Rehearsing My Choir

Rehearsing my Choir

THE GARFIELD EL

Faster Hammers!
Faster Hammers!
Churn and turn into my late train to my lost love.
Ring away today; stick, bruise into my felt, or so I felt:
I found a skeleton tooth in the junk drawer and I mean to open the folding green and white door
and take a late train to my lost love.

Listen to those dead pianos, pins stuck in their hearts,
clang tap bell pedal down dead wood chipped and dull dark steel,
rattling and chattering and chilly on a damp November afternoon
on tracks 1 and 2 and 12 and 13
on that ribbon-spinning-and-computer-colors.
Tick tacks on round wire;
spun steel spark on three rail thin lines.

See a minor, a little girl, asked if she would like for instance some fudge–but I didn’t budge, and said I didn’t care, I wanted to sit, and I wanted to stare.
Spin steel, tick tack on three little strings made three little lines made one note clunk, three rails squeaking and sputtering d own the west side.
I found a skeleton tooth in the junk drawer and I mean to open the folding green and white door and take a late train to my lost love.
Faster hammers!

Chatter down the tracks, you thumb tack smiley skull teeth ticking 5 dollar throw away pianos past!
A late train to my lost love.

Spin steel, tick tack on three little strings made three little rails made one note clunk, three rails squeeking and sputtering down the west side–
and this ribbon spinning and computer color, into a public transport for everyone to hear and get on track and back to my lost love.
Faster hammers!

Tick-tacks on round wire,
spun steel spark on three rail-thin lines.

I found a skeleton tooth in the junk drawer and I mean to open the folding green and white door and take a late train to my lost love.

Late, by act of congress and blue all the way to Forest Park.
Faster hammers! We’re almost there.

I’d like to tell you a story, kids, but instead I’ll change the subject:
listen to this tune that sounds like a condolence card bought at the last minute for someone you can’t stand for someone you never liked—and isn’t it cute?
La-la la, la-la la.
Listen to this tune I’m playing now, kids. Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?

THE WAYWARD GRANDDAUGHTER

He said:
“Come on, now, baby. Lets take a little drive,
go slumming down at the Carson’s in my black X5.”

Samples from the Clinique counter and up the escalator
and then a knowing glance from last night’s cute, talkative waiter–surprise surprise.

Going through 500 king Egyptian sized count satin cotton sheets,
a smirk hello from the tanning salon boy;
my man mumbled, he realized–
“They told me that she cheats!”
“Oh don’t you start!
Jealous heart!”, jealous heart, jealous heart.

I put one foot forward and one foot back, my hand upon my hip.
I gave my hair a flip—
I can’t help it.
What’s he think I got all this lovin’ for?
Now guess what.
He don’t pay my bills no more.

Yes. I guess,
all this stuff,
that’ll befall ya and bedevil ya and try ya…
I guess I’ll just move back in with Yaiyai.–

My daughter we named her Maureen, can you believe it? Can you believe it.
(I never beleived it, or her)–because she called you Connie.
The Don Juan, he,
my husband, loved Red-Heads and thought this name
would turn his baby into the same,
and each time I see you, Connie,
(Yes)
I say God bless my dear departed Peter
that he never had to meet her,
his beautiful granddaughter who dyed–
it would have killed him again–
her gorgeous red-brown hair black
when she turned fifteen, behind my back.
You lived with me at that time.
(Yes I did.)
You were such a cute and smart and obedient and happy and pretty little kid,
My beautiful granddaughter who dyed
her gorgeous red-brown hair black
when she turned fifteen behind my back;
and which Kevin were you dating—I mean letting take advantage of you—then,
the black one or the white one?

Once upon a time there were two Kevins.
(You mean two jerks.)
Once upon a time there were two Kevins.
And being with one Kevin was being in one heaven
but not being with the other swell was being in another, well,
Kevin and Kevin were best friends since seven,
(la la la-la-la-la)

when they met at Joey Meyer’s
Red White and Blue Demon basketball seminar tutorial clinic day care camp
for underprivileged kids
and over stimulated brats.
And they were both wearing vintage throwback 45 dollar 1983 White Sox hats–
and now at H-F,
point guard and shooting guard–

and now at H-F,
point guard and shooting guard, and the drill-team shouting themselves deaf
and then back in the back yard,
yours yaiyai, with the one and then the next night with the other one and one big secret—I mean two,
but little did I know that they knew–they knew

and would slap each other on the back
about what it was they’d do.
They knew–they knew
and they’d slap each other on the back about what they’d do;

they knew–they knew.

Well we can talk about it, Connie,
but often, memories are better off sung.

Remember when you were young…
Remember when I was young…
La la la
la la la.

A CANDYMAKER’S KNIFE IN MY HANDBAG

A night out in the tropics,
turned out I couldn’t cope.
After the School of Fancy Cookery by Antoinette Pope.

I learned brazing and saucing and meringue and sift,
knead, flute and flour
each Thursday,
for an hour.
Cobblers and plum cakes, tarts savory and sweet
a candymaker’s knife in my handbag.
A candymaker’s knife in my handbag.

Well I learned brazing and saucing and meringue and sift,
knead, flute and flour
each Thursday,
for an hour.
Cobblers and plum cakes, tarts savory and sweet
a candymaker’s knife in my handbag.
A candymaker’s knife in my handbag.

That night I was to meet
my husband’s father, for the very first time.

I wore the scarf he sent to me,
French silk, scarlet blue and cream.
He sits, he waits, a coffee on his knee
I wonder if it’s s’bad as it might seem.

Zapped by the zombie;
zapped, zapped by the zombie.
Zapped by the zombie in the two door dodge;
twice baked brioche and Danish pastry pockets
and lock it’s two door dodge.

And I did not fail to bust off a nail as the dodge door handle dodges my hand–delicate, delicate, hold my head–delicate nectarine upside-down chiffon cake.
Dodge down the downtown loop the loop lightly, hazelnut baby loaves–hazelnut baby loaves.
Hold my head, inside-out upside-down marzipan Milanese–my brain is a blur—hodge-podge, cardinal slice, two door, brand new.
What am I gonna do, cause on the street the amber lights were hellish hot, and the wind in the windows didn’t, was not, giving air, and tropical Napoleans, but it was too late and I didn’t care–
and I didn’t care.

Because first I went to meet Dr. Christopolous and his wife Claudette, who at that time was my close girlfriend.
They picked me up in their brand new Dodge and we went to Trader Vic’s or Mr. Ricks and I ordered, like the others, a zombie.
And it bombed me, it just bombed me.
And when we got to the stoop and my Father-in-law said “Were you attacked?”, my aunt, being helpful, said something that made my heart just go sunk: with a look on her face like something’d stunk, “She’s just drunk!”, she hissed.
I reached for the arm of the arm chair and missed.

A night out in the tropics,
turned out I couldn’t cope.
After the School of Fancy Cookery by Antoinette Pope.

I wore the scarf he sent to me:
French silk scarlet blue and cream.
They sit they wait, a coffee on their knee.
La-la-la-la lalalalala.

WE WROTE LETTERS EVERYDAY

Well no one was too upset.
You know we were married in the war
and I went with him to Pennsylvania and California;
but he went out to the Pacific
and I came back to Chicago to work on the railroad.

And we wrote letters everyday
which were later thrown away;
and God knows what we wrote or what they said,
but this is probably how they read:

I left them in the basement
of the apartment building
when we moved
for the mice to nibble on.
I wonder how long they lasted.

Now, at my wedding my husband didn’t have his close family there, as I indicated.
He came from a family of priests–
at least, there were lots of priests in his family,
and so, 8 priests presided over our wedding;
8 priests–
it looked impressive,
but it didn’t sound very good.
A gaggle of priests,
or they were like crows around an overly ornate park bench up there.
They all had fine voices,
but and I mean this respectfully,
they didn’t match pitch,
thinking each one of them was the one in the right.
So they made some strange note choices.
Listen:

FORTY-EIGHT TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-SECOND ST.

Now, as for my aunt,
who told on me,
she was always wearing her turbans,
and sailing back to Greece on the Normandy,
and having dinner at the captain’s table;
sitting on the deck with 5 men surrounding her,
with uncle Sam in the back row,
and back at home, riding up the Taygetus on a donkey named David,
with her soft leather boots dangling off to the side,
so full of pride.
So full of pride.

Profitis Elias, so high you can see us:
4823 22nd St. standing there with cashmere overcoats,

and those turbans with their Arabian silver,
and ostrich and papagou feather hats,

and not far down from our combaros Betinis.
We’ve got a secret between us,
Betinis.

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop,
in the basement of the Hat factory,
the Fedoras got glued together–
but in that back basement–
in that back basement–a lot of things got sewn up.

A full complement of grinchy Italians, counting up on their stubby fingers–and smoking, I’m told,
the least sophisticated cigars–
the local lottery and so forth–
like anybody was going to get a nit of that nut–
though what a lucky loser is our 5000 dollars a day friend and combaro Betinis.
We’ve got a secret between us, Betinis.

In the back of the Hawthorne smoke shop:
haberdashery was the least of it,
in the basement of the Hat factory,
the Fedoras got glued together,
but in that back basement,
in that back basement, a lot of things got sewn up.

We’ve got a secret between us, Betinis.
5000 dollars a day–
5000 dollars a day–
5000 dollars a day–
5000 dollars a day.
In the basement of the Hat factory,
the Fedoras got glued together–
but in that back basement–
in that back basement–a lot of things got sewn up:
we’ve got a secret between us, Betinis.
Not that nobody knows,
like nobody knows about the white doves that flew out the cake at the brother’s wedding.
In the basement of your hat factory, Betinis,
they count up all the buffalo nickels
and silver certificates wrung from Lake Superior Spirits
and prize fight foolery
and sluts speaking easy in the closets on 12th St;
and in exchange you put in your pants 5000 dollars a day to stick under your bed for starters,
but later in the laundry,
so you can feel free to chase your wife round the block when you think she looked at the apricot and boisenberry boy twice.

GUNS UNDER THE COUNTER

Good for you,
But we have something too,
so said my aunt–
a bowling alley and lunch counter
filled with fellas
on their lunch break
from the Western Electric plant
at a slant cross the street;
and next door when so and so’s men would come in,
and the man himself very often,
it was guns under the counter.
Guns under the counter every time.
Guns under the counter and bowling on the second floor.
Very often he was there himself
and I, of course, had a special small ball
as a little girl
and didn’t I grow up,
didn’t I grow up to be captain of the Morton girls bowling team?
I did
though I don’t attach much importance to that now,
or then,
riding the old Garfield El downtown and on up to State St,
and then back for guns under the counter,
guns under the counter every time,
the guns under the counter and bowling on the second floor.

Now, I never liked Douglas park
and no one likes it now
but that’s neither here nor there–
there or here–
west of Crawford, where I stayed–
Chicago straights alliterates.
I lived in the M’s.
But it was down on the south side:
Dr. Peter Pane and his brother had their doughnut factory,
and I mention it now because that one day….
Now I wasn’t there–
we were in Davenport at that time—-
some north side Irish bullets came zipping through the window–
in Cicero, never stand at a window–
and past the counter, looking for those men who had their guns behind the counter,
and you could smell the boiled cabbage on those bullets;
one of them managed to hit a young pin setter in the leg
wouldn’t you know it,
but luckily Panagoulis–Dr. Peter Pane–
was there to see to it.
He took some special blackberry filling right out of his lunch bag and applied it to the young man’s wound.

You see, Dr. Peter Pane was an interesting man
and an even more interesting doctor
as he would use no material or remedy that wasn’t used in the manufacture of his doughnuts,
down on 82nd and Kedzie with his brother.
But he tempered this by the fact that he would rarely use ingredients that didn’t have some medicinal purpose–
or so he thought.

Here at the donut factory
they used confectioners’ sugar so sweet it was caustic
and chocolate so bitter that it could kill typhus
and glazing so shiny it could set back glaucoma
and filling so filling you didn’t need stiches.
It was some of that special blackberry filling that was applied to the young man’s wound,
blackberry filling that came straight from Dr. Peter ‘Pan’s lunch bag.

We were in Davenport with a big restaurant downtown.
And I once kept a jackrabbit in the backyard.
And I’d walk cross the river to Rock Island,
to Greek school, on a fine fall day.
And I’d look up at the sky
and down at the river.
But Davenport changed it’s name to Hooverville, so to speak,
and we had to go to Chicago
to move in with my aunt.

SEVEN SILVER CURSES

My little sister had a glass of wine,
no doubt a glass of wine too many.
“I bet he’s out right now with his Nazi whore–that’s right, I said it, that’s what she is–and when he
finally saunters back at three or four, don’t let him in. Put the chain on the door.”

But of course I’d let him in, the jerk.
Now, my silly little sister went to some vlachos coffee-grind reader and had a gypsy glint in her eye when she’d smirk.
“Since that’s how you feel, I know what to do: make sure she gets fixed before she takes him from you.”

It’s a hot august night and my sister and I are creeping down south Halsted
towards a storefront past a storefront stoop and a moon and a star and placard that says Madame Maria’s.
“Tell me your troubles,
but five dollars first.”
That’s what she said and of course, I thought the worst:

charlatan. Phony. Fraud gypsy bitch whose Greek was bad and English was worse; I held tight to my purse.
My sister did the talking and I looked down and tapped my foot and sort of twisted on one heel.
Madame pointed to corner
and swished her shawl,
uncovered a dusty old crystal ball.
I peered in despite myself.

Somewhere on some love seat,
my husband was there,
paying court to his mistress,
and stroking her hair;
I saw it for myself.
I can’t believe it! I cried.
Madame Maria said, “Well I had notion, so before you came in I prepared half a potion.
Now you must do the other half;
I’ll write you a list.
You must get seven part-silver curses made special out of bullet bits by some Pollock I know in Evergreen Park and dip them in the potion and drop them in Buckingham Fountain at 3:13 on Friday morning.
And then she’ll be gone–you’ll be rid of her.”

Quick, for the potion we have to get three dozen crabapples that fell off a raggely old tree right in the southwestern-most corner of Columbus park.
Faster, we have to go up to Caputo’s Produce and Fruit Market on Harlem and get the garden snake that lives in the banana bin.
Hurry, we have to get the mercury out of the old thermometer they have through the north facing doors to the left by the shoe shine boys in the lobby of the Mannodnock building.
And don’t be late, for you must get the silver out the teeth of one Yorgos Karmalitis who as we speak lies dead under a dirty wool blanket in the basement in the morgue of Loretto Hospital:
the silver teeth of a man killed by a jealous wife!

I wasn’t always an old maid.
I didn’t always walk down the street and have the children yell at me spinny spinny the spinster and try to knock the hat off my head.
I had a fiancé, or he lead me to believe I’d soon be his fiancé, and I did believe him as I had every reason to, and I’d put on my best dress and we’d go dance at all the dances.

And I‘d never let the boys from the barracks cut in.
They’d come out of Great Lakes usually straight off the farm anyway.
And I’d never really let any of the country club beaus get a chance.
Those cream-colored summer suits were never cut to my taste anyhow.
And those Hyde Park fraternity fellas were out as a matter of course.
I don’t enjoy a man in red, so certainly not maroon, that’s for sure.
I only had eyes for my guy, see.
But one night he had said he wouldn’t be able to take me as he hurt his shoulder and had his arm in a sling, but I went anyway and saw him with another woman–and she was wearing his ring.

The silver still smelled and smelted down quick into the copper or lead or whatever else it was.
And when the metal was still soft and hot you’d engrave the curse into it with a stylus from an old whale bone.
And I thought for a second of what I might write–
something a little different, but with the correct sort of spite.
One of them asked panagiamou to make that blonde’s hair fall straight out.
The potion was ready back at the apartment and my sister and I mumbled and crossed ourselves when we dropped the curses in them.
And I thought of my husband–
my husband and her–
and I thought of me and him–of what we were.
I thought of our wedding day.

And I was happy, very simply happy.
Do you hear it? A modest young woman’s simple contentment.
It’s probably a sunny day, and I think it was.
The birds were chirping
and I felt like I was dancing on air.
But not very far off the ground.

I wonder if I knew even then that things wouldn’t always be perfect,
that one day he’d seek solace in the arms of another woman
and that to win him back–
to win him back, I’d have to do this:

3:11–3:12–3:13!
On a hot August night everyone is asleep but the crows were watching witching and my temple was twitching.
Twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch–
Fountain, sweet fountain!
Fountain, sweet fountain!
Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true.
Fountain, sweet fountain!
Fountain, sweet fountain!
Let your water react and turn the curses to fact and come true.
And they do.

The instant we dropped them in our hearts started to race
and a wind came up off the lake–make no mistake, we felt something released out into the city.
And I swore
and I swooned
as I swept back somehow to Austin I don’t remember how,
scared of what I had wrought
but terrified I didn’t get what I had sought.

Oh Jimmy where you been so long?

And as the clock struck 8 the next morning my husband was next to me with a smile on his face, and I looked,
no blond hairs on his pajamas.
And it was as if I had been awakened from a bad dream.

THOUGH LET’S BE FAIR

Though let’s be fair;
I had other loves before my husband,
other sweethearts,
Tom Kitsos for instance,
and another I won’t name.

I loved him truly,
or so I thought;
turned out in another’s snare he’d been caught.

They were to get married that June
and all the relatives from New Hampshire and Harrisburg were coming.
And the day I heard I went home and closed the door to my room
and I lay down on my bed
and I may have cried–
very briefly.

I wished and wondered
if they would last.
I tried to tell myself put it in the past.

And that June,
as I was the organist at our church didn’t you know,
I was up in the choir loft, looking down on all their friends and relations,
playing as they walked down the aisle.

I’d see him round some,
we’d nod and smile;
I couldn’t decide if I was still in love with him after all this while.

I’d see them together at church
and they’d look sort of grim.
It didn’t seem as though
she was happy with him.

SLAVIN’ AWAY

Slavin’ away, all for you my love,
and I’ve nothing to show for it
‘cept my dusty old book full of pictures.
Dusty old book,
tell me a story
‘bout how I wasn’t so tired
from all my slavin’ away.

I ran off,
put on corduroy knickers that I got from the coal shoveling kid
and hitch-hiked in a rickety old Ford,
hitch-hiked in a rattley old Norton side-car
“down strange roads,
in the purring rain”, as the poet put it,
on up to St. Paul
on a cold day in the middle of the fall.
And they picked me up
for not wearing a dress
and suspended my sentence
if I wore something with a strap that was pink
and I scrubbed up good on somebody’s sink.
So now I’ll catch the Canadian Pacific and not be too specific,
to somewhere up north,
and get into lumber and slumber when I like
and in the spring ride down into Cheyenne on my bike.

I looked out the window
and I stuck my head out the door.
And the snow was melting so slow
and the sky was light but so grey:

slavin’ away,
and all for nothing, my love.
Cooking n’ washing in the morning;
and starting at 9:25
I assembled 6 boxes
of little plastic Christmas trees
and put in the blue L.E.D’s
on kid toy cell phones with 4 batteries.
And then on to the sewing machine
to stick the labels on purple t-shirts
and the arms on pull-over jumpers
for the U.K.:
slavin’ away.
All for you, my love.
And I’ve nothing to show for it–
I’ve nothing to show for it.

I could see her, looking in the mirror at me
wondering if it wasn’t plain for everyone t’see–
nothing ever seemed to turn out how it might be.

I could see her doubting now that ‘t’all had gone and went
that anything she’d got was equal t’what that she’d spent–
that she never seemed to get back what that she’d lent.

REHEARSING MY CHOIR

Anyway,
they did have a son,
and by the time he was married,
and I played at his wedding too
at Holy Trinity,
I was choir director myself.

Rehearsals in the basement
twice a week;
I demanded we be in peak
condition.

And everything seemed to be going quite well.

I got along well with the priest.

But there was one man with whom I didn’t get along.

The Bishop would head down head down to Dearborn station,
to see what stars of the silver screen might be seen,
or Broadway stage were all the rage,
with his black leather autograph book,
and his black leather pastoral pumps,
and his pressed black robes
and his tidy black beard,
of which he was so proud,
and his hat that stuck out of the crowd.

Or there he’d sit
at his table at the Edgewater hotel
wearing his ecclesiastical furs
and lunching with two giggling and none too healthy looking young men.
And in his shirt pocket up close to his heart was his autographed picture of Robert Mitchum,
which he no doubt used in an impure way.

And I was at home rehearsing my choir.

On Christmas day, in the afternoon
I got a call at home–
the bishop was on the phone
wanting the choir to go sing on some Channel 44 thing.

And I said out of the question;
the rest of the day
is for their families.
And the Bishop became furious–
all that time singing western music–
Christmas carols, backsliding!
And no time to represent the diocese?!
But of course he was just upset because he wanted to be on the show–
and he hated women.

I knew he was angry with me,
but I couldn’t worry about it.
I went about my business,
rehearsing my choir–
rehearsing my choir.

That next Sunday was my late sister’s Name’s Day.

And the bishop was coming that day to our church to deliver a sermon,
which would give me quite a big surprise.

Decadence in the church!
Betrayal of our traditions!
Look up in the choir loft for instance, the lady in red:
Eva!
I ban her from receiving communion
and remove her as choir director!!

I couldn’t believe my ears.
And the congregation couldn’t believe theirs.
And my husband was furious when he was told
as he wasn’t there at the time–
so letters were written, and phone calls were placed,
and the matter was taken up,
and I was granted an audience:

and I sat there, nervous and frightened, when into the room stepped His Eminence,
The Achbishop.

They had a strange deliberating process at His initiative–
as it was His prerogative alone–but the Hierarch with the tallest hat
and longest beard would stand in the middle
and the prelates with shorter hats and beards radiated out
with the Archbishop in front of them,
and then they began to intone.
And I was left on the other side of the door alone.

And when they finally came out Bishop Nikoliki was sent off to San Jose.

DOES IT REMIND YOU OF WHEN?

And how the years‘ve gone;
it’s come to this:
a rose on his lapel in the open coffin. I give him a kiss.

I have to go up north to play at his funeral
and his wife is there
in some chapel she picked;
and there’s not even an organ–
I have to play on some broken upright piano.

Listen to these low notes.

What a joke.
And you have to park and you can’t even hear the ceremony in the cemetary because the noise from the traffic and construction is so terrible.

And I stood there in the slush
and I walked along, very slowly,
to the tree by the turn

and I stood in front of my mother and father and sister and husband’s graves
and looked over at the sunset to right.

Tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.
And I thought of myself;
and I thought of them
in the cold hard ground.
You still can’t believe;
you still can’t believe.

I didn’t believe it then
and I don’t believe it now.
I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now;
I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now.
But there it is.

Listen to this tune I’m playing for you now kids.
Does it seem sad? Does it remind you of when?

Shady grave, come the summer it will be
a shady grave–come the summer it will be.

I can hear the cars just 100 feet behind
and I smell the rock salt in the air.
And I know in my bones it isn’t fair.

And the sun sets in the sleet to the side.

tour dates

Rehearsing My Choir

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