SLIVERS OF SUNLIGHT
Slivers of sunlight come knocking on my
door on this succulent morning, but I don’t
answer. The night’s been hard, and swarthy
too. This wasn’t it, but I learned that
cousin Angelo died weeks ago. I hardly
knew him even when, and saw him last
multiple years ago. Angelo, boon to
women everywhere. I knew only one who
could resist his sneering and smoldering
charms, and that one I can only believe, not
know surely. His conquests were legendary, and
only I know of some surprises among
them.
Angelo, demi-namesake of his Gramps and
mine, doubtless better known and beloved by
him than much younger me, who never learned
Italian and must have been a mystery to
him.
Angelo, where have those conquests gotten
you to now? Now you’re Paul Kantner, who
also died weeks ago, you’re the late Signe
Anderson, and you are the great Merle Haggard who
died Thursday.
As all of us will. It’s one thing we all have in common,
the great melting pot,
lotharios and academics,
despots and Elvis impersonators, tycoons
and wage slaves alike. And even poets. We’re not
so different after all, are we, and with that stolid
thought I shall open my door and welcome those
Slivers.
R.Bremner, the son of a Scottish-English father and an Italian mother, grew up in the Italian-American enclave of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, hometown of the great Lou Monte. In fact, in the last verse of “Darktown Strutters Ball”, Lou croons, “Are you from Lyndhurst?”. Ron has two published books and four chapbooks of poetry, including Ektomorphic (Presa Press), Pencil Sketches (Clare Songbirds Press), Absurd (Cajun Mutt Press), and Nightmares (Alien Buddha Press).
OVUNQUE SIAMO 