Frank Crocitto, an acknowledged nobody, has something to say about nearly everything...

Let us undress then

all together

weather permitting

or not though time

still has us or seems to

while the sun still whirls

and rapid rains fall.

Once divested of

our common flesh

we'll take our place

in solid space

within the stanchion

set for each

and all together

lift such songs

as only perfect

stars can sing.

In his jackpot joy

   the mighty modest mulling man

   from downright minnesota

   leaps to his uncontestable most

   glorious apotheosis

   as lights go flick and palms go smack

   and the bald-pated band unpacks

   a roundelay of flatulence

   befitting a triumphant elephant

   Comes the morning of the mourning

   as the dancing girls lie snoring

   our Victorious Uproarious
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What is better than this?

...eavesdropping on the conversation

the rain is having with the roof.

So I bought a chair. I needed a chair. I needed a chair that would hold me—comfortably. And not for just a short while. A chair that would be beautiful, with nice lines and a happy look that would beckon to me to come and sit on it when the light was soft and the afternoon or night was still. A chair to read in and perhaps think in. A chair is an intimate thing, the relationship to it I mean. Few things touch us quite the same way. Few things make possible so much. There is bond between a man and his chair, the right chair. A man should have at least one of these in his house.
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I went to Italy in my twenties. Most of the time I spent in Florence. Since I was close enough to Rome I thought I should see the Pope. John the xxii was blessing people at the time and he blessed me, too. He reminded me of a butcher in the neighborhood I grew up in: chubby-face, jolly, shrewd. In fact the whole of Italy reminded me of my neighborhood. I felt at home. Finally I took the train to the south and by one means or another made my way to the little town my grandparents had come from. A town called Toritto, that happens to rhyme with Crocitto.
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"YOU CAN SAVE A PERSON FROM FALLING, FROM DROWNING, EVEN FROM STEPPING INTO THE PATH OF A STAMPEDING BUFFALO, BUT YOU CANNOT SAVE THEM FROM THEMSELVES."

Saturday was my chance to teach, or rather as the Town of New Paltz would have it—conduct a "clinic" (a word that smells of ether and beeping and moans echoing down heartless hallways) a clinic in the fine art of "pickleball" (a malaprop that rhymes with tickle and fickle, is redolent of vinegar and divulges as much about the game as recent movie titles do about the movies they're tagged to). Swallowing my linguistic embarassment, bag of paddles and whiffle balls in hand, I headed to the gym to await the crowd.
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