1.
A Baynes Street woman
walking Sunday
night near Baynes Street
& West Delevan was robbed
at the point of a shotgun
duct taped around its barrel
of $300 & two credit cards
by another woman
about 17 years old
wearing a black jacket
demanding, Yo, give me
your purse.
2.
Multiple rounds
from a large caliber weapon
penetrated walls
as a small silver vehicle
ran a stop sign
at high speed.
3.
Emergency crews had to pull
a woman from her car
when it became surrounded by flood waters
after she drove around police barricades.
The woman told police
she was on her way to her bridge game
at the Fox Club.
4.
A tall, thin guy
with scruffy facial hair
robbed a HSBC Bank branch
Monday morning, holding his left hand
inside his jacket sleeve as if he had
a gun, handing the teller
a note that read, “$10,000 or Bang!”
fleeing with three stacks of singles
& a single stack of fives.
5.
A speeding car
struck & killed a bicyclist
as the cyclist leaned
over a trash bin collecting
empty beer cans for the deposit.
6.
A patron was charged
with a series of misdemeanors
after refusing to pay
a restaurant bill
for coffee
soda
& chicken fingers
totaling $12.36
& yelling vulgarities
at patrons then swearing
at police from the back
of the police cruiser
telling them to shut up.
TRIPTYCHS
Milton Rogovin, 1994
The artist’s aims have changed
since the first series of shots when
he couldn’t resist the desire
for transfiguration—why should he?—
by eliciting the eloquence of light
the grain in wood, each brick
of a graffitied facade, arranging
Madonna & Child couplings, offsetting
solitary rebels. Balance—Contrast—
Gentle Irony—Depth of Focus—
all help to unmask dignity
in simple passions, neglected
beauties, vitality amid ruin, Miller
High Life captioned above
the granite resolve of the poor.
A parent staggers out of a darkened
stairwell to sun on a broken
step. Velvet painted peacocks
framing a lace draped mantle
behind a doll-like tiara-ed Virgin
express the same simple optimism
& innocent trust that a small girl
does, clinging about her proud
father’s waist. A self-contained
immigrant family gazes expectantly
at the camera proclaiming, We Are Here.
A Mod Squad in turtlenecks, shades
& hooped earrings, like a scene out of Hair
steps over the color line to groove
with one another. The artist provokes
a silent language, musters a patience
to hear where there is literally nothing
to be heard, so that it is we who fumble
to speak, we who want to shout our
sympathy, our respect & solidarity, even
our admiration, for those from whom
did we actually hear their guttural voices
we might turn away in distaste.
By the third group of images
this glamour is not even attempted.
Where are the pan pipes, the bare chests
& subtle toes—a ménage à trois with dog
ready for the April morning? Where are
the tight groups & couples, the solitary
souls brave in the light, the high school
girl with pencil in her teeth, fire
in her hair? Replaced, often, by ungainly
families, elders whose dreams have
vanished, kids who look spoiling
for a fight. Simultaneity lapses
inevitably into sequence, a rhythm
of cycles, narratives of loss. Tragic
stasis unwinds in bitter folly. Distracted
by this progression, the camera loses
its eye for detail & the compositions have
given way to a chaos closer to real life.
Peter Grieco's work has appeared in both print and on-line publications, among them: Harvard Review, House Organ, Poetalk, Arsenic Lobster, Court Green, Nexus, Red Hawk Review, Aquapolis, Folio, Fox Cry Review, and Puerto del Sol, among others. Currently teaching at Buffalo State College, he has also taught at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey and in Seoul, Korea. His vignettes in “Six Incidents" are based on reports from the Local section of the Buffalo News, while the subject of "Triptychs" is based on the well-known book of photos by Martin Rogovin (which documents lives in Buffalo's lower Westside, the area in which his own grandparents once made their homes). [Photo credit: Andrew Wylegala]
