And then there it was

just a box

then an image

a flickering dandy

a king

grainy black and white

in a purple satin time.

 

Where we come from isn’t

where we are

except when

it is

the beginning

of framing the product

of veiling the apostate

of muting the dissonant

of spinning the narrative

of lying.

 

He was brutishly handsome

enough alone to

provoke

the sanitizers of the populace

and then he moved.

How

he

moved.

 

They filmed him from the waist up

a video emasculation

a pacification of unruly musical roots

a subjugation

a black and white washing

and the first

socio-political

television

lie.

 

-Danny Grosso

Something of more

value

than riches

priceless gems, silver and

gold

is missing

or is at least

harder to find

in certain places and

uncertain times.

 

The ancients spoke of it

as a beautiful person

or a fountain

of eternal reason

an ever accessible

helpmate

and a form of love.

 

So sure in their sentiments –

it must remain

still among us

within us

if lost only within the

distractions, distortions,

the distresses of

everyday life.

 

The stoplight casts its red glare.

A street person furtively eyes a stopped car.

He has something in his hand.

Children meander in the crosswalk.

An old woman reminisces on the corner.

The car radio is announcing another tragedy.

The street person approaches the vehicle.

The driver reaches for his weapon.

 

–Danny Grosso 

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

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Rhetorical optimism

a breeze and

shade

a sense of doom

under canopy of horror and

hope.

 

Everything seemed blue

the unclouded sky and

the storm

the wide ocean and

the narrow beach at sunrise

the bare of skin in

the moonlight

the white linen dress in

the black light.

 

Were we surrounded by it all along –

without noticing ?

Or, was it new,

and if so,

did it come with the talk of morning in America –

or with the chorus about us dying any day?

 

Maybe the gas gave the neon its blue glow, or

perhaps it was blue because we wanted it so –

to match

to belong

to compliment the mood of the age

because we longed to be in it

immersed

submerged and saturated

on Saturday nights

dancing the time away

unnerved and unknowing

kinetic

yet fixed

targets on a map

on a wall in

another blue room

far

far

away.

 

-Danny Grosso

I was the riderless horse

and you were the pale sunshine

that lasted until the end of November

wan and wanting

unable to overcome the shadows

you soldiered on

bravely marching on

until, like the rest of us

you gave in

to your rest

and to your due

the bitter rapprochement

of that bitter December

when all the world

bereaved

seemed enshrouded as

the pall of a cold northern town.

 

How does memory benumb

the horror of a little one

saluting his father who rides

on the caisson

under the flag and over the crape

Is this what dimmed your light

or was it the prospect ahead

distressing as it was

old adversaries lurking around corners

and in silos.

 

I walked on

riderless

through blue sighs

through your dusk

wandering amidst the gloom

apprehensive and knowing

a light would come once more

but I’d never see you again.

 

–Danny Grosso

Back before anger

had a limit on characters

threats were unveiled

in person.

The elements of disorder

had no keyboards

or code

but leather and laces

and soles.

Threats to democracies

visited democracies

to tempt, provoke, and forbode

to sit among the great statesmen of the era

and make mischief.

Your masses will rise

refuseniks will die

and Sputnik will blot the sun

when the shoe hit the table

the world was stunned

but only the moment was won.

Anger can be a sneeze

or a chronic disease

an interlude

or an eternity

a cartoon

or a world war.

 

-Danny Grosso

As I looked backward

from the last car of the train

and saw with perspective

ruin victorious

about the plain

through charred remains

of once verdant promise

I saw the brightest color

that ever was made.

 

How life is

is life like this

a shock of meaning

among the lurid ennui

and a color

where only yesterday lay

some muddy branches

and the drab of decay.

 

The baby is born

and the longing ceases.

Sometimes you hear one voice

in a crowd

and the moment is ceaseless.

 

– Danny Grosso

 

 

 

 

Two small islands

in the Taiwan Strait

of the South China Sea

another island much bigger

in a much smaller sea

south of Miami

in the last days of

a once great General

and the beginnings

of a new frontier.

 

Over the television

grey-colored men

blurry at the edges

in full learned tilt

on large and small ideas

without embarrassment

without walking around the podium

or the query

without worry of a Luddite backlash

in the days when we were unafraid

of erudition.

 

When intellectual curiosity

was a virtue

conversant candidates

posed no threat

to the sensibilities of the heartland

or two small islands in the Far East

 

The nation’s tasks were far-flung

complex

and without easy answers.

Scholarly  statements

and esoteric enjoinders

about obscure strategic atolls

were a blessing.

All the fathers and mothers

of the burgeoning nation

sent their kids to school each day

to read lessons

to read Emerson

and to know this.

 

Perhaps the fathers and mothers

of the men at the podiums

beamed that day

at their sons’ consideration

of the two small islands

in the Taiwan Strait

and the other island much bigger

in a much smaller sea –

where not much later

one of those sons

would be twice tested

once failing

and later prevailing

not just over an adversary

but over philosophical sophistry

by means of wisdom gained

and later tempered

by the mind’s integrity.

 

In the days when intellectual curiosity

was a virtue

It was as if Emerson

had helped save the world.

 

–Danny Grosso