Tetradic Sequence from Below and Above, Before and After
blocked ears, closed minds, rage;
wisdom falls as late fall’s leaves:
heroes’ tragedies
***
finch pecks by window
February slows him down
warm inside. poor bird
***
after the last blast
all the leaves curled, browned, crisped, drooped
obsolete as arms
***
gone. but where you were
smolders still invisibly
Desire’s steam echoes
Mocha
Making mocha icing with my mom
I learned the word Mixmaster® too that day
Mocha chip ice cream cone with my dad
I learned the word pistachio that day
Greenwich Village Autumn ’76
Trolling ’round to park snug on a street
Café Figaro’s sour sawdust floor
I learned the word mochaccino that day
Halloween weekend Semester break
I was a freshman green as pistachio
I caught my first sight of a transvestite
Who happened to have gleaming mocha skin
And learned the two-word phrase in drag that night
*
I’ve just ordered a hot and trendy drink
With yet another new word for a name
Those five letters are at the core of it
However so I picked it from the board
Of this prefabricated place with floors
Of fakewood plastic obviating sawdust
The stacks of cups are plastic or cardboard
I see no porcelain nor any saucers
For underneath but contrariwise lids
The customers’ assembly line is squeezed
As if through a funnel I cannot see
I study all the words some half-Italian
Up on the board but there are far too many
I fear for me to recall even one
I’ve learned the word neologism today
How old things will combine to create new
Products people neighborhoods worlds you
*
We sit and with the first sip up flood ghosts
The day that I discovered Pinecroft Dairy
And cones that cost a quarter I’m not kidding
A purring whirring gleaming Mixmaster®
And fingers dipped in frosting promptly licked
And parents who kept introducing me
To mixed things and myself along the way
Exotic as an inkling or a dream
And friends who showed me night-life once risqué
But only flavorful as any memory
Of mocha on a desultory day
It’s still my favorite flavor of ice cream
The Order of Things
Let’s
teach our children
that should they
decide
to murder
someone
or someones
and then
themself,
they might
start with
the suicide
and save
a life
or two
or five
or ten.
James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; and Barrow Street. His seven full-length collections (2014-22) are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists, Quickening, Fires of Heaven, and Turns & Twists. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His poetry and prose have received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and ten Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful. A graduate of Yale, he hosts the Hell’s Kitchen International Writers’ Round Table at his library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins welcome.