FISH STORY

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FISH STORY


I imagine that I must have surprised you,
What with your waiting game, your sport.
You had exhausted me.
You had that great angler’s skill;
You had me hooked, long, on the line.

It was the lure, you, I swallowed you whole.
I had not seen that a great barb was nestled in the fly.
Your beauty, I had become prey to it,
You must have realized, you must have known,
How beautiful you seemed to me,
How you dazzled, your shimmer,
And I ate you right to the lead sinker.

I was your catch.
I believed every thing you said.

Who would have devined it?
Given the great tensile strength of your nylon-reel wire,
Hard to phantom that I might break it;
But I took a deep dive toward bottom,
Then, gathering up all my muscles' power,
I turned upwards and with a fierce, five-foot leap
I broke above the water's surface.

A loud snap announced how taut had grown the tension.
At once boat and bait had lost all connection.

I swim with that hook; it still punctures my mouth.
Your fisherman’s string, its segment,
Runs along side of me for at least a yard.
My injury, it hurts, and I shall have to bear it for life,
But I have set myself at liberty,
Free to travel world’s grand and open ocean seas.
And may I ask, again, take a moment, please, consider,
Who would ever believe my, this fish story?

But it is true; I have broken from you.

DREAM CHILDREN, A Reverie

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DREAM CHILDREN,
A Reverie,
Edited May 2011




I know that by the time Isabel reaches her teens
She'll want to read all the love letters Dad sent to Mom,

And Mother,
Ever attentive to the moral order of the home,
Will have censored some details of the lovers’ delight,
Until the girl attains the appropriate age,
And she possesses the missives on her own.



Our son will study the photographs,
Taken while his parents' passion was young;
He will marvel at his Mother's beauty.

From her character and image he learns standards
That, when time comes, he might choose,
Among women, the one, suitable to marry,
Who, too, would be good mother.

And our children will cherish the memory of how,
Night after night and over the years,
We read from books to them until they fell asleep.

And their minds retain the cadence of nursery rhymes,
And the breathy note of excitement
In tales of heroic deed and glorious adventure,
And the memories of wonderful day dreams,
Which twice-read stories of fantasy and magic create.

Their rooms teem with books;
These books form a collection, a magnificent library.
It remains today the envy of posterity.

And most of all our children recall the hugs and kisses,
The times they rode out on our shoulders
Their arms around our necks,
The softness of our voice when we spoke to them,
The affection lavished without stint,
Bringing to soul warmth and calm,
And that happiness evident
From childhood spent in a good home.

ETTA, 1957

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ETTA, 1957



His foot was swollen and it ached,
It hurt to the degree that he could no longer concentrate
He had lost the capacity to figure.
His mind could no longer grasp even very simple things.
He was preoccupied and his eyes seemed vacant.

He was young and he kissed her hand,
He kissed her about the face,
He kissed her eyelids,
And he rested his lips at the base of her neck.

He had fervently kissed the skin all-over both her shoulders.

They were standing next to the side of a giant elm,
The tree grew along muddy creek which ran west to a river,
The French settlers had named Des Plaines.

He thought that they might sail away upon the waters.

Yet nothing marked this instant of love
As the warmth and the wide-open sky that August midnight,
Whose awesome, crystal clarity
Registered a white light streak,
An illumination which ended in a surprisingly bright flash.
It let the lovers know
That their moment now lived in eternity.

ROUGH DRAFT

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ROUGH DRAFT



Those nights we were hang'n.
Fela Kuti, Yellow Man, those horn, the drums,
That music was strong,
And though we never had to pass through metal detectors,
Respect brought us to South of the border,
Yeah there was snow,
Snow on the tables,
And Rabbi was dancing, he was dancing,
We were all dancing,
And the smoke was passing, between,
Between us all, one love,
One night, it wa love, oh irie,
Irie, love,
Love between us all.

NEW YORK CITY, Grapes of Wrath

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NEW YORK CITY,
Grapes of Wrath,
An Adaptation of Sentiments from a WPA Document *




I am in New York City, but New York City,
It does not belong to me. You understand?
I am in New york City, but New york City is not in me.
What do I mean? Listen, I am from Chicago, Illinois.



Been in New York City for thirty-five years.
I am a New Yorker! You must understand!

Nope, nope, I probably confuse you.

What happens here? I have some examples.
Take the Second Avenue Subway. I doesn't exist!
City continues the project as long as I remember.
Seventh Avenue, midtown calls it Fashion Avenue;
Yet garment making has no role in today's American trade!

And the neighborhoods, they all look the same.
Look down the blocks. What do you see?
Corporate interests and franchise,
Dunkin' Donuts and big-time banks,
And, on almost every other corner,
Drug-store chains hawking their wares,
That's the story, the moms-and-pops, those stores,
Those stores are gone.

I notice more begging,
People seeking handouts more today than I ever recall.
The murder rate spikes. The poor kill the poor;
Children shoot other children.

And the City's once renowned middle class forced to flee,
I see a Great Migration,
A town left to ladies with big, diamond engagement rings,
And babies pushed in fancy perambulators.

By the way New York City's mayor,
He is the richest man in the state.

And you, you, too, you are not around much anymore.
How seldom I see you during the course of a year!
I am lonely without you.
I miss your not being home with me.
Nowadays, you go abroad
And, when you return, we go for dinner.
I only see you once and a while and then for a short time.

Ever notice all the lottery tickets which losers leave
On counter tops, and discard to the floor?
Seems many people hope to change their luck.

You follow? You understand what I mean?

I am in New York City, but New York City is not in me.




*I copied out these sentiments years ago. Richard Wright first recorded them from a street corner conversation in the late 1930s while he worked for the Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. He later published them in 12 Million Black Voices. I took Wright's original street transcription and changed its tone and slant. Ultimately, I turned it into a personal love poem. SP

FISH STORY

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FISH STORY



I imagine that I must have surprised you,
What with your waiting game, your sport.
You exhausted me with your angler’s skill;
You had me hooked, long, on the line.
It was the lure, you,
I swallowed you whole.
I had not seen the great barb nestled in the fly,
Your beauty, I had become prey to it,
You must have imagined, you must have known,
How beautiful you seemed to me,
How you dazzled, your shimmer,
And I ate you right to the lead sinker.

I was your catch.

I believed every thing you said.

Who might have divined it?
Given the great tensile strength of your nylon-reel wire,
Hard to phantom that I could break it;
But I took a deep dive toward bottom,
Then with a fierce, five-foot leap
I broke above the water's surface.
A loud snap announced how taut had grown the tension.
At once boat and bait had lost all connection.

Who would have envisioned it?
I swim with that hook still puncturing my mouth.
Your fisherman’s string, its segment,
It still runs along side of me for at least a yard.

My injury, it hurts, and I shall have to bear it for life,
But I have set myself at liberty,
Free to travel world’s grand and open ocean seas.

And may I ask, again, take a moment, please, consider,
Who would ever believe my, this fish story!

But it is true; I have broken from you.

OH CHICAGO! Suite White City

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OH CHICAGO!
Suite White City,
May 2011, Rewrite


Chicago, I see you,
Though to be there, I must recover scenes,
Which now are very long ago, and what I share, here,
May be more dream, fiction, than actual historical event.

My life enfolds in pictures,
And revelry takes me from present-day circumstance,
The computer's screen and the key pad, to,
To lake-front parking, a lover’s lane,
Way down at east end of Foster Avenue,
At the time, I date the mother of my future son,
(It was early evening)
That woman with me is to become my first,
My one, my only wife, though
From her today I count over two decades, divorced.

We heard a galloping, thrashing noise,
And when we looked over the dashboard
And out the windshield, we saw
A man, he came from within the bushes,
A stranger, his demeanor was wild
And mayhem seemed his intent.
Clenched by two fists,
He held a great length of metal rod, a gaffing hook,
Then, from a big, an over-the-shoulder swing, bang!
He punctured the hood on my Dad’s white Chevrolet,
Which was a brand-new,1960, four-door, hard-top.

We survived the attack,
Intact, secure behind the doors and car in reverse,
We were lucky, I guess.



2.


I remember the time in the high rise, near North Side,
Up on the 18th floor, where my buddy and I,
We knew this cop, yes, she was fine.
Oh my, Chicago, I remember her, the fond delight!
I liked the way she let her 9MM sleep with us.
(She placed it under the pillow.)
And her blues, her uniform with its badges,
And her leather belt and boots, whether she wore them,
Or when they were thrown, scattered and heaped.
A pile of clothes and accessories,
Her lengerie accented the top of the jumble;
I need not close my eyes to picture it.

The ensemble looked good at the bottom of the bed,
Piled-up on the rug of the bedroom floor.

Later, in the back seat of a Chicago,
Blue and white police cruiser,
I joined the convergence, while she drove,
And her partner sat shotgun, chasing the culprit,
All sirens and beacons blazing,
Down the back alleys, behind the bungalows, fast, 30mph,
Galvanized cans crashing, their lids off,
Flying, like saucers,
Garbage was everywhere all over the concrete.



3.


River View, the amusement park, sat down the block
From my first high school, its Ferris Wheel dominated
That side of the North Branch of the Chicago River.
Readers, please, excuse the free thinking.
I leap here and hope to attain an insight and meaning,
Back to the time in 1893,
The year my great grandfather, John,
Came the one hundred miles from La Salle, Illinois,
To Chicago, he wanted to see the lights, the World's Fair,
The white city, magic, and when he returned, home,
He told tales about the town on Lake Michigan,
How great its marvels twenty-years after the Fire.

He, my great grandfather, he returned home
To the dark of the Illinois Valley, to gas-lit streets,
And when he told the family about alternating current,
The city ablaze in the middle of the night,
He ignited in my grandmother lust, she wanted a part,
She sought the grandeur; She was no longer happy at home,
What darkness, the narrow, a woman’s common lot,
The drudgery of hand laundry, the knowledge that,
As she often had openly lamented,
“Yes, I was born too soon.”

No easy task, ironing the household’s attire
With an implement heated atop a wood-fired stove,
Early to bed, early to arise, the great bore,
Small town life, it was said she would bed the devil
-- And many claimed she had -- she wanted out, escape.
She married my grandfather, an itinerant painter,
Who went from town to town painting church murals.

And following the grand cliche,
Grandpa drank his liquor as others might milk from a jar.
And he added to his cocktail’s already heady mix,
The family’s romance says, he had bad habit,
He moistened the stylist between his lips;
And we know, the paint those days had lead for its base.

Her husband, my grandfather promised my grandmother
Life, incandescent, excitement, magic,
And the possibility of dreams come true,
Right there on the flat lands off the shore of the Lake.
Remember, the new town rose up from the old,
Up from the ashes, why, it was a resurrection!

Please, was there not real truth to the story of the Whites,
Had they not been rescued? Was it not a miracle?
They had escaped from the massacre at Fort Dearborn.

My grandmother sought energy, electric, the moment,
She wanted a big-time story, no small-town idyll.
She desired city burning, burning bright, resplendent.

Oh Chicago! It is from you that I have my life!

FOOLISH LOVE, Rewrite, June 2011

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FOOLISH LOVE,
Rewrite, June 2011




Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
You make me feel as if
I had drunk a gallon of Jack Daniels --
That I am powerless and my life unmanageable.



Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
I fear that Grace might not restore my sanity.
I stay up nights and pine away;
Allow my will to run to self riot.

Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
Where did I go wrong?
How was I not able to see that your allure,
Your devilish witchery, would ruin whatever
The chance I once had had
To check my faults of character.

Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
My age, my length of years,
Was I too slow to figure the sum,
Had wisdom failed me, and rendered me prey
A hundred times to the same old line?

You have broken my heart,
Enfeebled my muscles,
And many bones in my body ache.
You have cut my life to the quick.

The pain you cause, I know, I know!

Oh love, oh love, hope now gone,
For me nothing more, there is nothing more,
But day after day of misery.

POEM WRITTTEN IN A COOKING MAGAZINE, Third Version

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POEM WRITTEN IN A COOKING MAGAZINE,
Third Version, May 2011



The man had more than a few weird quirks.
Among them, he enjoyed writing in code.

He invented a special kind of shorthand,
Which allowed him to keep business records
In a language comprehensible only to himself
And the one friend to whom he had entrusted
The secret of how to read his cipher.

At the entrance to his apartment,
Within the middle of his foyer,
The man mounted a two-foot bronze of the god, Mercury.
He centered the statue upon a Corinthian-styled,
White marble pedestal.



The sculpture's left leg was horizontally extended.
In the air and at eye-level a winged sandal
Passed beyond the boundary of the art work's base.
Mercury's right foot was firmly cemented at the toe;
The pose conveyed the messenger's typical post-haste.

The man used cryptic labels to mark
The boxes and folders of everything he possessed.

Throughout the apartment visitors would see
The score of items which bore his encryption.

But when it came to life's basics,
Though, technically, he bordered on insanity,
(Some have said he was quite mad!)
His manner of speech remained straightforward.

And he wrote in the King's English.

He said, “I love you.”

And he proclaimed for all that care to hear,
In script and voice alike,
“I worship the ground upon which you walk.”

CHICAGO THEME

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CHICAGO THEME



Hey! She can't do this to me!
I'm an American!
I was born and raised in Illinois.
History taught me about Lincoln's Volunteers,
They were the ones who burned Old Dixie down.



I'm the Pepsodent kid,
I have hung out on the skin of my teeth.

My uncle was a dog catcher.
From him, I learned to capture animals in heat.

Where I come from -- there is no foolin' around.

Where does she get the nerve?
She leaves me home alone for months on end.

I've known speeds, man, faster than Flash Gordon,
I can fly from planet to planet,
Find and live amongst a whole new breed,

What do I need her for?

Got to be kidding!
I mean... she can't do this to me!

I have studied how the West was won.

NEW MOOD, Morris

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NEW MOOD,
Morris



After Etta had left him,
Morris was down and out,
In a very dark state and exceedingly lonely,
But then when he met Penny,
His world brightened again.



Of course, that Penny loves to cook
And night after night provides him
A mighty and delicious repast,
That she is pleasant towards him
And even solicitous about his being in good health
Did much to renew his sense of good fortune.
Once, again, Morris had come to believe,
Yes, yes, he is a lucky man, indeed!

And, after he had spent a few years with Penny,
Morris was able to smile again.

FOOLISH LOVE

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FOOLISH LOVE




Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
You make me feel as though
I had drunk a gallon of Jack Daniels --
That I am powerless and my life unmanageable.



Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
I fear no Grace might restore my sanity.
I stay up nights and pine away;
Allow my will to run to self riot.

Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
Where did I go wrong?
How was I not able to see that your allure,
Your devilish witchery, would lead to ruin,
Further corrupt my moral character?

Oh love, oh love, oh foolish love,
My age, my length of years,
Had it diminished my rational capacity?
Or have you simply broken my heart,
And impaired my physical well being?

The pain you cause, it dooms this life of mine.

A SONG FOR YOU, Etta

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A SONG FOR YOU,
Etta




You are not mine to keep.

I may never possess you.
I just wish to take care of you for a while.

You have lived for years and years.
Yet your life, you, you seem to have awaited me,
I wonder the truth, could it be,
Had a sweet fortune intervened
And destined us to share our heart and soul?



Had a book with these self-same lines,
Had it sat out time?
Then had it stood, raised itself and appeared before me,
Insisting I copy the words from its pages,
That I might make them known,
And have world to hear when I read them to you?

And within this moment, our time and place,
That I have these tools ready for me,
The instant reference to books and words
A starry heaven held aloft by billions of gigabytes,
Spheres within spheres of information, now and eternal,
A noosphere of electronic storage, at my command,
That utterance may be given unto me,
That I may open my mouth boldly,
Oh, the wonder of it all, this love,
The remembrance of things past, between us,
The foretold promise of happy future, laid before us,
The mystery of this love, this love.

Up and down the country roads,
Along this big ol’ city’s streets,
You have had some tears and smiles,
And your plenty share of dreams and wish come true.

Yearnings never go out of style.

Do you ever cry when you‘re alone
When I am not by your side?

Do you silently wait for me?

Do you ever consider how it is that you have abandoned
A person with whom you have had much in common?

Then, when once I cease to live,
Someone else will appear, I suppose.

I know you have had lucky breaks,
Found fair quota of goodly things.
You can not be blamed
– many were my mistakes.
You have lived your life putting on a happy face,
A stiff upper lip when presented with adversity

I write this song so you might know,
Should you happen upon trouble,
Times of fear and woe, or nightmare,
When past demons beset you,
If one day you loose your course and fail,
You have this verse, my love for you,
And I trust you remember the times I sat behind
The wheel, and steered you safely home.

You are not mine to keep.
I just take care of you for a while.

You have lived for years and years.
Yet your life, you, you seem to have awaited me,
I wonder the truth, could it be,
Had a sweet fortune intervened
And destined us to share our heart and soul?

SUMANGALAMATA

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SUMANGALAMATA




Hard to believe she wrote such sentiments
Six centuries before the common era.
Legend claims she was a nun,
Who had had to flee from family and home.

Her father arranged a suitable man for her to marry,
But his choice horrified her.



Instead she ran to follow Lord Buddha.

On a tablet she noted,
“I am woman well set at liberty!
How free I am, how wonderful my story,
No more cooking pots and kitchen drudgery,
No more worry about the household going hungry!

“And free at last from having to bed
A man whose character I never cherished.
Whose face I found ugly and body abhorrent!”

Hard to believe she wrote such sentiments
Six centuries before the common era.
Legend claims she was a nun,
Who had had to flee from family and home.

IMPOSSIBLE DREAM, A Lover's Question

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IMPOSSIBLE DREAM,
A Lover’s Question



I have an astounding dream to report.

It has me running down a long hall in the semi-darkness
With a key in my hand. It's a cylindrical key,
And on its end it has a single, protruding notch,
The type of a key used to wind an antique clock.



Mounted to the wall at the end of my run stands
A giant, three-dimensional cartoon heart, painted,
Yet with a color so natural,
It rivals the red of a Red Delicious apple.

On the right at the top of this wondrous heart
A gold metal strike plate sets up over against
An aperture, the channel; I wonder if it leads
To the lock that might open, release your heart?

Have I the key? Or do I dream only to wake,
Awaken to nightmare day of awful longing and ache?

Have I lost my mind? Has logic betrayed me?
Do I confuse dream wish with reality?

Darling, answer me soon! Does my deep desire
Verge on truth? Will anxiety cease?
The promise of a new, peaceful kingdom
Is it to be fulfilled, here, in the affirmative today?

Now I stand before you, You, my Higher Power,
And the congregates sense the blasphemy;
They whisper calumnies.
They say that I am my father’s son,

“He is the boy from the hardware store!
By whose authority has he the right to reveal,
Who does he believe, who might he think
He is when he informs us his midnight imaginings?”

And me, their belligerence,
The hostility of the locals does not concern me,
Not a whit, though they rise up
And ready to condemn me.
I pray ... I might have definite answer,
That I am prophet in this house,
That I may begin this, my public ministry, positive,
Carry hope for life anew,
And have news extraordinary, good, for all to hear.

Down a space eclipsed in semi-darkness, I run.
I have a key in my hand. It's cylindrical;
A single, notch protrudes at its end.
It is the kind of key that winds an antique clock.
Darling, please, your answer!
Have I the key to open your heart,
Or do I dream the impossible dream?

THANK YOU, BACCHUS

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THANK YOU, BACCHUS*


Thank you, Bacchus. You let me go,
Freed me from your treacherous hold.

The enemy's army caught our ranks unaware;
Our generals had failed to figure on all-out assault.

An awful panic ensued.
I had not the time to grab my boots.
I ran across the Sinai.
I hoped to survive and make it home.
It was early morning, yet the sand was hot.
Before long my feet were badly burned.
Snipers hid among the rocks and hills;
They shot and killed us, almost everyone.



Thank you Bacchus. You let me go,
Freed me from your treacherous hold.

I crossed the Nile and my injuries healed,
From death in the desert, abandoned and alone,
Your grace had saved me.
Now I share this marvelous tale;
The troops in rout and I had prevailed.



*Bacchus is the Roman god of wine; he has a number of darker associations, one of them is the disorder apparent when an army suffers a calamitous defeat.

RED ROOF INN, Love a Few Miles North of Trenton, New Jersey, 2011 Edit

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RED ROOF INN,
Love a Few Miles North of Trenton, New Jersey,
Edited, April 2011



An impossibly large bed stretched out across the room.
Between its feet and a long chest of drawers
A narrow aisle traveled the length.
It ran from the front door to the back of the room.

And you, there, in your bikini briefs, in an alcove,
An enclosure directly opposite the bathroom;
It occupied half the suite’s entire width.



Your back to me,
You stood up against a cantilever table.
It was a wall-to-wall vanity with a mirror,
A mirror whose length matched the table’s surface,
And it covered the back wall up to the ceiling.
Recessed lamps provided light from overhead.

You brushed your hair, and
With each stroke I saw
How your shoulder blades flexed.

I rose up from the bed,
Took a few steps,
And then, still from behind you,
I bent my torso forward at the waist,
And extended my arms,
My hands reached both your legs at the ankles.

Head-down, I pulled myself close to you.
My left shoulder found the center,
It rested right between your buttocks and legs.
The left side of my chin found a niche,
It touched the back of your right knee.

I was squatting and each of my hands
Was wrapped around one of your ankles,

When I stood up, I told you,
I had never personally encountered a woman
Who looked so much the better naked than clothed.

“Wow!” Burst out. And you said,
“You sure know how to compliment a girl.”

‘Woman! Trust my veracity.
‘Do not confuse my honest praise with flattery.’

I spoke these words only to myself, my tongue was tied.

Yet, then pretending to further my defense,
I more or less recalled the poet’s immortal words,
Those lines about truth and beauty being one,
And is not response to beauty, truth?

I ran the maxim in my mind, I was dumbfounded,

“‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’”

I dwelled in total awe of you.

And when old age our generation shall waste,
And time brings world to more and other woes,
We have had this moment and its sentiment remains –
‘Darling, that is all,’ I quoted the lines to myself,

I had not uttered a word aloud,

‘You know on earth, and all you need to know.’

DASH IT! Edited, April 2011

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DASH IT!
Edited, April 2011



Dash it, Baby!
Is this the best we can do?

Don't tell me!
Have neither of us the sense,
Reason enough to know which way is up, or down?

Here's the key, there's my desk,
You already have my heart,
You can come and go, whenever you please.



Should you find a spare penny,
Lying anywhere about the house,
Keep it, please, and when you have the opportunity,
Use it, toss it into a fountain and wish us well.

I take my hat off to you.
Don't be hard on me old girl;
We have had a run of bad luck.
Let's hope that things are bound to get better.

Are you happy?
I did say? I promised you, did I not, that
I would make you queen of my poetry.
Well, haven't I?
By the way, who of us is happier?

You take pleasure in your business,
You have your list of details,
All the very many, important things to do,
And now with your father gone,
You have the legal consequence, and its paper work,
Plus the obligation of those household matters,
Which once he used to do.

You seem enamored with your lengthy driving about.
I sometimes wonder where you go,
How you might disappear for days!

Not a word about your haunts, not a single line,
“No Internet connection,” you claim.
And when I ask about your goings,
Why the haste?
You answer, "Antique show on Saturday."
Of course, I have heard that one before.
Then I ask you, where?
You say, “Pennsylvania.”

Oh, how tedious the dialogue becomes.
Yet I remind you, Pennsylvania is a very large state!
As I query,
I see the roll of your thinking plainly in your eyes,
Can you believe it?
Doesn't it look silly,
When in this verse I present it before you,
Your answer, the one word, “Allentown.”



2.


Years ago I learned the reality --
Buying and selling no easy enterprise.

I know you take every special delight,
And you have the ability for concentration,
At level it requires to be successful at your shopping.

Lord knows, you love a good deal.
I have never known anyone, who enjoys a low price,
A markdown or a discount more than you.

Even your afternoon dessert, it appears, tastes better
When it comes at half-price.

I realize that you are accustomed to international travel,
Heavy baggage means little to you,
Except, of course, should the carrier's personnel notice
Your true luggage weight
And you must pay for the extra kilos.

Then there is the situation with your mother,
(All kinds of complexities there!)
A topic I shall have to postpone,
A subject to tackle in another poem, or two.

And as for me, for me,
I sit up half the night writing poetry;
You must know I am lonely.
I seek your company, can you blame me?

You combine intelligence, beauty and thrift.
I doubt I find your bounty's equal in any other.

I hope to fill the wee small hours of the morning,
Knowing that you sleep in our bed,
And, that though you travel,
You return and make a home with me.

Forget about it! I shall survive.
No need for undue concern,
Or worry that I am probably the gloomier of us two,
Yet I wonder how you push through the day,
How you manage a smile or roam open and free.

Dash it, Baby!
I am still caught up in the happy bondage;
I wonder if either of us will escape it,
What I have called this thing of ours,
And how your grandfather,
Our dreams of him and his appearance, ties us
To a Destiny, whose inklings, still animates our hearts.

“In the wee small hours of the morning,”

So the old song goes,
While whole, wide-world, deep asleep,
I'd be yours, if only you would stay,
Be in our bed and home with me.

I have difficulty believing that you remain remote.
Can it be? Who resists the hand of Fate?
Have you now and forever become unavailable to me?

HATE AND LOVE, Odi et Amo, Catullus, Poem 85

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HATE AND LOVE,
Odi et Amo,
Catullus, Poem 85



I hate and I love,
You might ask, how do I explain it?



I do not know,
But I feel it happening and
It tears me apart.


Odi et Amo,
Catullus, Carmen 85


Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

BLACK WATER, An Adaptation of a Fassbinder Theme

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BLACK WATER,
An Adaptation of a Fassbinder Theme,
April 2011



Water in the forest, terrible black water,
A pond over rot and dead leaves,
You lie silent, quiet, you, you stay still,
Unmoving, yet the storm rages around the wood,
In the groves pines lean and nets of spiders,
They are torn apart, and then splintering begins.




You, in the hollow, you, you rest, black water.
Branches fall, leaves scatter,
Bark peals from trees and flies all directions at once.
The wind rips all that stands, the grove succumbs.

But nothing reaches you, down there, black water.

NOD, On the East of Eden, April 2011

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NOD,
On the East of Eden,
April 2011


Hey, girlfriend,
There are things about me that you do not know.
There are things which you might not understand.
Sorry to say, yet let me tell you,
There are things which you could never understand,
And sadly, the terrible corollary,
You should not understand.



I run with the pack.
Its dens sit in the land of Nod.

I dwell in a place on the east of Eden.

MIDNIGHT RECAP, 19 August 1976, Edited

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MIDNIGHT RECAP,
19 August 1976,
Edited




Gad! It's Nancy Lake of North Carolina,

“Chairman, Richard Rosenblum of the Great,
The Oh-so-Great, Delegation from the State of New York”

Representatives proclaim their diverse cultures,
Highlight separate geographies, timed to a moment,
Tied to one central theme,
Arizona, Washington, Indiana, Illinois…
Texas, Alaska…, Chinese, Blacks,
Chicanos and I-talo-Americans,
All expected to take twenty-five seconds or less:

“I am honored to second the nomination…

“The man the American people can trust!

“It is with my great pleasure…

“We are proud to place the name --

“Miss Perez has set a record -- under fifteen seconds!

“Aloha!

“The miracle of Joseph’s coat of many colors…

“A head and a heart! A living legend!

“The last line of defense…

Blrrrrwrrwrrwwwwrrrrr.

“Gerald R. Ford for President!”

ALPHA AND OMEGA, Yet Another Love Poem

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ALPHA AND OMEGA,
Yet Another Love Poem,
April 2011




Etta, what do you want from me?

I fell in love with you.
What can I do?
I care for you; you’re beautiful.
No explanation, it’s not rational.



I’m older, you’re younger.
I’m an American, you’re European.
I was raised on the Great Plains.
You grew up on the thin soil of a limestone island.

The matter reduces itself to the basic.
Try as hard as I can, I can not end my love for you.

To me, this love continues as though it folds onto itself,
Looking more like one of those new images,
Drawn from highest theoretic of current cosmology,
Space-time systems overlapped, bestraddled,
Universes within multiple universes,
Dimension upon dimension,
Inexplicable, unimaginable paradox,
Beginning and ending all at once,
At one point, all to one point, no sides, no dimensions,
Alpha and omega, and ultimately
Sine qua non of my existence.

What else do you want me to say?

I’m at a loss. Right this moment,
No one else, no one else but you!

Darling, I want only the best for you.
Would you, would you, please forgive,

Condone my presumption, since yet,
It seems, the same holds true for you, too.

OH, CHICAGO! Suite White City, Rewrite. March 2011

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OH, CHICAGO!
Suite White City,
Rewrite, March 2011




Chicago, I see you,
Though to be there, I must root out scenes,
Which now are very long ago, and what I share, here,
May be more dream, fiction, than actual historical event.

My life enfolds in pictures, and my mind, it sees
Lake-front parking, a lover’s lane,
Way down at east end of Foster,
At the time I and my son’s mother,
-- It was early evening --
A woman who in the future becomes my first,
The one, the only wife, and from whom, today, I count,
Over twenty years, divorced.

A man, he came from within the bushes,
A stranger with mayhem as his intent,
He held a great length of metal, a gaffing hook,
Then a big overhead swing, bang!
He punctured the hood on my Dad’s Chevrolet,
Which was a brand-new, 1960, four-door, hard-top, white.

We survived the attack,
Intact, secure behind the doors and car in reverse,
We were lucky, I guess.



2.


I remember the time in the high rise, near North Side,
Up on the 18th floor, where my buddy and I,
We knew this cop, yes, she was fine.
Oh my, Chicago, I remember her, the fond delight!

I liked the way she let her 9MM sleep with us,
(She placed it under the pillow)
And her blues, her uniform with its badges,
And her leather belt and boots, whether she wore them,
Or when they were thrown, scattered and heaped.
A pile of clothes and accessories,
Her undergarments accented the top of the jumble;
I need not close my eyes to picture it.

The ensemble looked good on the rug of the bedroom floor.

Later, in the back seat, police cruiser unit,
I joined the convergence, while she drove,
And her partner sat shotgun, chased the culprit,
All sirens and beacons blazing,
Down the back alleys, behind the bungalows, fast, 30mph,
Galvanized cans crashing, their lids off, flying,
Like saucers, garbage was everywhere all over the concrete.



3.


River View, the amusement park, sat down the block
From my first high school, its Ferris Wheel dominated
That side of the North Branch Chicago River.
Readers, please, excuse the free thinking.
I leap here and hope to insight and meaning,
Back to the time my great grandfather, John,
Came all the way from La Salle to see the lights,
The white city, magic, and when he returned, home,
Told tales about the town on Lake Michigan,
How great its marvels twenty-years after the Fire.

He, my great grandfather, he returned home,
And when he told the family about alternating current,
The city ablaze in the middle of the night,
He ignited in my grandmother lust, she wanted a part,
She sought the grandeur; she had to sell her soul,
What darkness, the narrow, a woman’s common lot,
The drudgery of hand laundry, the knowledge that,
As she often had lamented,
“Yes, I was born too soon.”

No easy task, ironing the household’s attire
With an implement heated atop a wood-fired stove,
Early to bed, early to arise, the great bore,
Small town life, it was said she would bed the devil
-- And many claimed she had -- she wanted out, escape,
When she married my grandfather, an itinerant painter,
Who went from town to town painting church murals,
And following the grand cliche,
He drank his liquor as others might milk from a jar,
And to add to his cocktail’s already heady mix,
The family’s romance says, he had bad habit,
To moistened the stylist between his lips;
And we know, the paint his day had lead for its base.

Her husband, he promised her life, incandescent,
A large role in Illinois history, remember,
The new town rose up from the old, up from the ashes,
And was there not real truth,
Behind the story, the Whites, the miracle,
How they had been rescued at Fort Dearborn?

She sought energy, electric, the moment
She wanted city burning, burning bright, resplendent.
Oh, Chicago! It is from you that I have my life!

DASH IT! Second Version, March 2011

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DASH IT!
Second Version




Dash it, Baby!
Is this the best we can manage.

Don't tell me! Have neither of us the sense,
Reason enough to know which way is up, or down?

Here's the key, there's my desk,
You already have my heart,
You can come and go, whenever you please.

Should you find a spare penny,
Lying anywhere about the house,
Keep it, please, and when you have the opportunity,
Use it, toss it into a fountain and wish us well.

I take my hat off to you.
Don't be hard on me old girl;
We have had a run of bad luck.
Let's hope that things are bound to get better.

Well, are you happy?
I did say? I promised you, did I not, that
I would make you queen of my poetry.
Well, haven't I? Who of us is happier?

You take pleasure in your business,
You have your list of details,
All the very many, important things to do,
And now with your father gone,
You have the legal consequence, and its paper work,
Plus the obligation of those little household matters,
Which he once used to do.

You seem enamored with your lengthy driving about.
I sometimes wonder where you go,
How you might disappear for days!

Not a word about your haunts, not a single line,
No Internet connection, you claim.
And when I ask about your goings,
Why the haste?
You answer, "Antique show on Saturday."
Of course I have heard that one before.
When I ask you, where?
You say, “Pennsylvania.”

Oh, how tedious the dialogue becomes.
Yet I remind you, Pennsylvania is a very large state!
As I press you.
I can see the roll of your thinking plainly in your eyes,
Can you believe it?
Doesn't it look silly
When I write it out in this verse before you
Your answer, “Allentown”?



2.


Years ago I learned the reality --
Buying and selling no easy enterprise.

I know you take every special delight,
And you have the ability for concentration,
At level it requires to be successful at your shopping.

Lord knows, you love a good deal.
I have never known anyone, who enjoys a low price,
A markdown or a discount more than you.

Even your dessert, it appears, tastes better
When it comes at half-price.

I realize that you are accustomed to international travel,
Heavy baggage means little to you,
Except, of course, should the airline catch the weight
Of your carry-on and you must pay for the extra kilos.

Then there is the situation with your mother,
(All kinds of complexities there!)
A topic I shall have to postpone,
Perhaps I shall tackle it in another poem, or two.

And as for me, for me,
I sit up half the night writing poetry;
You must know I am lonely.
I seek company,
The way you combine intelligence, beauty and thrift.
I hope to fill the wee small hours of the morning,
Knowing that you sleep in our bed,
And, that though you travel,
You return and make a home with me.

Forget about it! I shall survive.
No need for undue concern,
Or worry that I am probably the gloomier of us two,
Yet I wonder how you push through the day,
How you manage a smile or roam open and free.

Dash it, Baby!
I am still caught up in the happy bondage;
I wonder if either of us will escape it,
What I have called this thing of ours,
And how your grandfather,
Our dreams of him and his appearance, ties us
To a Destiny, whose inklings, still animates our hearts.

“In the wee small hours of the morning,”

So the old song goes,
While whole, wide-world, deep asleep,
I'd be yours, if only you would stay,
Be in our bed and home with me.

I have difficulty believing that you remain remote.
Can it be? Who resists the hand of Fate?
Have you now and forever become unavailable to me?

VENUS, 2011, Rewrite

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VENUS,
2011, Rewrite



How are you to be a great poet,
When you've got no inspiration,
And you're tired, it's late, and
Night after night your mind runs blank?



How do you find yourself stuck,
Fixed in the old, worn-out malady, writer’s block?

Might you recall instead that glorious goddess,
Made into human form right before your eyes,
With whom you spent yesterday morning, talking,
On the grass, warmed all over, blessed by rays,
An eleven-o’clock summer sun?

And why not read aloud?
What harm is there in letting world to know?
No shame in the telling
That mind awakes, again, from midnights’ torpor.

She’s got it! Beauty, love, and
She’s fire, she’s my desire.