September 10, 1978 - Journal Entry - East Village

Gold, jewels, power, hate, and sex.
Why nations fight wars
People decided to die rather than live
Stupid reasons

I had a friend in Maine.
Chaney and I promised never to swim alone.
My family moved from Falmouth Foresides in June of 1960
A week later Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake

He was eight.

In 1974 I left my hometown for good.
I left behind another friend
Carl married his high school sweetheart.
She was seven months pregnant.
I never saw the baby.

I had a friend in college
Neil and I are still friends.
He is studying medicine in the Philipines
Dagupan City

Neil was born on Staten island
We will meet again
I am not in love with money or gold or God
I'm in love with the modern world

And everything else.

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Wicasset Ghost Ships

The old bridge at Wiscassett spanned the Sheepscot River for decades and I loved the hum of tires over the narrow steel girder bridge. A new bridge replaced the old in 1983. New. No charm. Wicasset's primary attractions were its Maine coastal charms and the pair of rotting hulks wallowing in the mud flats. The state of ruin of the Hesper and Luther Little bespoke shipwreck to my boyish mind. These two timber schooners once transported pine trees from Maine to the world along with hundreds of other wind-powered Casco Bay schooners.

The Hesper and the Luther Little were the last two ships of their kind. The owner finally stranded them on the mudflats of the Sheepscot River. Each winter ravaged the ships rising and falling with the tides without ever floating free of the muck, yet they withstood the harsh treatment of Nature for decades. Finally two teenage boys set fire to the relics, damaging them to such a state that the town had them dismantled as a safety hazard.

Of course they could have remained in their final berth for another half-century, if it were not for the threat of legal suits and the town dismantld the wrecks. The Hesper and the Luther Little joined the hum of car tires over the Wicassett Bridge. Something gone, but not forgotten__

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Seagulls In The Air

Written Jan. 1, 1920

When six
My best friend Chaney and I walked
To the end of the McKinley Road on Falmouth Foresides
Portland lay across the harbor
The color of the water a Maine blue
Seagulls skated through the cloudless sky__
Chaney pulled out darts taken from his father's den
He gave me one
I threw it without aim
The dart struck a seagull in the neck
Its wings quivered and the bird fluttered down to the mud flat
Blood seeped from the wound
Chaney and I watched the bird die
A wave lapped over the gull
Another washed the corpse into the harbor__
Chaney put away the darts
We walked back home
Neither of us said anything to anyone
Not even to Cathy Burns
We both loved her__
Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake in 1960
Age eight
Always will be eight
I will never forget him
Or the seagull__

1960 - Chaney Noyes Gone To the Forever - Video

My best friends as a child were my older brother and Chaney

We lived in Falmouth Foresides, Maine.

We did everything together.

School, hockey, eating stolen strawberries from the nearby farm, hang at the docks at the end of our street, and swim at Sebago Lake.

My family moved to the South Shore of Boston in June of 1960.

This excerpt from GAYBOY relates the last time we saw each other. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chaney stood on edge of the lawn. My father had mowed it this morning.

“I guess I’m going.”

“Have a good summer.” Chaney kicked a clump of cut grass with his sneaker. His jeans were torn at the knee. This summer was supposed to have belonged to us. A snorkel and diving mask hung in his hand. They were a gift from his Czech grandmother.

“My father says we’ll return in July for vacation.” The week on Watchic Pond couldn’t come soon enough.

“Don’t go swimming without me.” Chaney lowered his head. Boys weren't supposed to cry in public.

“I won’t.”

I eyed his mask, wishing I had one.

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my Pete Runnel’s baseball card. The infielder was our favorite Red Sox player. I offered it to him.

“Here.”

“No, you keep it, but if you go to a game at Fenway Park, have him autograph it for me.” Chaney smiled with the prospective of having the .300 hitter’s signature as well as not having to hand over his mask in trade.

“Everyone in the car,” shouted my father.

“See you.” I slipped the playing card back into my shirt pocket.

“Not if I see you first.”

I never saw him again__

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Aurora Borealis Maine July 3, 1971 from 2008

On the 4th of July weekend in 1971 John Gilmore, Mark McLaughlin, and Tommie Jordan and I left the South Shore of Boston to holiday in Maine. A large store in New Hampshire sold fireworks. John purchased $20 worth of M-80s and various rockets. The four of us stopped at my grandmother's cabin on Watchic Pond for a swim and Italian sandwiches. None of us had bathing suits. My grandmother said that she had seen plenty of naked men as a nurse in France. WWI. After the sun set over the pines John lit off the fuses. Edith kept her distance from the explosive display. After the finale we bid her good-bye.

"I don't want to hit traffic tomorrow."

"You drive safe." My grandmother gave me a kiss and we headed north in A 1968 VW Beetle.

By the Turnpike the trip to Bar Harbor was about two hours away, but I-95 was boring from Presque Isle to Miami, so we opted on the coastal road, smoking pot and listening to the Jefferson Airplane through the dark towns of Brunswick, Bath, and Wicassett.

Someplace outside of Camden John pointed to the sky.

"Check that out."

"What is that?" Tommie asked from the rear seat and I cranked open the sunroof.

The sky shimmered with an unearthly light and John said, "I knew that weed was strong, but not this strong."

"That's not a hallucination. It's the Aurora Borealis," Mark declared with undebatable authority.

"How would you know?" John demanded before puffing on the bong. He was attending Quincy Community College to be a paramedic.

"Because I have a Boy Scout merit badge in astronomy."

"Well, la-dee-dah." John and Mark were childhood friends. Sometimes they were rivals.

"The aurora occurs over the poles after a charged particles from the sun collide with atoms in the upper atmosphere riding the Earth's magnetic fields."

"They taught you that in Boy Scouts?" I had been a Star Scout with merit badges in marksmanship and canoeing, but suddenly understood that Mark's universe was bigger than I had imagined for a mechanic at a Wollaston Beach garage.

"No, I was into the Space Race. I watched every televised launch from Cape Canaveral I read everything about the stars. The Algonquins called the Northern Lights the 'dance of the spirits'."

"Damn, you are an expert." John passed the bong to his longtime friend and I pulled over to the side of the road.

"I saw them once as a child. They lit up the night sky above the Blue Hills." My neighborhood was set in those hills.

"I've never seen them." Mark's eyes were spellbound by the spectacle overhead.

The four of us got out of the VW and lay on the dewy grass.

The celestial phenomena sashayed across the sky as iridescent curtains blowing in the wind. The light show lasted about twenty minutes and disappeared like a mirage into the cosmos.

"The Aurora Borealis," John remarked in awe.

"Aurora was the goddess of dawn." I had read Bullfinch's Mythology in high school.

"I was sort of like dawn at night." Tommy spoke for the first time that evening. He was a hockey player for a Maine prep school. Last season a college scout recruited him to play at an Ivy League college. His grades were horrible, but his scoring led the league.

"That blew my mind." John stood up and wiped the damp grass from his clothing.

"More than Jimi Hendrix's at the Garden?" We had seen him together. It had been one of his last shows.

"Not better. Different." Tommie looked us in the eyes. "But better the same way Jimi was the best."

"Excuse while I touch the sky." John grasped the air with his hands.

John put ARE YOU EXPERIENCED on his tape player and Mark stuck his head out the sunroof hoping for another sign from the heavens, because one vision of the dancing spirits was not enough for a lifetime. And tomorrow we were destined to see the fireworks over Bar Harbor.

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The Measure of Happiness - 2012

Last month my sister, her husband, and I celebrated my 60th with lobsters, steamers, Pinot Grigio on Watchic Pond. An early evening breeze fended off the mosquitos from the dock. My brother-in-law dressed accordingly; tee-shirt, shorts, and no shoes. Neither of us had shaved for days.

"What you think?" My brother-in-law pulled out a pipe. His health had improved dramatically since his retirement three years ago.

"Nothing much has changed here." The lake shore was covered by tall pines, hiding the numerous summer camps.

"That's what I think too." My sister and he planned to spend the summer here not doing much of anything. David passed the lit pipe. Native Maine bud from Cornish, the nearest town to the west on Route 25. "Change is good as long as it doesn't change the things you love."

"If things don't change, then I feel like I'm aging with the world." A puff of weed helped color the sunset.

"A slow pace makes time stand still." David had been a top headhunter in Boston. Work had been an 8 to 6 race. He loved his new life. Waking with the dawn with his day free for himself.

"In this light you look 30."

I had taken off my glasses. Myopia was a great fountain of youth.

"That's what I like to hear from my guests." David took off his shirt. The sun had tanned him to golden brown hue. My sister admired his physique. He was in better shape than me.

"My pleasure. Only one thing I miss."

"Your kids." My sister knew the way I thought.

Angie and Fenway are on the other side of the world. Talking on the telephone brings us closer. I would prefer to hold my son and daughter in my arms. She's 8 and he's almost 4. I had spoken to both this morning on Skype.

"I'll be there soon enough." I had a flight to Thailand planned for mid-June. I was staying two months, but today's happiness index suffered from their absence and I went to sleep a little sad.

The next morning rain splashed on the lake. New York exerted a tug and I checked the schedule of the train from Portland to Boston.

"You're leaving?"

"I got to get ready for my trip."

"How you getting to Portland?" The station lay below western promenade.

"If necessary I'll hitchhike." Yesterday's plan was for a tomorrow departure. The weather dictated a change.

"No one hitchhikes anymore." My brother-in-law wanted me to stay. We enjoy each other's company,

"Only crazy men." I had seen the ghostly wraiths of rags on highways. No destination in mind. Mime was the other side of the world.

"It's not the 70s." The Seventies were the decade of our 20s. "Hitchhiking is dead."

"I know." I had often hitchhiked across the USA, sometimes for pleasure and sometimes out of necessity. Pleasure and necessity had combined forces in August 1972. A fellow BC student Neil Nepola had been visiting his girlfriend, Vickie, in Tulsa. His BMW was to be our ride to California and I had thumbed through the Midwest spurred by the dreams of driving through the deserts in a fast car.

I arrived in Oklahoma to discover that we were on foot. Neil had rubber-necked a roller coaster in Oklahoma City and rear-ended a Chevy. The BMW was in repair shop awaiting parts. We were stuck in Tulsa without a car.

Tulsa was half-way across the continent. Vikie, her younger sister, Neil, and I drank ourselves senseless in a few of city's BYOB bars before voting to keep on trucking. We were 21. We had long hair. Neil was going to Med school in the fall. In the Philippines. After reading ON THE ROAD. The two of us bade good-bye to Tulsa, Vickie, and her younger sister. Funny I can remember Marilyn's name. She had green eyes.

We reached the coast at the end of Route 66 and stayed with Neil’s cousin in Seal Beach. We smoked more pot, bodysurfed, and drank at a bar next to the Long Beach Channel. A week flashed fast in a paralytic ganga haze. His cousin’s name is lost in that miasma.

Two weeks remained until the resumption of BC’s fall semester. I wanted to see my friend, Wayne Shephard in Pomona. It was far from the coast. He was living with his biker brother. They took us to DisneyWorld. We smoke weed in IT’S A SMALL WORLD. I couldn't have been happier, then again Disneyworld prides itself on being the “the happiest place on earth.”

This distinction has changed locations for me many times since 1972.

Goa, Koh Phi Phi, Bali, Palm Beach, Paris, Bar Harbor.

Sri Racha with Mam and Fenway.

But all places become common the first day you buy a roll of toilet paper, because the daily grind wears down the degree of happiness and you ask yourself, “Who is really happy?"

Several studies have named the Danes as the happiest people in the world. They're family people. They like nothing more than a hoogy or get-together. Danes ride bikes. Pedal . They have no basketball superstars. The USA is 15th in the rankings.

The main source of happiness comes from a feeling of belonging and in western society cars separate us from those we love. Marshall McLuhan says the only time western man is truly alone is when he’s in his car. Cell phones are supposed to bring us closer, except no one answers them. Every man is not so much an island as a desert of feeling.

Drive in the suburbs.

The landscape of emptiness.

Not a restaurant open.

Not a bar where ‘everyone knows your name’.

Only the mall where you’re forced to consume everything you don’t really need.

Friends, family, the pursuit of happiness, which is why I love Thailand.

Not for the sex.

Not for the weather.

But for the warmth of drinking, eating, and talking with your friends and Thais only score 43rd on the list.

Both Thailand and the USA could do better.

Be happy. Mi sabaii.

The other choices are too gray to consider as viable alternatives.

Happiness is more than a warm blanket – Snoopy

As Victor Borge said, "To measure your happiness feel your heart."

We all know where it is.

THE LITTLEST BEAR a poem

Vernon fished the Casco Bay from Peakes Island
The other day-fishers know his boat
A 1985 Seaway 22-footer ran the Drunken Ledge, the Cod Ledges, Big Ridge, and the Tanta's 'punkin bottom'
For pollock and cod throughout the winter
All in sight of the Ram's Head Light s\Station__
Quinton 46
Fishing all he know
Not speaking much, except to the fish and his boat THE LITTLEST BEAR
And his dog, Penny___
Twenty years of fishing
Under his belt
Still has all his teeth and hair
The cougars at Billy Ray's Tavern
Once thought he worth one night
No more
He smells too much like fish
Don't matter
Penny loves him
And one woman's love is all a fisherman needs__
On a sunny January morning
Quinton trailed two long lines
Over the blister bottom of the Klondike
Catching a good mess of fish for the Portland pier
And the day ran past noon
On and on
This his life Aseea alone At home with Penny
The wet of the sea, the smell of fish, and__
A three-foot wave broke his bliss
The afternoon sun low o'er the shore
Dark coming soon
No other boats in sight
A nippy wind breezed up from the north.
Lowery clouds gathered to the east
Casco Bay not be flat for long
Heavy seas a-coming
Still a Honkin' mess of fish on the lines
Only two options;
Haul in the catch or cut bait
Get out of the weather
Shelter leeward of the nearest island
The cold Atlantic wind skated bow to stern__
Something bad brewing Down East
Bad, not yet wicked
"Fuck it."
Quinton cut the lines
He was no fool It was time to outrun the weather
Full Throttle
To Ram's Island
Shelter from the storm___
Throughout that evening the storm got worster
No one had seen Quinton at Billy Ray's
Neither at asea nor ashore
They feared the worst
They said nothing. Saying something was bad luck.
They drained their PBRs and watched the Bruins
At midnight the tavern door opened wide
Quinton with Penny by his heel
Drenched to the bone.
"Rough ride home. Two Jamie's, a ‘Gansett."
He eyed the bar.
Four other fishermen sat on the stools
They dry
Him
Wet to the bone
Dripping a wicked sea__
"Get these landlubbers a drink too."
Quinton says nothing else
There nothing to say
He just lifted a finger
Another round
As many as before last call
Vernon knew his limits
Both
At sea and on shore
And so did Penny__

Cumberland County Kingdom

From the Kezar Pond to Saco Bay
Old Orchard Beach to Bailey's Island
Cumberland County, Maine a land of tall pines
The land of my youth___
The summer camp on Watchic Pond
Built by my grandfather
An orphan became a frontline surgeon in WWI France
A retreat from the horrors to Maine
With a nurse, my grandmother.
A noble woman from a 9th generation Maine family__

Gorham was their refuge
The two had a family
Three children
One my father
Later they moved to a huge farmhouse
To Westbrook
By the Presumpscot Rier
Near the shadow of the SD Warren papermill__

As a young boy
My best friend Chaney
On Falmouth Foresides
McKinley Road
His house close to mine__
We palyed hockey in my backyard
Fought the bully
Skeeter Kresgee
Lover Kathy Burns

And more__
One day he found a basket of dead puppies
Didnt say where
We walked to the pier
Beneath the bluff
At the end of Mckinley Road
Climbed down the steep stairs
To the fishing dock
We threw the still puppies
Into Portland Harbor br/>They bobbed
The tide took them to sea br/>I thought nothing of it__
In the summer of 1960 br/>Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake
He was only eight.
I have never seen his gravestone___

Four years later
big-breasted girl working at a drugstore counter asked,
"Will you walk me home?"
At 12 a walk was a walk
I stuffed my comic in my jean's back pocket
And drained my glass of vanilla soda
I accompanied the girl along the Presumpscot River br/>Into the woods
Past the paper mill
No houses
No voices
Only the grinding of the wood saws across the river
And the murmur of cars along Main Street__
We stopped in the woods br/>No one in sight br/>I felt so alone
She lifted her dress over her head
Her breasts rose tipped puff pillows___
I fled
Ran fast chased by laughter
Ran to my grandmother's house
Upstairs to a bedroom with sea murals br/>Painted to remind my grandparents br/>Of the French countryside br/>Not the war__
I lay in bed br/>My aunt's bed
Another innocence gone__

In 1975 my grandmother passed away
The camp was sold
The house on Main Street too
Chaney's family had moved north
From Falmouth Foresides
I went south
First with my family
To the South Shore of Boston
Then alone
To New York.
A city of too few pines to soothe old ghosts
Of an exile from Cumberland County
They, Chaney, the girl, my grandmother Edith are with with always__

Juvenile Mobile Lock-Up

The Catholic Church in Maine promoted procreation in hopes that newly born of the Faith would demographically overwhelm the Protestants' predominance in America A devout member of the Roman Church my mother produced six healthy children through the 1950s.

Our family car was a Ford station wagon and my father feared one of us might slip out the window, so he child-proofed the station wagon car by affixing aluminum tubes across the rear windows. Other motorists regarded the pale blue vehicle as undercover transport for the Maine reform school system.

I stared back at them with prison eyes, even if my parents were taking us to Old Orchard Beach, the Pine Tree's State playground by the sea. The other drivers' expressions shifted from their initial pity to horror, as they wondered what heinous crime had been committed by the children incarcerated in the Ford station wagon.

"The youngest convicts in Maine," my grandmother joked every time we departed from her house in Westbrook and I sat in the back planning my escape. None of my attempts escape succeeded in gaining freedom. My father and mother were vigilant, but on one trip from Boston I wandered from the family car at a rest stop to go the bathroom. when I came out of the toilet, the Ford wasn't in the parking lot.

Free at last and within two seconds I was near tears. I was seven. Kids my age were told every day to not speak with strangers and now I was surrounded by only strangers. Luckily a toll booth operator spotted me before a weird men could pull me into his Chevy.

Ten minutes later my father returned to the rest area at 100 mph.

Top speed for the Ford.

I was glad to see him and sat back in the moving cell with relief.

Freedom would have to wait until I was ready for it.

At age 11.

And by then I would be ready to run away and join the circus.

Forever.

Complications by Quinton Sprague

Complications Among the varied language of together, Is it in the diction of the word together a man. To Get Her This woman Amy woman or just the truth of the proud romance of chase___ What did either of you get? If you're lucky, Some variation of a post breakfast, lunch, dinner contract Progressively better sex Provided you like the way each other fits into the other Better than Her last man Her mother and yours. Christ, Then months later I'd put my brains against the wall Be sitting there one morning Over poor coffee and soggy pancakes With very little to say. We'd all love it to be Just like the first time But it ain't that complicated Together I'll have what she's having. -qms

Chaney - Sebago Lake - June 1960

My best friends as a child were my older brother and Chaney

We lived in Falmouth Foresides, Maine.

We did everything together.

School, hockey, eating stolen strawberries from the nearby farm, hang at the docks at the end of our street, and swim at Sebago Lake.

My family moved to the South Shore of Boston in June of 1960.

This excerpt from GAYBOY relates the last time we saw each other. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chaney stood on edge of the lawn. My father had mowed it this morning.

“I guess I’m going.”

“Have a good summer.” Chaney kicked a clump of cut grass with his sneaker. His jeans were torn at the knee. This summer was supposed to have belonged to us. A snorkel and diving mask hung in his hand. They were a gift from his Czech grandmother.

“My father says we’ll return in July for vacation.” The week on Watchic Pond couldn’t come soon enough.

“Don’t go swimming without me.” Chaney lowered his head. Boys weren't supposed to cry in public.

“I won’t.”

I eyed his mask, wishing I had one.

I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my Pete Runnel’s baseball card. The infielder was our favorite Red Sox player. I offered it to him.

“Here.”

“No, you keep it, but if you go to a game at Fenway Park, have him autograph it for me.” Chaney smiled with the prospective of having the .300 hitter’s signature as well as not having to hand over his mask in trade.

“Everyone in the car,” shouted my father.

“See you.” I slipped the playing card back into my shirt pocket.

“Not if I see you first.”

___________________________________________________________________________________

I recently recorded a piece about what happens to Chaney.

Please go to this url

Chaney

Beneath The Height Of Land

Beyond the windblown Height of Land
An equally windblown town
Off Route 17 running north to Quebec
Reached by rutted road
Neglected by county and state
The town has no name on a map
The few score of inhabitants call it Dogtown
There are no dogs
Nor knowledge of dogs
Under the Height of Land___

The town more a clearing
Worn weary by long and harsh winters The houses and shops and church bear witness
To the cold, snow, ice, sleet, slush, and blizzards
There is no global warming here
There is no summer
Under the Height of Land__

This is the true North
Beyond stretches the Deep North
To the Arctic
Only two seasons
The season of preparing for wintah and Wintah__

The towns people, young and old, walk like the dead
They are not dead
They live
Sad, frightened, unattached to the modern world
No cable TV
No cell phones
No Internet.
They are where they are
Dogtown
Surrounded by swamps
Under the Height of Land__

A battered Ford pick-up creeps along the rutted street
A young man behind the wheel
He parks before the church
He gets out of the car
A letter in his hand__

An old man rakes the church lawn
The young man lifts the letter
Written by a beloved grandmother
He reads the name
Out loud__
His aunt
Met once
Twenty years ago
At her brother's funeral
Outside Portland
On Falmouth Foresides
On the harbor
Far from the Height of Land____

White blonde hair, translucent skin, thin as a corpse
Moving like a goddess reincarnated from the grave
Her finger touched his face
Fingers colder than ice.
Her silver blue eyes on Portland
Like it had once belonged to her__

No smell of the sea
In Dogtown
Surrounded by the vapor of swamps
The young man says his aunt's name
Elyssas Commons
The man points to a house
Across the dirt road
A big house
Desperate for paint
The lawn a jungle
A Benz rusting on its axles
Its last ride
A long time ago__

The old man returns to raking
The young man walks to the porch
The weight of his foot
Answered by a creak
The outer walls
Caked with ashen dust
Unsullied by wind or rain or sleet
No one has been here in a long time.
A knock on the door
Nothing
He calls her name__

Elyssas__

Whispers of footsteps
The door opens
Her aunt smiles with yellowed teeth
Her gossamer gown reveals magic
She has not aged a day
She
Maybe a child
Maybe a crone
A beckoning finger
Skin and bone___

He steps inside
The house a mausoleum
Her bare feet
Pad on dust turned to powder.
The veil hides nothing
Skin white as Virgin vanilla ice cream
High hipbones

A concave belly
A protruding pelvis rod
Pancake breasts
Stiff cigartip nipples
His aunt a wraith
Skin and bones
Driven by
Desire of the wanton__

"Where's your husband?"
"Dead," his aunt whispered in the voice of a forgotten movie star. "Does it matter?"
"No."
She takes his hand
Leads him upstairs
There are no lights
More and more shadows
They are both alive
Also both ghosts__

Inside a bedroom
He hands her the letter
She puts it on a table
Next to a bed
Sheets smell of dead flowers and her flesh of the grave
Earthy.
His aunt parts her gown
His hand pressed against her groin
Wet
Her gash
Fevered
Unlike her cool skin
She lies back
Sighs
Legs apart
He
Enters
Her
She take him
Lost
Lost
Lost
Thrust into his aunt
His mother's sister.
Again
Again
Again
No words
Grunts and groans
Finish with a gasp
Again
Again
Again
Her bones creak with need
More
More
More
Under the Height of Land____

Small people bring food
Wine
Water
They wordlessly worship her
The young man only fucks her
More
More
More
He sleeps
She never
His body surrendered to hers
Day
Night
Day Night
Fucking
Naked
Always
His skin
Raw
Tattered by her nails
There is no nos.
She a demon
He a willing victim
Lust savage godless lust
Elyssas adn he her slave
His mistress
Under the Height of Land__

On the third midnight
He wakes to chanting
Then a scream
Firelight in the window
Red flames flickers through the cracked walls He crosses the room__

Outside
Elyssas
Naked
Dancing around a blaze
With the dwarves
Naked With her husband
Naked
Not dead
Not alive
Like Elyssas___

No desire to run
He is one of them
Them
Sharing the same wicked blood.

His grandother's letter untouched on the floor.

Later
Elyssas lifts her head
Semen dripping from her lips.
A knife gleams in the candlelight
The blade traces runes on his skin
She wants him to cry
To feel his pain
To bury him under surrender
The point cuts deep
He does not cry
He does not surrender
He is he
No longer belonging to she

A right to her head
Elyssas topples from the bed
Knife on the floor
Grabs his clothes and the letter.
He does not run
Not from her__

From the house
Across the tortured garden
Past the fire
The dwarves
His uncle
To the pick-up
Naked

The F 150 starts
His foot revs the V6
His eyes on the second floor
Elyssas at the window
With with her husband
Wraiths
His blood
The dwarves grab at the door.
Drive
The wheels thump over small bodies
He'll have to wash the pick up later__

At Route 17
The young man opens the letter
One word
Shaky script
'Family'__

Over his shoulder.
Only darkness
No one in the rearview mirror.
Only darkness.
His foot stamps on the gas.
Away from the Height of Land And Elyssas
And family
No one waits at his destination
New York
And that's a good thing
Sometimes.
Having no one is a good thing
Especially under the Height of Land__

Explorer Club 9/16/2025 The Trophy Room

At the Explorer Club amidst the trophies. Other than killing millions of insects throughout my life I've only attempted slain one other creature. A seagull at age seven at the end of McKinley Road, Falmouth Foresides. 1959. With my good friend Chaney Noyes. We had taken darts from his house and walked to the bluff overlooking the lowtide mudflats of Portland Harbor. Back then there was a dock for the local fishermen. Seagulls harried the sterns seeking fish. I threw a dart at one. It struck it in the wing. It fluttered to the water or continued to fly away. I never tried tokill anything again, except for cockroaches and mosquitoes.

My Father, My Best Friend

My father, Frank A Smith II came from Maine. His mother and father met during WWI.

Edith Hamlin had been a nurse with Royal Canadian Medical Expedition.

My grandmother had been trying to make a troopship to France. The gangway was being pulled and a man extended his hand to haul her aboard. That man was my grandfather, Frank A Smith I, who had been serving with the RCMEF since 1915.

Both of them witnessed the horrors of trench warfare.

Their pacifism hadn't prevented my father from joining the US Army Air Force in 1942.

His war was testing B25s over Kentucky. The casualty rate was 25%, but he survived those odds to marry my mother, who he had met in Boston. The Irish girl said he wasn't his type, until she saw his convertible.

They married and started having kids.

Four was not enough.

Neither was five.

They stopped at six.

We were a happy family living on the South Shore of Boston. My father worked as an electrical engineer for the phone company. His two loves were his family and my mother.

'Angie' liked to wear her hair in a bouffant.

Me too.

Sadly in 1996 my mother passed a year after my younger brother Michael.

My father and I took trips. He loved traveling.

To Ballyconeeley in Ireland.

France.

Northern Quebec.

Thailand.

The West.

In 2008 he was diagnosed with Alzheimers.

He forgot us one by one.

I was the last, even though I only saw twice a month.

"Why can you remember me?"

"Because you still like you, whoever you are."

All his friends were gone.

As much as he loved his grandchildren, he was ready to go.

'Angie' and Michael were waiting for him.

I wasn't ready to join them.

My family is in Thailand.

And anytime I go there, so does Poo Frank.

He will live in my heart forever.

For one simply reason.

Poo Frank is my best friend.

Wintah Maine 1959

Walking on a back road
From school
No sign of the sun
Leaden clouds overhead
Fields frozen by deep snow.
A northerly wind from Montreal
A long slog home___
Grey slush underfoot
The wet seeping
Through boots
Cold wet feets
Another mile to Grandmother’s house
Where waits
A warm pot belly stove
Dreaming
Pull off boots
Peel off soxes
Stick frozen toes
Under the heat

Aaah

A cup of tea With milk and sugar

Aaah

No more the cold
Grandmother’s house
Only another half-mile
To go
Till
Grandmother’s house

Spring
Another four months away.
Till then
Counting the days.
To April
Flowers
And no snow.

Aaaah

I spent my early childhood on Falmouth Foresides, Maine, sledding winters on Blackstrap Hill. It was over 400 feet high. There were really winters then, still are in Fort Kent. There are two season in Maine. The season of good sledding and the season of bad sledding. - Doctor Frank A Smith, who rode a sled on his visits around Gorham, Maine, when wintah was truly wintah.

Loneliness On The Day Of Love

The snow fell with silence
The clots of flakes feathered the sidewalks
Snow shovels scrapped on the concrete
I threw out no salt___

Drifts collected by the bottom of brownstones
No one came to shovel away the floes
That was an old man's job
Mine___

Snow loves the cold
I have good gear against winter
I wish I had a warm body waiting for me
Sadly my wife awaits around the world__

Thailand
Sriracha
Hot
No snow. but the shops in Sri Racha sell snow beer
The bottles covered with frost
Even at dawn___

It's Valentine Day 2021.
I stayed home without a love in sight.
A lone man content to hold hands with a glass of wine, but
I will be complete Planes will fly again
Soon I will be with my families
One day even stranded sailors will find a ship home
It is our calling___

BLESS ME FATHER

My First Holy Communion and Confirmation of Faith to the Catholic Church took place at a church in Maine in 1960. My mother dressed me in white to symbolize the purity of my soul, although she had me wear a red jacket with a black velvet lapel. I had a fight with my best friend Chaney after the rites.

Not really a fight, but I must have said or done something bad, because I remember his crying and my mother telling me to apologize.

Afterwards I confessed this sin confessed to the parish priest.

"I had a fight with my best friend."

"That falls under the THOU SHALT NOT KILL COMMANDMENT." Father Murray had heard worst. "Say one Hail Mary and one Our Father."

"That's all."

"It's not like you killed anyone."

I came out of the confessional and said the two prayers.

"What was your penance?" Chaney asked, as we walked home to Falmouth Foresides.

"One Hail Mary and one Our Father"

"Sounds like you got off light," Chaney said on the church steps.

"I'm sorry." I couldn't say it enough to him.

New England Tel & Tel was transferring my father to Boston at the end of the school year. Next year I would be attending a Catholic school.

"Forget about it." Chaney undid his tie.

I did the same.

We were best friends.

A month after my family moved to the South Shore of Boston Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake.

I stopped believing in God, but couldn't tell that to my parents or nuns without earning the wrath of the believers. At school I studied the Baltimore Catechism and at church I served as an altar boy with a family friend, Ray Howell. Latin was our first foreign language. We went to confession together.

"Bless me father for I have sinned." My sins were always the same.

Disobeying my parents and taking the Lord's name in vain.

The penance was always the same too.

"Five Hail Marys and one Our Father."

"What about you?" I asked Ray.

"I made up things." He was a good boy.

"Why?" I was eleven.

"Because the pastor can't believe that I am not without sin." Ray was ten years old.

"And are you?" My repertoire of swear words was very small.

"I think so."

"Me too." I could not recollect Ray ever breaking a Commandment.

By freshman year in high school I had violated eight of them.

Murder and adultery were out of my league, but one of my transgressions was stealing wine from the sacristy. It was sweet. Two slugs gave a good kick. Ray never drank any.

My last time inside a confessional must have on the other side of 1970, although Ray Howell became a priest out of high school and last summer at a family barbecue in Boston the monsignor asked me, "When was your last confession?"

"Long time ago." My sister and her friends were in the pool.

"You're still a non-believer?" Ray was wearing the black.

"Yes." I was in denim shorts and a Red Sox shirt.

He frowned and filled our glasses of wine.

"Think of all your sins."

"That wouldn't be easy." I had done worst than disobeying my parents and taking the Lord's name in vain in the last court decades.

"Think hard."

"Yes, Father." I watched my younger brother cannonball into the pool. His splash created a tsunami.

I was seven years old again.

"Are you sorry?" Ray was serious.

"Yes, Father." I truly was sorry for most everything, although not cursing at New York Rangers fans or not believing in God.

"Then you are forgiven."

"What about the Hail Marys and Our Fathers?"

"I think we said enough penance in our childhood. Now drink up. In vino veritas."

In wine there was truth and Ray Howell was a priest for my own heathen heart.

"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximus culpa." The Latin Mass.

I am truly most sorry and I raised my glass. We drank together and he made the Sign of the Cross.

Lightning struck neither of us dead and we clinked glasses.

I hadn't been so blessed in a long time, but then a wordless confession at a BBQ suited me much better than a dark closet in a church.

In wine there was always truth.

HEAVY METAL ACCORDION by Peter Nolan Smith

Every boy has a best friend in his youth.

In 1959 I was lucky enough to have two; my older brother Frunk and a neighbor.

Chaney and I attended the same kindergarten class at Pinewood Elementary in Falmouth Maine and we did almost everything together boys were supposed to do that far north.

In the winter we played hockey in the small backyard rink my father built from 2 by 10s and also sledded down a gully to a tidal ice pool. During the summer we swam in the shallow waters beyond the marsh grass and bicycled to the forbidden bridge crossing the salt flats to Macklowe Island.

That August in 1959 the two of us crawled under the fence into a strawberry field and ate ripening fruit on our backs. The farmer caught us and my father paid him for four quarts. They were worth his angry words and ten whacks of the wooden spoon from my mother.

Partners in crime, but Cheney and I were in love with the same girl. Kathy Burns was sweet on Chaney. He played the accordion. I had no musical skills, even though my mother was famed for a voice capable of silencing the Portland Cathedral choir.

Chaney was a protege on the squeezebox. He mastered SINK THE BISMARCK and DAVY CROCKETT as well as the standard songs learned from his music teacher; YELLOW BIRD and MACK THE KNIFE. I envied his virtuosity as well as Kathy's admiration of his talent.

That autumn our brunette schoolmate held a birthday party to which I was not invited. Chaney brought me a piece of chocolate cake and told me how he had kissed Cathy in her basement. The cake tasted like chalk, but I congratulated Chaney's success. We were best friends.

Thw next summer my family moved south from Maine to a suburb south of Boston. Chaney and I vowed never to go swimming, unless we were together. His parents had a place on Lake Sebago and my grandmother's cabin was on nearby Watchic Pond.

"Wait for me."

"You and me only swimming together."

"And take care of Kathy Burns."

"I will, because one day I'm going to marry her."

I bid him good-bye and my father drove us south in our Ford station wagon. It had wood paneling and he liked to go fast.

That summer was warm in New England and my parents took us to Nantasket Beach for Memorial Weekend. My mother considered the wide strand of sand to be the best beach in the world and she had been to Bermuda for her honeymoon. My brothers and sisters ran in the eddies of the surf. My father swam past the waves. i sat on the blanket and my mother asked, "Why aren't you in the water?"

"Because I told Chaney I wouldn't go swimming without him.

"We won't be in Maine for another two weeks."

"I can wait."

"Seems a waste." She reached out her hand. "Come with me."

I was a good boy and obeyed my mother.

The Atlantic was cold, but not to the young.

Upon our return to our suburban development my father hosed off the sand and salt off his boys outside, while my mother showered my two younger sisters inside. We dried off in the warm summer sun.

The phone rang in the living room. My mother answered it and came out a minute later with wet hair.

"Go sit in the car."

"What I do wrong?"

"Nothing. Just do as I say." She was on the verge of tears.

"Yes, ma'am." I went to the station wagon and sat in the front.

To the West the setting sun shadowed the silhouette of Great Blue Hill.

Several minutes passed before my mother came to the car. She leaned on the open window with a pained weariness and said, "Chaney drowned this afternoon."

"Drowned how?"I already knew how.

"In Sebago Lake. Everyone had gone waterskiing and left him with his grandmother. He swam out too deep and struggled in the water. The grandmother couldn't swim and he drowned. Say a prayer for him."

"What time?"

"I don't know. This afternoon."

My mother walked back into our house.

I sat in the car and looked at the sky seeing only the sky.

Chaney had broken our vow, as had I at Nantasket Beach.

One of us paid the price.

Chaney.

Not me.

Two weeks later my family headed north for a vacation on Watchic Pond.

My father drove first at Falmouth Foresides. New people were living in our old house. We stopped at the Noyes. I hung out with his brothers. None of us spoke of Chaney. As we prepared to leave, I saw Cathy Burns across the street. i walked up to her and she said, "I know what you did and so did Chaney."

"I swan."

"You were wrong."

"I was. I miss him."

"Me too. Chaney could play accordion."

Yes, he could."

My father hour later I was swimming in the tannin-tainted waters of Watchic Pond. It was wide enough, but short by a mile to make a lake.

That night my parents sat around the campfire and my mother sang 'YELLOW BIRD'

I wished Cheny was there to play accordion.and since that sad day every time I see an accordion I think of Chaney and any time I see a street accordionist I ask them to play SINK THE BISMARCK. None of them know the Johnny Horton tune and I request IN-A-GADDA-DA-VITA.

None of the accordion players can play that 60s hit either, however I'm sure that Chaney would have liked Iron Butterfly.

Cathy Burns too.

After all we were all best friends.

To hear Rene Sevieri's cover of IN A GADDA DA VIDA, please go to the following URL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugt9pZVkgtg

The Coast of Maine - Cape Porpoise - 2021

No matter what things don't change fast on Cape Porpoise___

A Long Conversation Part II Later August 14

l you can't circumnavigate you go up that Cove to the east of Harpswell towards then you're going up towards your Adult point and also what's this one up here got it straight okay so you see you send you this way see Indian Point Forest Point that's the top of hartswell public Access camping like jewels yeah there's one down here that Malaga Island Preserve i mean it's just so much there and I mean i mean there's so many of the thousands of violence if I mean Yamato what about maybe that's about a mile long with it great to be little to be yeah I mean that's hot I mean I mean the boss what you have to in order to go up a river you have to pay for access so wait a second so if you're going up does that cover all rivers or for your boat registration to be able to go launch it at Sebago if you want even if you bugging use it out here so if you're using it in the on the ocean on Casco Bay estuaries as well so like if you if you're if you're going around Harwell that mean that's basically the ocean really means yeah because like a new Kennebunk river is just goes right to the the bay but the thing is that a lot of these you know it's like fingers coming down there's no crossage points like if you went up a river for three four miles is no there's no Portage at all pretty that's that's as heavy as going 10-15 miles offshore it's it's not me have you ever been up near Deer Island all that i had a couple guys but you're not thinking about going are you thinking about going all the way up right you're basically at that point you're going to go down and then from anything from Beyond that you're once you get beyond what do you call it once you get behind once you reach small point if it's so it's open ocean then you got a hole it opens up a whole others some of those that's one of the places I really wanted to I want to find this this they break it up until like sections of the coast what they and then that it goes here and there's a couple islands that one of them is like a 250 acre or little blacks i mean it's hundreds of ions out there but once once he gets back mohegan's about the last one there no this mechanicus as well i had a friend from Columbia Falls and she said it was the last place God created it was so far you've got the Gold Coast and like it's like mini Oregon and then you got and then you got another f****** power until you get to Eastport s*** so it's like when so at that point you're in Canada but well either in Canada or she go up to four Kent blown out it's like it's like New England Montana stops in his people f****** so rude and there's a little bit of that here but like I told her I'm like honestly like 14k right now it's what but I mean if you do to go I mean I've driven up to up into the the North Shore of the st Lawrence you know up to Bay Bay car mall I didn't go any further cuz the mosquitoes were so bad yeah one one over to gaspay i've done driven out from New York at the upstate to the Upper Peninsula Upper Michigan and then back across Sault Ste Marie and then down through the Georgian Bay across to Niagara Falls and back and I've done I've done from Boston to Quebec all the way up to Bay Cormier and man that's as far as you can f****** go really we can get a store obsessed with getting the better yeah

my father and I wanted to drive all the way up to kagosha but there's just the mosquitoes are just like on it's like it's like 200 like 300 miles beyond the bay Como so we just crossed the the River St Lawrence and went over to gas Bay I mean it was like a like it was a lot of f****** driving it was it was like 3,000 miles okay I always they don't show him off someone to f*** where the f*** it go there's a lake that was was made by a glacier hit i mean a meteor hit you know north north of there probably be 150 miles anyway what do you call cuz you can do it drive up to i know you can do this I'm looking I'm just looking seeing the map i thought you could drive up to hudson Bay I thought you could drive up to i'm looking I don't see any roads up to you participle the last one the last road is canopia Pascal way up North but I thought you could drive up to there's a place up there at 10:00 i think it's vanished i thought you could drive it to Fort Albany for you to put me as your plus one actually pretty people pretty cool no no they love you because you've been out in the city you know they like that s*** i mean I like how you found a whale skull but I mean goes up there I mean it's i mean Google I mean I go on Google Maps and I just look at s*** and say like i'd love to have taken that I mean I would I wanted to drive all the way from the St Lawrence to Newfoundland i mean there's nothing on that road it's I think it's just my father went up to Newfoundland has she been and then when they played the teams from the Newfoundland colleges he's like they were f****** Vikings like newfies melissa I'm going to go do some things for my wife as always somehow I'm managing my money but you know August so but and everybody is you know don't don't get married don't have kids you know the longer you stay away from fishing the better the longer you stay from out of fishing but maybe in September you and I can do a small road trip up I will come up and you know we'll do we'll just go camp because it's staying in hotels too expensive i mean you used it wouldn't have used real estate hotel for 50 bucks it was fine there's no $50 hotels anymore yeah I mean I was I was coming down from the cape and I figured I'll get a s***** hotel and this is a while ago this is like pre-cover yeah hotels with 139 each and every one of them for crap like the internet so that the hotel the hotel probably makes $89 or $59 and they just charge everything the same it's f****** brutal and but I think we'll camp out I don't have any it's a good weather I don't mind just you know sleeping underneath the Stars and you know I wouldn't mind even going to like in September do you think the weather is too good is to switchy then to take a little boat trip okay okay you know and I might bring my my wet gear is not so good but you know okay I'm looking forward to it okay i'll talk to them bye hello this is Mitch or Dr Sharon Mitchell recently the message and I'll get back to you shortly thank you I'm going to work on separating our conversation tomorrow