Peter Magliocco

At the Soup Kitchen


The flesh of my flesh

somewhere far from this scene

forgetting the bastard he fathered

while a pimp-bouncer in a bordello

18 years ago, his contracted syphilis florid

with Sicilian colors of distant lands.

Later he'd shoot a man calling him Wop,

laying him down with controlled anger

some rackets' leaders disdained.

I wonder if her saw my own shadow

that day in the cold Chicago soup

kitchen "Alphonse Capone" sponsored

to show citizens his more venerable side;

we lined-up shiveringly-smelling a delicious bread

counterpointing the blood baths of Gangland

where the body's wine gushed

into gutters his victims drank

with silent tongues.



the cells


if Mae Capone had been a real mother

instead of the anonymous whore

whose womb I caterwauled from

in feet-first agony, perhaps I'd smile

now knowing I belonged with Al's family

in "the lavish" Florida mansion forever

beyond The Rock I'd later follow him

to relive his humbled history there,

no gaudy cell-furnishings surrounding him

like the Eastern State Penitentiary suite

of elegant desk, dark brocaded chairs

& nouveau-rich lamps

with golden tassels he'd read under

(listening to classical radio strains

or some New York boxing match?)

in a turbulent time when money spoke

louder than final cries of Prohibition

competitors daring to downsize his breweries,

their voices just unorchestrated screams

my father never heard except

during those long nights in Alcatraz

when syphilitic nerve-ends robbed his spirit

of its last, opulent cloak-cover.



holy cow


The golden studio's something Mariel's

long exiled from, in timeless oblivion

she tries to recall part of her punk life

one overcast, smog-ridden L.A. day

working her amateur web cam

for lust zealots' bourgeois cathedral

where erections rise with designer porn,

all that bread of orgasmic scintillations

she hasn't eaten like real meat for ages


& so, practically anorexic, kneels yet

invisible to past friends this warm diem

(reveling in tacky shades, hot pants

plus tanker top & stiletto heels)

she years to act again in hellish videos

the corrupt pimp-producers banished her from

after she became HIV-positive,

trapping her 4-ever in a trapezoidal Plexiglas

next to a cow's decapitated head


She almost worships the missing parts

& hugs the very essence of blood-flesh,


like herself now


an immaterial

still

life ...



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