BOB'S BOB'S BOB'S BOB'S BOB'S BOB'S
BOB'S
poetry, music, comedy
Sundays at 3pm
21 First Street, Pittsfield, MA
poetry, music, comedy
Sundays at 3pm
21 First Street, Pittsfield, MA
A
BOB'S is a multi-purpose performance space
seating 35. Available to rent for art display, poetry readings, live music, theatrical shows.
BOB BALOGH manager, artistic director
413-212-7180 www.balogh613@aol.com
ON RADIO:
every Monday morning, 6:00-9:00 a.m.
streaming at www.valleyfreeradio.org
ON TELEVISION:
"In the Slammer" www.ctsbtv.org
BOOKS:
"Iced Tea & Apologies" $10
"Scat" $10
"Earthworms Have Five Hearts" $7
"Manage the Sweat" $7
"Incidents" $5
"Mornings" $5
"Greater Backfish Journal" $10
"Variations of You" $5
RANDOM MASTERWORK:
HAVE A DAY INCIDENT
She kissed me & left me
with the breakfast dishes.
At the door she turned
& smiled & said: “Have a day.”
Our years together have
added up to low expectations
about each new day
& she knows the right words.
“Have a day.”
Good days, bad days,
sparkling days, miserable,
rotten mornings
blending into above-average
afternoons
& me, with my routine facing-up
to the fear of daybreak
& high noon & dusk & dark,
helplessly pressing forward
into advanced years.
I am supposed to tell myself
if I ain’t getting older,
I must be dead.
She said: “Have a day,”
hinting at don’t quit,
you can’t quit,
don’t be a quitter.
Well, howz about I keep quitting
till I’m where I don’t want
to leave?
Damn, it’s almost tomorrow.
Better stir that Mulligan Stew.
She’ll be hungry & anxious
to share a little chatter about
the weather & the neighborhood
& about the remains of the day.
SNORE INCIDENT
Sleeping in the library is allowed.
Snoring is not.
If I fall asleep at one of the tables,
facedown in a newspaper,
it’s not against the law.
But mothers & their kids get scared.
Because an old man like me
passed out & drooling
ain’t a charming tableau.
Not good for business.
And some people say I have
a loud snore.
That’s a serious accusation.
Got to be one of those other
library sleepers.
Not me, damn it.
I don’t think I snore.
But Pollard from the library staff
is familiar with me
& he just pokes me in the ribs
as he passes by.
“Did I snore?” I say.
Pollard shakes his head & winks.
“But,” he said,
“there was an Italian dude
looking for you.”
Pollard handed me the man’s
calling card: Sergio Corbucci,
spaghetti western director,
put his hotel number on back.
We met over room service coffee.
He said his film, “The Last Pistolero,”
would be shot in the Berkshires
up & down Mount Greylock,
guns & horses & body fluids.
I said: “So you want me to play
the main guy, the pistolero?”
Sergio Corbucci laughed,
almost choked on his espresso.
“No, no, my friend,” he said,
“I want you to play the tired bartender,
one day’s work. $5,000.”
Bartender one scene, asleep at the bar.
He said:
“You have to be snoozing at the bar,
facedown in a newspaper
& snoring like crazy.”
“Hell,” I told him, “I can do that easy.”
“I know," said Corbuccci,
“when I watched you passed out
there in the library,
right then you passed my audition.”
“Did I snore?” I asked.
“Like a congested mule,” he said.
RIGOR MORTIS INCIDENT
How comfortable are you
these days?
I ask that question because
you should not be comfortable at all.
There is an epidemic
of epic proportions.
It is called Rigor Mortis.
The new Rigor Mortis.
Not the kind your grandmother had
when they found her on the floor.
No, true death isn’t part
of the equation anymore.
It is Rigor Mortis from the neck up.
My advice for you to recognize
this irreversible matter
is to be uncomfortable.
Maintain the jitters
& accept that the rest of your life
must be like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Recognize permanent stupidity
& stay on guard.
The new age of Rigor Mortis is here
& the situation is getting worse.
Oh, sure.
You’ll sit there & laugh at me.
You will cavalierly dismiss
my words of alarm
& tell yourself this is
a convoluted concoction
just to make you giggle.
But no.
There is nothing lighthearted
about this new strain
of Rigor Mortis.
It is a shocking, inflexible,
rigid malaise.
Populations from
Minneapolis to Munich;
from Detroit to Dunkirk;
from Wichita to Warsaw;
from Rochester to Reykjavik
are all getting sucked in.
Symptoms are stiffened arms
holding thingamabob doodads
up close to congealed,
indoctrinated heads.
And through the bowels of these gizmos
mechanical fools transact
phone calls & texting & Candy Crush,
all of which create a contagious
stiffness of brain death.
Today’s Rigor Mortis presents
a rigid, stooped posture
embraced by trendoids
who seem to be 1 step closer
to walking on all fours
& sucking their thumbs.
From the neck up these days
it’s cool to be paralyzed.
How can you be comfortable?
SERIAL KILLER INCIDENT
2 things at once.
Listening to radio play-by-play
of the World Series,
while following a line of investigation
into a local serial killer.
It was game 3,
Washington & Houston
contending for the MLB championship.
Baseball was the soundtrack
to my exploring the web
about a spree killer.
They were calling him
the Pittsfield Strangler.
I was paying attention to
2 things at once.
My apartment was quiet,
no noise from the game,
I was wearing earphones
& my research showed
Roy Gilbert Cannon as
the bad guy,
who choked his victims
with his bare hands
& never got caught.
Then someone was knocking
at my door.
It was the new guy
from apartment 323.
Barked at me, said my radio
was too loud.
I said: “What do you mean?
I’m wearing earphones.”
“Just turn it off,” he hollered,
“or I’ll kill you.”
I pushed the door shut
& double-locked it.
Back at the laptop,
my research was showing a headshot
of the Pittsfield Strangler,
the serial killer on the loose.
Same face as the guy at my door.
I called down to the lobby,
Debbie was working the front desk.
“What’s the guy’s name in 323?”
“I can’t do that,” she said,
“I’ll get fired.”
“Just look it up for me, Deb,
“come on, this is serious.”
She said 323 was the new tenant,
Roy Gilbert Cannon.
It was the 6th inning,
Chirinos homered to give
the Astros a 4-1 lead over
the Nats.
The killer from 323 came
knocking again,
this time to apologize.
He said: “Sorry, friend,
that noise before wasn’t
from you. It was the couple
next door. My mistake.
And I took care of the problem.”
The Pittsfield Strangler
silenced the couple next door,
meaning he was doing
2 things at once.
QUARTERBACK INCIDENT
The quarterback
was in front of me at 7-11.
He was asking the cashier
for cigarettes & scratch tickets.
For scratch tickets, he wanted
“Break the Bank,” “Diamond 7s,”
“Red Hot Slots,” “Topaz 7s,”
“Powerball,” “Mega-Millions,”
“Lucky for Life,” “Block-O,”
“Blackout Bingo…” all one of each.
He paid for his items,
winked at the cashier
& spun around to leave.
My turn now at the checkout.
Then the quarterback
recognized me.
“Bobby?” he said.
His breath heavy with Fireball.
Bad skin, bad teeth.
“Hey, Nick,” I said, “what a surprise.”
I paid for my milk & bread
& walked with the quarterback
out the door.
“Hell, Nick. We always thought
you’d make the pros.”
“Well,” he said, “I set QB records
at Notre Dame,
but then I got lost in the draft.”
“Lost" was right.
The quarterback went astray
& wasted his football skill set.
Cocaine & women
& no common sense & cocaine.
Notre Dame sacked him hard,
bounced him off the grid
into the South Bend night.
The quarterback remembered me
from high school,
class of '68,
when I was the slapstick funnyman
in search of an audience.
He was the big star
on the football field,
the darling quarterback.
Big star, darling…
but he was also a one-dimensional
shithead.
Deflowered schoolgirls
with the ease of smoking cigarettes.
Bullied weak classmates
into helping him cheat on exams.
Stole cash from teachers’ purses.
In the 1970s I was a letter carrier
for the post office.
Quarterback’s father came
running up my street, naked.
60-something old man,
popular guy, prominent CPA,
running back & forth in the street
like a scrambling quarterback
looking for a hole.
Panic on his face, moaning,
waving his arms…then he was gone
down a side street.
I brought that up
with the quarterback.
Said he was too busy
with ND football back then
& couldn’t get away.
Coke & sex & no common sense
& coke.
His father died that same naked day,
complications of senility.
1970s, too early to say dementia
or Alzheimer’s.
Maybe he was just lost
without his boy,
the big star, darling quarterback.
"Wanna hang out, Bobby?" he said,
"show ya my trophies & scrapbooks
& my Notre Dame games on tape."
I said: "Some other time, Nick,
but thanks."
He keeps fumbling
with the good old days,
scrambling, looking for a hole,
but the good old days are gone.
Long gone.
RHINOCEROS INCIDENT
Today you are marking
your wedding anniversary alone.
You are alone because
your husband is dead.
If you had taken a more
conventional approach to marriage,
like tying the knot with someone
from the same species as yourself,
well, I guarantee your husband
would be right by your side
right now,
rounding out your dreadfully boring
ways & means.
But no.
You married a rhinoceros.
All of a sudden you were turning 50
& you’d never even been
French-kissed.
Too busy, too neurotic.
Then with time passing you by,
you looked in the mirror
& saw a petrified prune.
You bit you nails.
You were fidgety.
You had the shakes,
You had intestinal butterflies
& circulation of just plain
botheration.
You’ve had a successful career
as a real estate lawyer
with Johnson, Peters & Wood, LLC
down in Myrtle Beach.
But while rotting as
a 50 year-old virgin
you collected a handful of pills,
a big thick rope & a stool
& set yourself up for
eternal nothingness.
But then Craig’s List posted
something from a horny rhinoceros.
Horny rhinoceros.
Made you wild & gooey inside.
You met & flirted at the zoo
& lucky for you, the zookeeper
was a justice of the peace.
Well, because of the rhino’s size,
he had to live in your garage,
which meant improvisational
consummation.
And after the obligatory
period of adjustment
& learning the expected
matrimonial drill,
your rhino ran off with
a lascivious quarter horse
named Citadel.
So, today as you mark
your wedding anniversary alone,
be grateful for the rhinoceros
Kama Sutra experience
& next time try to keep
to your own species.
BOOK INCIDENT
That book you sent me,
the one about your love affairs,
I mailed it back to you.
Did not crack it open.
At my age,
in my imperial wisdom,
I can easily judge a book
by its cover.
Yours is titled
“Lucky & Luckless in Love.”
That tells me right away
that I’m not in it.
We were a bad fit:
Bridgeport by the Sound,
Queens by the river,
Berkshires by the lake…
A few days of being love-sick,
a moment or 2 of tingling
in our body parts.
Maybe once in red heat
we hit the high spot.
But not lucky & not luckless,
just a droopy mismatch.
Sending your book back,
Honey.
I know I’m not in it.
But you can't say we didn't try, right?
CEMETERY INCIDENT
The 24-horsepower
Cub Cadet lawnmower
made its final cuttings
for the season.
Grass mowed up & down 142 acres
of Pittsfield Cemetery landscape.
Fall leaves getting chopped
& mixed in with the grass.
The Cub Cadet with Corey Boggs
at the controls.
Corey in her 11th year
working maintenance
at the cemetery.
Forgoing wages to live rent-free
on the grounds.
Money in the bank
from a bad guy,
a drunken bad guy,
years ago plowing into
a carload of Boggs.
Father driving, mother next to him.
Corey & her brother
riding in the back.
Death in the vulgarity
of a drunk’s collision.
People said:
“You were the lucky one,
honey. By the grace of god
you survived.”
But no.
She knew that god fucked up.
“No reason for me
not to be dead,” she said.
But the drunk was a state senator.
Plenty of money, plenty of guilt.
$4 million made the problem
go away.
Berkshire Bank promised
not to let her money go astray
& she could live off the interest.
Corey Boggs working that boneyard
& living right there on the campus.
Works hard riding that Cub Cadet
& won’t accept no pay.
Every blade of grass
belongs to Corey Boggs.
And here comes
those hot-colored leaves,
mix & mulch with the last cutting.
Good sunlight on these autumn days.
The shrubs on her family’s plot
are tilting in the direction of the glare.
And that heavyweight front arch
looking like a prison gate…
nobody knows there's
a cozy apartment carved out
inside those blocky bluestones,
home sweet home to Corey Boggs.
PHILDELPHIA SEWER RATS INCIDENT
It is exactly 1 year since
my mother became dead.
It is exactly 1 day since
I received my inheritance check.
5 figures, big numbers.
My first inclination was to go
to Saratoga
& throw it at the horses.
Then I thought that maybe
I would invest in a heroin addiction.
I hate the money & I particularly hate
the hungry rats from probate court.
Especially 2 Philadelphia
sewer rats.
Mother & daughter,
who spent the last 20 years
sucking up to my mother
for a piece of the cheese.
One of them thinks
she’s a blood relative.
Not part of my bloodline, she ain’t.
No fat, ugly rodents are
linked to me.
Real kinsfolk know better
than to disgrace the memory
of Marie Balogh, my mother.
Over the years these 2 parasitic vermin
would make regular visits
from their rats’ nest
in the Philadelphia sewer line
down to Virginia to brainwash
the old lady, Marie Balogh.
They would put yellow Post-it notes
on all of my mother’s belongings.
First dibs.
Post-it notes on the back of
furniture, appliances, TV,
stereo, bedframes, rugs, antiques…
disgusting.
Plus fill her cognitive declining head
with mercenary bullshit.
I hated these 2 frauds all of those
20-something years
& I hate them worse now.
My great hatred for them
could only be eclipsed by
how much my mother & father
both despised them,
right up until that special
split second when their holy souls
flew out of the Milky Way.
Exactly 1 year since Marie
became dead.
25 years since Red & Marie’s last kiss.
And exactly 1 day since my prize money
showed up in the mail.
If these 2 fat, ugly, Philadelphia sewer rats
weren’t so inconsequential
along with their cretinous credentials,
I’d give all my new cash to Terminex
to search & destroy these rat bastards.
No, I’ll start with a new trumpet
for the grandson.
We all loved the way he played “TAPS”
for Marie exactly 1 year ago.
WINNEBAGO INCIDENT
I parked my Winnebago
on the White House lawn.
Listened for sirens & choppers.
Waited for bullets & RPGs.
Watched every direction
for killer squads
in camouflage or black suits.
But it was quiet.
It was lonely.
So, I made a peanut butter
& jelly sandwich.
Opened a quart of milk.
They must know who I am, I thought.
If you’re me, you’d expect that,
especially on the White House lawn
in a Winnebago.
Bet Obama knows me.
Bet he spread the word
that a barrage of gunfire
at my sorry ass
would have been extravagant
& just plain wrong.
Then Obama
leaned in the passenger window.
“Something you want to talk about?”
he asked me.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I was just passing through,
wondering if you wanna hop in,
share some adventures for a few days.”
“Can we head down to the Outer Banks?”
“Hell yeah, get in.”
He drove most of the way,
one hand on a peanut butter & jelly,
the other one steered the Winnebago.
He was wearing that big campaign smile,
waving at motorists on I-95.
All of them jaded, all thinking:
“Jerk don’t look nothin’ like Barack.”
And Prez enjoying a taste
of being mistaken for a nobody.
But he said:
“This is a one-time thing, you understand.”
He looked at me sideways
from the driver’s seat.
I said: “Sure, Mr. President,
just keep your eyes on the road.”
LOLLIPOP INCIDENT
Lopresti was told
that he would outgrow the problem.
He heard from all the adults
about the power & value
of ignoring the cause of his troubles;
the cause being the kids in school.
They taunted Lopresti
by convoluting his name
into “Lollipop.”
Lollipop Lopresti.
Tall, rangy child
bukly head,
big greasy pompadour.
1962, age 12.
“My boy Lollipop.
You make my heart go giddy-up.”
He reacted with embarrassment,
then obscenities,
then he’d grab a provocateur
& bang his fist
into the motherfucker’s nose.
Teasing Lopresti
soon became high risk & no fun.
The Lollipop years lasted
less than 12 months.
It took the routine practice
of following the adults’ advice,
of ignoring ridicule
to make the problem go away.
But in a jam,
he might bloody a challenger’s face
with his knuckles.
Yesterday,
Lopresti is on the front porch
watching the sunset.
A silver Lexus pulls up.
“Hey, Lollipop,” says the driver.
Lopresti walks to the driver’s window.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
says Lexus, a cigar & a big grin.
No comment.
“We were in school together back in the day.”
No comment.
“Come on,” says Lexus.
“Howz about all the fun we had?”
He sings: “My boy Lollipop.”
No comment.
“Shit, Lopresti. You’re still a freakin’ weirdo loser.
Same old sour-ass Lollipop.”
Comment:
Lopresti throws a strong left jab
breaking the bridge of the driver’s nose.
On the front porch
watching the sunset,
Lopresti is rocking his golden years.
Can’t quite outgrow
that old schoolyard problem.
Tries hard when he’s hard-pressed,
but still gets sucked in.
Lollipop.
Just an all-day sucker
with shame past its prime
still making his heart go giddy-up.
FALSE ALARM INCIDENT
There goes the false alarm
& here comes a stampede
in the hallway.
The elevator is knocked out
& they make a mad gallop
down the stairs.
False alarm,
with a shriek & pulse
that says incoming nuke
& forthcoming coronary
& shit in the pants.
But it’s a false alarm.
Lisa, from the 4th floor,
just got pissed off
because I wouldn’t give her
cigarette money.
So she pulled the emergency lever.
This is the effect I have on women now.
Lisa & I are the only ones
who haven’t evacuated the building.
We know the score.
While 4 floors of people
are out on the sidewalk,
distress signal still stinging their ears;
they are deafened by a false alarm
& listening for the wrong answer.
SUNSET INCIDENT
The sun sets
into the Berkshire Taconic ecosystem.
You see it 3 or 4 times a week,
best viewed from the upper deck
of McKay Street’s parking garage,
the ugly downtown whirley-gig parkade,
the dirty car ramp spiral
that nobody mistakes for Guggenheim.
But up on the roof,
there goes the sun,
unrivaled in dropping dead.
You lean against the rail,
best seat in the house,
watch another day break down.
Up on the roof,
where sunsets are better heard,
not seen.
And you are getting the melody.
And in wonder you are saying:
“That used to be my favorite song.”
CARDBOARD INCIDENT
Cardboard boxes
were not part of my moving equation
this time.
I moved two weeks ago,
packed, loaded
& drove 3 miles
from point “old” to point “new,”
with personal property,
stuff, gear,
bits & bobs,
shit & Shinola,
forensic evidence of an unspectacular life.
But no cardboard boxes.
For once, I moved out & in
strictly with milk crates
& some wonderful, sad, smelly luggage
from the thrift.
And not one cardboard box, hear me?
Shipping the miserable cargo at age 64.99
with no help.
All my best friends had sacroiliac dysfunction
or a yoga class
or they were out
changing the course of history
with placards & megaphones.
No help, no problem.
No cardboard boxes,
mnemonics for all my glum moves
moving backward;
missteps & dead ends,
worn out welcomes,
cleaning out nests
& compacting everything into cardboard
wrapped with duct tape,
Sharpie scribble on the sides saying:
kitchen utensils,
bathroom supplies,
office supplies,
books,
CDs,
photo albums,
junk drawer debris,
breakables reinforced with newspaper,
scratchpads of genius,
journals of madness,
convoluted resumes,
C-4 & hand grenades…
then take 5 when a bottom falls out.
But not this time.
Milk crates & valises
& an elevator at the new place
made for a low-key heave ho.
I am intact.
I am ready for the championship round
& so far
I’m not a cardboard cutout of myself.
copyright (c) 2015 by Bob Balogh
All rights reserved