by Brett Rutherford
This is Providence when it was still rather a hell-hole, but a very cheap place for writers to live. I moved there with my Siamese cat in 1985 and had eleven rooms in a Victorian house, for $450 a month. The unofficial state motto was "Mobsters and Lobsters" and the natives were exceedingly unfriendly. I lived there three years before I ever set foot in another person's house. I just found these poetic journal entries describing how awful it was, or seemed to be. For inexplicable reasons, I would spend almost half of my adult years in New England.
I have moved to Providence,
a writer’s paradise of low rents and large
spaces.
The natives speak a dialect of broken English
conjugated with expletives. I have never heard
so many Fs and mother-F’s on a city bus.
They drive outdated cars, wide as bombers,
paint-scraped and dented,
leprous with rust-spot camouflage
turn corners with daring and macho screeches,
black trails of tires at every corner.
Boys at the corner loiter for cars, hand men
those little bags of powder they crave
as they furtively leave the off-ramp
for our disreputable neighborhood.
That the bags are full of baking powder
they will only learn later as even boys
know well the rules of cheat and sharp trading.
those little bags of powder they crave
as they furtively leave the off-ramp
for our disreputable neighborhood.
That the bags are full of baking powder
they will only learn later as even boys
know well the rules of cheat and sharp trading.
Eight of ten voters are Catholic,
virgins in little inverted bath-tubs adorn
the house fronts of the treeless side streets.
An old man tells me, “No trees. No birds.
No squirrels. No nuts. No leaves to rake.”
virgins in little inverted bath-tubs adorn
the house fronts of the treeless side streets.
An old man tells me, “No trees. No birds.
No squirrels. No nuts. No leaves to rake.”
The heads of state and their families
control unmeasured tracts of property.
The governor’s name and picture adorn
each monolith and highway ramp.
Each sign must include “His Excellency”
before the current felon’s proper name.
Each sign must include “His Excellency”
before the current felon’s proper name.
The marble capitol is large enough
to
detain, if necessary,
the
entire electorate.
Well-known gangsters reside discreetly,
unperturbed by warrants or searches.
One tip-toes past the vending machine
storefront, the funeral home, the house
of the respected grandmother “of that name.”
One tip-toes past the vending machine
storefront, the funeral home, the house
of the respected grandmother “of that name.”
Free enterprise is encouraged, narcotically.
Homes of the Anglo-rich are frequently burgled.
On a hill, the prestigious University
trains the sons of the rich
to assume their places of power.
The city is full of history, devoid of
culture.
It drove out Poe, and tolerated Lovecraft
while watching him slant and starve.
while watching him slant and starve.
It imports insults and toxic waste,
exports the simulacrum of itself:
cobblestones and shuttlecocks,
andirons and lightning rods and tassled shawls,
a horse, a red hen, a barrel of molasses
fresh from the Triangle trade.
The natives are known for aloofness,
their way of sidestepping foreigners.
Only family are invited to dinner.
Young men leave the state
to find a girl who isn't a cousin.
One must be introduced to a prostitute.
Despite all this, the artists come here.
Cheap is cheap. Besides, where else
can you find a Third World Country
without leaving New England?
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