So much change

all at once

not always a bad thing

the shot that erases the pain

the heart

that starts beating again.

A new school

a new routine

a new sound

a new regime.

 

There are ships on the horizon.

 

A cultural exfoliation

reveals a searing sensitivity.

A cloak of black leather

repels a saccharine society.

 

There are ships on the horizon

they are coming for the coasts

and everything is changing.

 

The small difference between

brown and black

is the turn of epochs.

A face in the mirror

matured overnight.

Streets deepened by

a cleansing rain in spring.

I stand at the source of

an endless avenue

turned to stream

then river

then endless bay

and there are ships on the horizon.

 

-Danny Grosso

 

Frank D. Roosevelt

chirps Tatum O’Neal

says we’re all family now and

crafty pink Winston

says he’s a bottle of champagne and

while swells of his own station

dismiss him as

that man

he keeps getting elected

by those not affronted enough

to banish his name from the tongue

and even to them

he seems jovial.

 

It makes sense somehow

the mystery of his popularity when

seeing him with the little black shadow

following him around or

on his lap as he drives

that car with the pedals on the wheel and

he trills the name

that jumps from the tongue

part of a Christmas song.

No shadows without a sun.

 

The Navy guys make accommodations

on great trips of massive import

an officer to escort

while the old man is summiting

below decks they would speak of it

long after the darkening days

how little shadow arrived in 1940

along with one much bigger

and more ominous.

 

-Danny Grosso

New haircuts and

registering for the draft

a night sky brighter than the

neon signs below it

a sibling rivalry in a family of blue.

 

A fill up is sky high and

back seat’s full of friends

we’ll park and walk the fest

see the neighborhood girls

until the recession ends

then we’ll venture further out

that is

unless the Russians drop the bomb

now that they are an evil empire and

we are losing the arms race

to a country with empty shelves.

 

Meet me on the corner

we’ll walk beneath the Italian lights

like it’s Christmas in July

and nothing can fall from the sky

but snow.

The squeezebox man will sing

the old songs for us and

we’ll dance real close

under the lighted canopy

hidden away

from satellites’ sight.

 

–Danny Grosso