NEWARK POEMS

Newark Poems is a series of poems I'm working on about my childhood in Newark, New Jersey 1960's. It is meant to be published as a chap book.

The Stinky Store

it wasn't exactly like rotten eggs

or musty piles of blackening potatoes

it didn't exactly smell of avocados

mixed with boiled garlic & fish heads

it wasn't eye-watering pungent as skunk

or beer cooked sauerkraut throw-up 

the odor could have been a dead rat compost

infiltrating the air from under the floorboards

or it could have been the flabby old ladies 

in their hairnets & prehistoric immigrant clothes 

peering through spectacles behind the glass counter

watching like silent hawks perched at the register

Henry took me there 

to spin the rack of comic books

all those yellows & reds & blues & blacks cascading

a kaleidoscopic wonder  

candy apples for a little boy's hungry gobbling eye

Theresa took me there too 

to buy 5 cent loaves of going-stale bread 

& powdered milk the pulpy color of wet newspapers

"we're going to the stinky store" she'd say

"the stinky store, the stinky store"

i think she just liked saying it 

from "Newark Poems" (2013)

Copyright Tony Sienzant / All Rights Reserved

You Never Saw It

you never saw it 

in the finger-snap here-it-is-now-it's-gone 

furtive glimpse thru an open inch door

O but nearly every night

you could hear it !

the caustic growl of words

lumbering out of range into animal sounds

- the answer - a slap or punch

breaking glass 

or ceramic plate

exploding in the music of dashed coins

& the tearing of clothes

     always the tearing of clothes

     that ripped thru you like flesh

you are three years old and you are hungry

& it's going on midnight

& midnight casts a lone halo of a lamp outside 

- in it, you can follow

     the outline of your brother's

          body like a landscape 

               strange hills rising 

                    & shrinking inward again

                         in a slow motion crawl

a rolling wave that goes nowhere 

 

! right outside your door now !

the giant behemoth struggles

with its four arms

with its four legs

with its two heads steering 

     the wayward declarations of four bald feet

the two mouths kissing biting cursing crushing

the lips of the enemy 

in a shrieking corner 

- thank god  

you never saw it -

you only heard

from "Newark Poems" (2013)

Copyright Tony Sienzant / All Rights Reserved

Gabriel Simms

how is it 

you can still hear a person's voice

after they've gone

after the black loam of years have entombed them

after the worms & lichens & maggots

have made a home of their mouth ?

"Gabriel Simms" (a taunt!)

"Gabriel Simms" (an accusation!)

"Gabriel Simms" still spouting from the Old Man's lips 

  40 years after his dung grave was filled

from "Newark Poems" (2013)

Copyright Tony Sienzant / All Rights Reserved

Mother

she writes with a bony fist grasping no pencil

she writes with no paper beneath her palm

she writes invisible words only she can read

what a fine wretched wraith he's made

a cup of black coffee at her side

smoke eternally curling from her leaning tower of ash

from "Newark Poems" (2013)

Copyright Tony Sienzant / All Rights Reserved

The Roof

the roof was gravel & tar

& watch out !

standing there looking up

the vertigo sky could push you to your knees

it was my brother 

who lured me up the iron rungs of ladder

my brother who unlatched the heavy hatch

& threw it over with a flood of blue

i followed him to his reckless sport: 

near the edge dropping balloons of water

then we sat 

backs against the warm brick wall of chimney

as jumbo planes grew from specks of silver beyond 

the city's distant parapets

& roared over us with a wind tremendous

heaving down from their bellies

& in-between these heavenly interruptions

i listened with an ear bigger

than all points north south east west

to every story

a brother had to tell

from "Newark Poems" (2013)

Copyright Tony Sienzant / All Rights Reserved