Nick Bruno


Place du Canada

What might this town square have looked like
in another era -- when this bench was not here;
its green slats supporting the weight of a culture
that we tried to bring with us, when we docked
at Pier 21, but could not fit in our suitcases
without handles. Now I sit in the mapled shade
and consider. Where would we have put it?
The plaque below the statuary is a reminder
that the Fathers of Confederation had fought
for the sole possession of this land. When
Montreal fell during a revolutionary war,
Quebec's allegiances were for the taking,
but would not become another Cajun state -
the francophone roots showing through
the bleached bones of an English presence.
Our flag flutters above the tips of trees,
the red and white -- minus the blue.

-previously published in Adirondack Review


Malinconia

I recognize the scar at the corner
of his right eye and recall how my foot
hit the spokes on the front wheel of his Pegoretti
catapulted him onto an asphalt surface,
his broken glasses slicing into a younger skin.

Nothing else reminds me of the late
afternoons spent in his garage playing
with a model racecar circuit built
from pressed wood and plaster of Paris:
hills and faux forests surrounding its pit stops.

His flaxen hair, all but gone, I catch
his silhouette against the light
of a vestibule lamp. The filaments
of hair forming an aura about his head.
His left eye is hardly blinking. An asymmetrical

smile: the mouth’s left corner sags
below the right. The left arm useless,
no longer able to fashion or stroke
the classical guitars he has called his own.
Behind him Segovia’s strumming of Villa-Lobos.

-previously published in Valparaiso Poetry Review


Meltdown

He stepped past the police cordon,
put on the mandatory surgical gloves,
pulled out his notepad and pen
and considered why,
they had asked a poet
to visit the scene of a crime.

The force of the explosion had strewn
about human parts. The cadaver's pride
was on the commode. His vanity
hung by the mirror. The libido sat
exposed on the loveseat. Gobbets of guilt,
were hidden in denial behind the door.

But most telling, his stupidity
was splattered on the wall
behind the writing desk in particles
of dura mater and blood. And there
in front of the corpse was the culprit:
a journal of love poems in the victim's handwriting.

-poem first published in The Journal Poor Mojo Almanac


Old Keyboards

My daughter likes to tie old keyboards
to my chair, as though to tether
the words to their source. They orbit
my sphere where tropes unite.
The cables interconnect my thoughts
to the hub from which she suspects all
must emanate and that I am the harbinger
of the - Truth is - she is my compass.


Nightscape

Time meanders the nightscape
and picks off dreams as he whistles
an inexorable tune. He stares at me,
smokes cigarillos, kicks feet up
on an ottoman and smirks.
I look down to see my splayed and broken
feet embedded in the hardwood floors.
They bleed onto the surface, that absorbs
the crimson. My guest shakes his head,
gets up with a creak and resumes his song.

-both poems previously published in Unlikely Stories