Front Street 1918

Women - complained about the
cold - people crammed inside
one room, sleeping on floors
within tenements, or two room
flats; on Front Street.

But this - is America
where dreams come true.

Women - complained about the
noise outside - in the middle
of the night. Men gathering
outside, in the middle of the
night - around a pail of fire;
like bums.

No one listened to the women.

Men gathering inside of of
saloons, in the back room
drinking home made wine, playing
craps, and smoking old stogies.

Women complaining when they
visited the butchers shop -
about the price of meat, and
eggs costing more, brown sugar
instead of white.

No one listened. Women were
immigrants, can't write, or
read. . .

Men complained those who
delivered coal - then the
strike began and schools closed,
theaters - and half the workers
at the plant, out of work from
a lack of heat.

No one listened to the men.

Near the Mohawk River streets
would flood after a hard rain,
or thawing of winter, and boats
were rowed up and down the street
collecting victims from a second
floor.

Immigrants gathered where customs
were like home, a mountain village
against open fields of wheat: women
shopped, bargained for the best
price as pushcarts rolled through
village streets. But women wore
a golden cross attached to their
sweater - it was a Sicilian way.

Men never noticed.

Men never noticed.

In 1917 war injured dreams of
immigrants, no more peaceful streets,
everyone was touched - even all
the children - when would it end?

On Front Street, near the Locomotive
Plant, and the big plant - known
to light the world, it was the
industrial revolution - but war took
the men while women worked with
children at their side.

Women complained about the war.

Men came home in baskets. Immigrants
were clueless about their relatives
overseas.

No one listened.

War heroes returned, bringing some
kind of sickness, some kind of virus,
and the sickness crept into a town
taking more lives than war. . .

No one listened as men and women
ached with pain.

America - where people gather under
lamp posts in a winter storm, and
dreamed of a better life.

Remembering wheat fields in the mountains
and the owner of the land - you had to
listen - immigrants remember - they
understood.

Now another white carriage moved
slowly down a cobblestone street,
for every woman, man, and child to
see - inside, wrapped in white sheets
lay the dead, one on top of one.

And on the door of the dead a black
wreath hung, and a sign for those
sick inside, for others to keep away.

Men and women talked about that day
they cheered when paper boys ran up
and down a city street, yelling,
"The war is over, the war is over."
Church bells rang.

But no one knew another knew another
killer would be ravaging the streets.

Some one understood - long before
the illness struck - understood people
needed to compromise and provide health
and education.

But no one listened.

Not until war and sickness killed -
enough to compromise. No one had to
read or write - in plain sight was
all it took to know, and understand.


Nancy Duci Denofio
copyright all rights reserved

SELLING PROGRAMS -
SARATOGA RACE TRACK
1936


Your bike built like our
Studebaker, and that
was in 1936 –

You and your friend's rode
twenty eight miles through
woods, twisting roads
without lights, to camp out
at Saratoga Lake. . .
You and your friends sold
programs at the track.

You told me – men stood on
stools behind a box - yelled
odds – before each race, and
how fast they changed...
You told me – you made ten
cents on every program.
Was it worth the ride?

You slept in a forest
beneath tall pines on a cool
Saratoga night – near the
old casino where gangsters
played.

One night hard rain, storms -
came fast, and a policeman
asked, “Do you want a
place to sleep - tonight?”

You and your friends loaded
up those heavy bikes and took
the ride down Broadway.

You and your friend's were
housed inside a jail, on beds
where criminals slept.

You and your friend's were
safe one night in the middle
of an August storm.

When morning came the smell
of bacon frying - eggs, and
toast - you all watched the
guards pass and thought they
would bring you food.

“Do we get breakfast too?”
I know you had to smile,
and probably nudged your
friend's.

“Nope,” A policeman said,
“You and your friend's
were only overnight guests."

So they let you out, and
gave you back those old
bikes, built in 1936.

You and your friend's rode
off to the track. You rode
down Lake Avenue and took a
right on Regent, and another
left on Union Avenue to the
gate. You all strapped bikes
to pine trees, and began
yelling, “Programs, get
your programs here - ten cents.”

You told me many things but
I often wondered if Grandmother
knew what type of job you had
in 1936?

Nancy Duci Denofio
copyright all rights reserved

Sesquicentennial
Schenectady NY

So - what if Mama wanted
me to run across vacant land
within the gates of
Union College…

Wearing some one hundred
and fifty year old dress – she
made last month…

So - what if I choose the brief
freedom of the shore – grit
between my toes –
sunburned – tired – wanting
more…

Warned if I took the family
trip – I’d be out of talking
on a stage… but still
could wear the old – new
dress…

So - with a bonnet on
my head, and a red and white
checkered dress – I ran across
the vacant land, while fire
works filled the sky…

So - I wondered if women
one hundred and fifty years
ago, wearing bonnets and
long dresses – did they too
have sun burn cheeks?

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

BRANDYWINE DINER 1963 Retake from the 50's



Neon lights flash
off and on
creating color on pure
white skin.

Bob Dylan PLAYING ON the
Jute box, inside a
small – world - of a diner…

Out side ears are as deaf as the
man laying on his horn,
no one moves…

“The Times They Are A Chang’in.”

A finger feels a slit in red upholstery
“Imagine” the person who carried the knife.

It’s three o`clock
on a Sunday morning.
a curtain of smoke creates a crown
above the head of a girl buried into the
armpit of a long haired hippie.

A man, wearing
black leather
boots, fringe hanging
from the bottom of his jacket,
from his sleeve,

Entered through the front
door - held open with a rock -
deathly hot…

He grabs the waitress
motioning - where he will sit,
She watches as he thrusts
his body forward,
struts past the girl smoking
while hugging an armpit, chewing
a wad of gum.
She looks up, her face tells him -
she is upset, interrupting Bob Dylan

He winks at another girl, one holding
the wrong side of her cup, he takes a deep breath
And the girl with her drags on her cigarette.

Another drag, and follows the man with
inviting eyes.

He strips his jacket, hangs it
inside-out above his head on a metal

hook. Slips easily into the booth
and restlessly taps the formica table.

Protruding from his leather jacket, a handle of
a knife.

Fingers caress the slit, deeper now.

Neon lights of red splash color on the
table-top.
The woman with her slinky walk slides gently
into the booth, she offers him a salem.
He reaches for his jacket pulling out a
Match.

The folk song "Jesse" blares from the
jute box.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

Brandy Wine Diner 1959

It's three o'clock
on a Sunday morning,
a grey curtain of smoke
surrounds you - at Brandy
wine Diner.

Two men share a booth,
both sip coffee from small
white cups - their finger’s
play with white bags of
sugar.

Across from them a young
girl stares, into her
personal fog. . . she holds
the wrong side of her cup -

she crushes one cigarette,
lights another - fog thickens.

A man - hung-over, a black and
white counter -leans on his arm’s,
his clothes soiled by coffee
spilled. . .
He peeks between his finger’s
glares into a mirror hung,
below a stack of Rice Krispies,
Corn Flakes, Shredded Wheat.
A face of a stranger.

A gust of wind pushes
the glass door, open . . .
blinded by iridescent green.
Iridescent green - opens
eyes of the man leaning -
on the counter…
shimmering green catches
the attention of the man
reading the paper…
startles the girl smoking her
third cigarette.

A patron struts past
the counter, all eyes stare;
she flops into a booth in
a corner, next to a man wearing
a black leather jacket
Hells Angels - scrolled on his back…

I reach, poke my finger into a
slit in the red upholstery,
picturing the person who
held the knife.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all work copyrighted

Fireside

Knees bend
close to ground –
mother’s sweater resting
on my back, sweeping
near the sand.

Toes - frozen,
extend beyond dusty
sneakers.
Heartless - a forest in
night.
A sun vanishes,
and bodies shake while
shivers crawl beneath
skin. . .

Now – we stand
close to a source of
light -
growing brighter.

A fireside - smell kindling
wood - faces turn red as heat
rises, when tiny hands
clutch a tiny – sturdy
twig…

Waiting. . .
for my - turn – left to right
anxious – I want my turn. . .
A plastic bag is passed
around the circle of
light –

Two fluffy marshmallows
placed on a twig –
promptly toasting – eating,
and observing –
what is left inside the bag –
counting to myself.

Nancy Duci Denofio – copywrited

Congress Park
Saratoga Springs
NY 1800’s

come, smile
look at me
you, with a parasol
held high above
your head -
such - white skin…

get closer,
no curves in
your spine, or
elsewhere on
your - person…
you,

sitting so straight
occupying wooden
chairs - scattered
along a path,
chairs of spindle…
match your back.

cross over,
I’m relaxing,
with my leg’s
crossed, back –
straight…
staring at you
while I suck my
pipe.

women…
all of you, carry
parasols – sexy
beautiful, but alone

Nancy Duci Denofio
copyrighted material

MY FATHER'S MORNING

Grandmother had to be
dancing upstairs in her
kitchen - her radio blaring.
When her friends arrived -
all talking half English -
And, my mother said,
"It's too much noise."
But, the noise never stopped.

Father, he invested in a
bigger radio - more noise,
unlike grandmother did
following the death of his
father - it was tradition
to remove all the tubes
from the big - radio in her
parlor - respect.
So father never listened
to the "War of Worlds."

The day father's father
died, it had to be the
worst day of his life. . .
His father laying in
the marriage bed, his head
resting on a pillow -
a pillow stitched with
grandmother's hands
"I Love You" in Italian.

My grandfather, his head
resting on the pillow
whispered to his son,
his last request. . .

"One more cup of water
before I die."

Grandmother paying the
milkman on the front
porch, and father ran
down the steps - he
had not shed a tear -
yet filled with fear. . .

Father grabbed his
mother's arm, pulled
her away - pulled her
up the front stairs
then to his father's
room.

Father's baby brother
sank to the floor -
near the stained
woodwork in the door
way of his father's
room, and his second
son stood holding
the empty cup of water.

Nancy Duci Denofio