P e t e r   T o m a s s i

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BUILDERS IN TOMS RIVER

The builders stood at sunset
Knotted beams to the skinless house
Waiting in their wallboard film
For a pile of framing nails to go.

They wore the stained work boots of the continent
Ransacked by turpentine, smelling of basements.
A six pack of Bud on an August Wednesday
Was more to them than a thousand ice ages.

They were architecture’s bottlenecks
Scaffolded by shingles and attic ducts
Building houses as if to store
Their bags of grout, power tools and clip lamps

As if the only domestic voices
Would be the echoes of misfired nails
Drops of stale coffee
A mutter about union dues.

Light bottomed as the builders stood in a circle
Pointing their hammers like fingers
To blame the rooftops
For living far beyond their age.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

END OF THE WORLD

My aunt predicted the end

Of your establishment, you cretins.

She was picking burs out of the dog.

The TV was on.

Rain flattened the tall grass out back.
 

Reagan gave his second inaugural

A fresh-cut buzz lumping his head.

There were cheers, stomps, one cat call.

"I could have shaved him for twenty bucks – cash."

(My aunt groomed dogs in her garage.)

The antenna went out.
 

My uncle arrived: a commute of wet rubber and khaki.

She mixed him a drink on cue.

One good martini was better than a dozen Iran-Contras.
 

The television hurled another snowball into his left ear

As he plugged it into the kids’ room,

Whacked it a good one with his boot and left.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

JUDGEMENT

Tonight the dogs are quiet in their beds.
The moon slides through cracks in the fence,
Scintillating to our neighbor’s lunatic
Back and forth with a garden hose.
A pair of sneakers rocks the electric line.

Before tonight the whole block feared
Summer had gone and would not come again -
The lawn wasn’t mowed and tilled.
The teenager two doors down ran away.
The Welch twins called the cops on the street cleaner.

But in the garage it is cool.
Saw dust piles mark the quadrants of the room
Just as they were left
Formed and assured, their labor complete.
The wind reads the band saw’s literature.

Over the street lamps the mountain presides,
Scratching his greasy beard.
The old natural laws
Lie in crib notes at his feet.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

PROMETHEUS

The first snap of cold
against skin.
 How were we?
Naked to be sure
but it having long been cold
 What happened?

Maybe we stumbled onto
an invisible playing field.
The teenage gods
were practicing with the weather.
Zeus was hitting out thunderbolts.
“Catch this you little freaks!”

They watched as we learned
To build things that would cover us,
To imitate the uterine tunnels and caves.
For a time we were warm again.
But they got better
with their equipment, sure in their stances
teaching the cold to curve ball through the cracks
and explode its tendrils on our beds.

Until one day wandering the field
we came upon an empty locker
unlocked, carved in blackened oak
the words P - 23 Defensive Titan.
Inside were two rocks
we pounded together as some of us
had dreamed the gods did
and welcomed the playful spirits
into a clan all our own

A roar fell from the mountain.
“Prometheus? You little bastard!”
We dropped hunks of seared meat in our laps.
Inside the elders were already teaching us to knit.

History crackled and began.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

WANDERLUST COURT

You have your moments
Tucked away like a disease, quarantined
To through traffic.
Still your hallmarks managed
Travel – the swirled motif of pink
Cat faces stitched to porch flags,
The landscaper’s carved shrubs,
The house pets and garden gnomes
You share with the avenues.

You define travel, your occupants might say,
Ideas a cross-stitch of neighborhood patterns
From Summit Ave, Sandra Circle.
A brigade of like-minded door knockers
Antique milk boxes choked with spider webs.
The snap of Toyota mauve.

You were visited rarely by the curious:
Junk seekers, hobos who walked your path
Without dog, child, alone
Without any good reason but perversion.
Who made you cover your bare walks,
Thicken your hedge.

And then there were the invited
Block partiers, carolers. When the postman
Saw you in your robe and boxers
Re-packing the garage at noon
You greeted him like one of your bushes.

Get your bags, Mr. Street
It’s time you left your stoop.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

MILESTONE

Of a boulder I came upon
To the side of the highway
Packed beneath layers of turf,
A small mountainside
Corralled  in chicken wire tendrils,
The Shell station’s neon
For a reading lamp.

I can only wonder how it
Might have been skinned from
The glacier’s knee
How it might still
Resent the hasty sale of Carteret
Washington’s frown after the Hessians
The race riots down the street
The shine of cheap car suits
An artist who tattooed
Jesus was here 4/99.

Or how the last two million years
Compare to me
Hurrying the pump with my watch.