Gloucester Frame Shop

126 East Main Street

By: Charles Giuliano - Sep 03, 2016

Gloucester Frame Shop

Gulls squawked above
Small fenced
Graveled garden
Some plants
Starved for attention
Scrawny potted bamboo
No pandas in sight
Breakfast al fresco
Last rays of summer
Reading poetry
Week to work and dream
Gloucester of
My youth
Irish ancestors
Nearby in Rockport
Deep in blood
Like yours
Olson and Ferrini
Toilers of the
Briny deep
Port from which
Few boats now
Work Grand Banks
Stripped clean
Factory ships
Feeding the world
While Gloucester
Starves and rots
Docks crumble by harbor
Glommed up by developers
What Olson railed
Against in the
GD Times
God damn them all
The rich pay to play
Flaying backs of fishermen
No more lumpers
Emptying the hold
Spending their pay
End of the day
Crow's Nest
Saloons never entered
Summering in
Posh Annisquam
Lace curtain
As they say
Reading brawny books
Lining single room
Where writers gather
Shaded by giants
With huge boots
Wading in muck
Fish guts
Fueling their words

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Reader Comments

"Charles... You have doubled down. Perhaps environment is the thing. If clothes can make the man, What can elicit a poem's breadth, Plumbing the depth of the syllabic sea, A poet emerges, Dripping diphthongs, A creamy vision, More than enough to go around. Once grounded in gonzo, The poet practices in the sanctuary, Dreaming so that none shall go hungry. Bravo!"

Posted By: Benno on 09-03-2016, 11:47 pm
"Addendum. So interesting did I find it, your new work, and so in need am I for inspiration of the coast and sea, that Wilma and I booked a room on Cape Ann and will be there this week. We may, at the proper time, introduce ourselves as friends of the recent poet in residence. We'll be in Rockport, actually, but of course will tour the Cape and Gloucester. I second Pip's comment."

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 09-03-2016, 10:56 pm
"In good, deep water."

Posted By: Celia Thaxter on 09-03-2016, 09:11 pm
"I am forwarding your poem/post to Sebastian Junger, who spent time in the Crow’s Nest. Felt feeling in this poem, like in Ptown, fishing fading"

Posted By: Chris Busa on 09-03-2016, 07:50 pm
"This has a different flavor - less fried clams more bouillabaisse. JK - really it feels different - deeper and flowing into and out of ideas like the tide. Something has washed over you this week."

Posted By: Pip on 09-03-2016, 07:48 pm
"No room for the old crafts of survival. Now amenities. Like the elegant Roman temples built on Iron Age vestiges. No room for the old gods of the sea!"

Posted By: Jane Hudson on 09-03-2016, 07:19 pm
"I liked this work, a very fine rumination, with history, contrast, and a moral center, plus, terrific ending. Also, I think, it strikes a new note by and from the poet, less gonzo. It feels nevertheless muscular."

Posted By: Stephen Rifkin on 09-03-2016, 04:29 pm
"has smell of the sea."

Posted By: Arthur Yanoff on 09-03-2016, 04:12 pm
"bravo.I spent last week in the harbor.Building facilities at the harbor loop for the upscale mariners so they can shower.further in the wake the world of Blackburn and Slocum."

Posted By: Martin G Mugar on 09-03-2016, 04:04 pm