
Now – she is text messaging? – Really!
I sold my soul to the Devil for $1.50
on my way to see the Pope say
the Stations of the Cross – Via Crucia –
at the Coliseum in Rome.
One of life’s historical ironies -
10,000 Christians under a spring full moon
in the exit plaza around the stadium
where the lions once ate them for entertainment.
Candles distributed by Italian Scouts in yellow bandanas
colorful paper wax catchers
that have the Americans worried about liability and fire.
To get here we took the bus.
It is only one Euro – $1.50 American.
Reading bus signs in Italian frustrates us “poco”.
We are resigned to “follow the nuns” –
flocks of penguins with angelic smiles
packed into Autobus Ottanta-sette.
I strap hang next to the Devil.
Pocket the biglietta
instead of inserting it into the fare post machine
so I can use it on the ride home, without paying.
Another of life’s little indiscretions.
American Wisdom
like a scout badge for ingenuity.
As the Esploratore di ragazzo
hands me a free copy of the Station prayers
I thank him. Hang my head in shame
for the indiscretion known only to my soul
and He whose death I stand now to acknowledge:
“Et dimitte nobis debita nostra”
(and forgive us our trespasses)
“Sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris”
(as we forgive those who trespass against us)
So now the real test:
as guilty as I feel,
will I pay for another biglietta to get us back to the hotel?
