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One of our regular readers, writer and poet Jacquelyn Malone, shows up today as a contributor. Jackie is living in Lowell for the second time around; she was here during the high-tech boom of the late ’70s and into the ’80s. I was introduced to her work in the ’80s when I learned that she had been awarded a prestigious writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. To my knowledge, she is the only Lowell resident who has ever received one of these very competitive fellowships. Her work has been published widely. We’re happy that she’s back in the community, enjoying the “New Lowell.”–PM

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Body Heat

The Farm Beneath the Sand is called the Viking Pompeii.

                   —a New York Times article

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The climate hardened, and the Norse left

the forty rooms where, under one roof, the last

residue huddled — to conserve body heat. Then

for centuries the Farm Beneath the Sand lay buried

in a river of glacial grit.

                                    All waters run to Lethe,

the great stream that takes in farms, hopes, genes

in the same bed. Civilizations swirl in its eddies,

going — in the water’s turns — from conqueror to conquered

before they sink amid clay pots, a shred of cloth, the stone

marker no one left can read, animal bones, body lice — all

going down like the rumored feats of dragon prows

that cut the Arctic seas, like Atlantis, the Easter gods,

or the Library of Alexandria — memory of mankind — going

under, washed as clean of human dreams as time, as sand.

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—Jacquelyn Malone (c) 2010

Writing about the upcoming Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence sent me to the vault for this poem written in the late 1970s, when I first encountered the political puppeteers and bakers in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Coincidentally for our blog community here, this poem was selected by Tom Sexton (before I knew who Tom Sexton was) for publication in the Alaska Quarterly Review (Fall 1984), which was a big-deal academic journal appearance for me at 30 years old. Tom was poetry editor of the journal for many years. It was and still is an important literary magazine to be in because AQR is distributed to booksellers and newsstands nationwide. There’s a chance that your work will be read.—PM

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The Bread and Puppet Circus

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This is the Hay Bowl Tournament.

Noon—flea circus and fiddles, then suppertime hush in white pine woods.

Mute priests and man-ponies act out Bach spirit music.

The silence of chanters padding on rusty duff, their small bells the only sound.

Eyes drink the lovely robed choir: saints and magic deer.

Back to noon—The Bicentennial Circus pokes fun.

Tentless pirate horsemen dance for squares.

Witches curse war machines. Peace plays in the barn. Satire on the farm.

Uncle Sam as businessman, Father George in midget gear.

Power is slain while the weird horns parade.

Through the day—full of free sourdough rye, celebrants watch angels.

Angels of ecology, angels of trees, angels of Temptation.

Dreamscapes of Swan Lakes. Chilean folksongs.

Children’s puppet plays. Biblical charades.

Women gypsies, loose and longhaired, leap over bales.

Toward evening—cannon and lanterns and stars and banners in the arena.

Umbrellas sprout like mushrooms.

A Domestic Resurrection Pageant renews the Light.

Dragon-sized sheet worm enters from the east.

All day players: A man with gold curls tucked up in a tan burnoose.

Children draped in yellow linen and red sashes.

Denim ramblers eating vegetable sandwiches.

Fiddlers in frock coats and cowboy hats.

Craftsmen downing cider. Grandmothers playing guitars.

Night cut by cold rain. Red tongues snake toward drumbeats.

Shrieking Aztec birds hawk in over the rise.

Wide rigid wings slice rain. Chains of fire, a stream of torches,

Amid wild pipe and hubcap and brass cymbal and hunk metal clanking signal music.

A shaman stilt-man dripping with gold spangles thumps the earth like a drum.

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—Paul Marion (c) 1984

I wrote this poem in the mid-’70s, when I was trying to find my way down the writing path. I published it in my first pamphlet (chapbook) of poems. It’s raining tonight, but we’ve had some fine summer days and sundowns this season. This is typical early-stage writing that comes from wanting to put everything into words. I was big into color adjectives at this point. And there’s a tendency in this stage to seize the obviously dramatic subjects, like nature and love, and try to describe them your own way—to find a shred of freshness in the images and words that you choose. The challenge is to see the drama and beauty in places and experiences that don’t have drama and beauty written all over them already. Sometimes the subject is plain or ugly. That’s okay, too. I learned that as I worked at it. Yes, I had a Ford Pinto, a plain brown one that my folks bought new for me in 1972 when I started commuting to college. I think it cost about $1,900 new. I drove it all over New England and kept it for a long time. Think what you want about the Pinto, at least it wasn’t a Chevette, both of which made TIME’s list of the 50 worst cars of all time. My Pinto died when the engine caught fire on its last trip to the mechanic. They were notorious for exploding gas tanks because of the weak protection in the rear.—PM

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Down in August

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Into the Pinto to ride down the sunset.

Driving west: smoky rose and mauve swirls in the pale blue.

The drama of color, rich as Persia.

Turning east, I see how the hills throw a verdant glow on the indigo.

Over my shoulder, cloud-teams of pink and blue horses have rolled to China.

Rounding a curve on a back country road,

I hear the solid singing of a billion crickets working the black grass.

Evening’s pure navy, with star charts up.

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—Paul Marion (c) 1976

Support local businesses. Can I say this more plainly in the lingering Great Recession? I perambulated the immediate neighborhood late this afternoon, from the JAM district to the edge of Back Central and back to the South Common Historic District. I’d been meaning for a while to go to the Brazilian “bakery & eatery” on Appleton Street in the former New York Nails shop across from Store 24. The distinctive miniature brick building now houses Two Hearts Cafe, which offers cakes, coffee, catering, speciality Brazilian pastries, and breads. I’m going back tomorrow morning to pick up a few fresh items to take to a breakfast with friends. Everything looks good. The place is open long hours—weekdays as early as 5.30 am. On Saturday and Sunday the doors open at 7 am. The website (www.twoheartscafe.com) will be live in two weeks, the owner told me.

My next stop was Garnick’s Music emporium at 54 Middlesex Street, which is practically an institution for its longevity in the city. Owner Bob Garnick has watched the music industry rocket to the moon in the 60s, fall to Earth with the coming of the Internet, and now transform itself so that he is selling more albums on the ‘net these days than product out of the store. He says the young customers want the original vinyl recordings of The Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, and other classic artists. The store today has bins and bins of compact discs (new and used) and albums of hundreds of artists. The place is like an archive of musical history. Thanks to Bob’s heavy ordering hand back in the day, he has a massive inventory of just what new consumers and collector-types want. Someone said if you stay in one place long enough the whole world comes to you.

I’ve been humming the 1970 hit “No Matter What” ever since Marc Cohn played his version of  the song at Boarding House Park a few weeks ago. I asked Bob what he had in stock for Badfinger CDs. In a minute he had in his hand two from the “new” section: “No Dice” (1970), which includes “No Matter What,”  and “Straight Up” (1972), with the now golden oldies “Baby Blue” and “Day After Day.” George Harrison discovered Badfinger for Apple Records and produced several tracks on “Straight Up,” including “Day After Day,” on which he plays slide guitar. I would’ve preferred a “best of”  collection that included Badfinger’s other giant hit, “Come and Get It,” but Bob made me a nice offer for the two CDs, plus today is a sales-tax-free day. I walked out with both. Garnick’s is one of those authentic Lowell places that give the city its appeal.

Another authentic piece of time-machine Lowell is Danas Luncheonette at 62 Gorham Street at the busy corner where Central, Gorham, Appleton, and Church streets converge. Peter Danas recently completed repairs to the front of the store that had been damaged in a car crash. I hadn’t seen Peter for a while and don’t stop in often enough, so I was glad to find the door still open after 5 p.m. He was wrapping up for the day, but insisted that I have one of the famous raspberry lime rickey drinks whose mixture he has perfected over the years. It was predictably refreshing. Peter’s a writer, too. His poem about St. Peter Church, which stood up the street before being closed and then demolished by the bishop, is printed on a large poster on the back wall. Anyone new to the city who is reading this should go to Danas’s—the official name is Danas Fruit and Confectionery—to sample the sandwiches, homemade candies, and old-fashioned ice cream counter specials. The store is known far and wide for the extraordinary fruit baskets that the staff (Peter and family) assemble and ship around the country. This is the place for fruit baskets. You can see samples in the window. The building has a ton of character, which was not missed by location scouts for the film “School Ties” in 1992. Scenes were shot in the store and the alley on the side. “School Ties” boasted a cast of up and coming stars: Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris O’Donnell, and others. If you rent the film, look for familiar local people who had parts as extras. I’m pretty sure Nancye Tuttle appears in the movie. Check out this link from retroroadmap.com for a photo essay on Danas’s. There’s no website, but you can call Danas’s at 978-459-9541.