The Blue Guys Attack
for my father, Giovanirro Emmanuelle Stanizzi (February 13, 1928 – August 31, 2011)
April 2011 – his 9th year battling Alzheimer’s

It was the last spring,
when I wondered if the crocus
turned your speech blue
or if it was the other way around,
the crocus glowing
because of what you said,
blue against the newly turned dirt?

Either way 
you said there were armies
of blue guys in the woods
disguising themselves
in unbelievable ways,
hiding behind trees,
gathering their anger,
preparing to descend on us
from all sides
boom!  boom!  boom!

You said
Listen to me
we gotta get a couple guys
take these fuckers out
before they hit us
‘cause they’re coming
you better believe that.
Matter of fact
they’re here now.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
There’s one right there.

And you rose stealthily
to sneak up on a flower,
motioning  me away
with your hand.
Stay back!
you whispered
protecting your son,
He’s right there,
and you closed in 
on the blue crocus
wild and emerging,
to get it
before it got us, 
all of us.





No More Trouble
Cuban Missile Crisis — October 12, 1962 - October 28, 1962


It must be that it was intuition
fueled by overheard conversations that 
the adults around me were having, their 
faces shaded by worry in their eyes,
because I wouldn’t know until later
the things they were trying to hide from me — 
the 43 seconds until the end,
the uranium bullet, the vapors
of people that left shadows, the pressure,
the tsunami of smoke, the wind that raged
a thousand miles per hour, the heat of
7000 degrees, the vanishing 
of tens of thousands in that instant wrath — 
vague debris that razed me each night with fear.





I Know
Robert Kennedy — November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968

I was less than one year out of high school,
June 6, 1968, The Royal
Typewriter Factory, in the graveyard 
shift, 11 p.m. until 7
in the morning, on the production line,
screwdriver and ball peen hammer to work
and adjust the carriage until it ran
smooth from left to right in the sepia
light on the line, benches and tables and 
pulleys and a factory din that wouldn’t 
let you speak, and herds of men washing their
hands around a trough, getting set to leave
for home an hour after sunrise, the
news that morning that it happened again.



"The Blue Guys Attack" is from a manuscript in progress called Sundowning.  The two sonnets are from another manuscript in progress called Hallelujah Time – Volume II.