EVENING LOVE DECLARATION!

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EVENING LOVE DECLARATION!




I lie on the bed here in our home.
On the TV screen,
I watched the DVD called The Last Waltz.

Its music has its way with my heart.
And a deep, unmistakably warm and tender emotion,
It floods up, I feel, as if I am immersed,
I swim in my fondness for you.

I see you through the open doorway.
You stand in the next room, working;
You inspect and prepare dresses,
Soon be packed away in luggage,
Merchandise you plan for sale on a trip abroad.

You have on your gray, cotton shorts,
The ones you usually wear around the house,
The ones with the drawstring front;
They have pink stripes on the side.

You sport a pale raspberry (a color,
Which I believe, favors your olive skin)
V-necked shirt and its short, tapered sleeves
Accent, compliment your toned, narrow arms.

I must declare, I do,
I do love you with all my soul
And I love you with every pound of pressure
My physical frame might exert.

In the morning, even before prayer or daily reflection,
When we wake I turn my head to you, and ask,
‘Have I told you how much I love you yet this morning?’

You reply, contract your brow and purse your lips,
And say, “No!”
And then I smilingly reply,
‘How much I love you yet this morning!’

In the afternoon I ask the same.
While we may drive about
And try to accomplish the day’s busy chores,
I divert my eyes from the highway for a moment,
Turn to you and say, ‘Darling!’ I say.
‘Have I told you how much I love you yet this afternoon?’

You shake your head from side to side.
You answer my interrogative, “No!”

And then I reply, dead-panned, but right,
As if I speak, direct,
From the very core of my inner most being,
– And although some one with a jealous ear
Might conclude that I am silly, or immature --
I intone, ‘how much I love you yet this afternoon!’

And now it is evening, and still, as always,
The questioning refrain remains the same.
And your answer no different than earlier, before,
I must necessarily declare.
I record it for all to know.
I want the world to know,

‘How much I love you yet this evening!’

EMMANUEL, West Houston Street Encounter

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EMMANUEL,
West Houston Street Encounter


Say! Excuse me, Mister.

Wonder, might you spare some change?

Believe it or not, I was once a teacher;
I had a home in New Canaan, a wife and kids.

And good religious education,
I learned the books of the Bible,
Always felt myself a righteous man.

You might find it hard to phantom,
Given current circumstances,
But is true!

Think on it, mister.

It’s true!

PROCLAMATION

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PROCLAMATION




I read here and inform world,

I am one who had been granted choice
To have life of joy and great party, instead
I embraced age and woe, and prophecy to bear.

I am like David, King,
My verse belongs to heart,
I sing of love, the bedroom,
The nights when limbs fall askew,
And lips of wide-open mouths lock,
I write of events, whose chief renown,
Rest upon time loosening its awful grasp.

My arm is mighty.
I am keenly skilled at weaponry.
Because my heart is pure,
My strength has the strength of ten.
A new kingdom animates my ambition.
I plan to establish Zion.

On mountain top,
Now sitting barren in the wilderness,
The light of the ages shall flourish,
The son of man, He will visit.
The Lord commands I marshal my forces.
My lyre sits on the campaign table,
My sling readies to outrage Philistines.

Warriors reel, they roll in clanging lists
Trumpets shrill up high, shattering the sky,
I walk to the fore, my bearing right,
And in an instance, before the armies
Found their resolve, before they
Stood to and steeled their final formation,
Munificence blesses me, my enemy,
All his might now lies upon the ground,

Surely goodness and mercy follow me.

And in the heat and noise of battle,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
Angels sing, and I fear no evil,
I dwell in the house of the Lord,
My victory belongs to the ages,
My name forever bespeaks His bounty.

NOW VOYAGER, A Poem in Five Parts

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NOW VOYAGER,
A Poem in Five Parts,
October 2010





Were I a gentleman true, gallant,
The kind of chap with plumage in his hat,
Whose cape readies for damsel's distress,
I would say let us end it now; you are
Too young or, even better put,

I am too old for love with a beauty your age.

But let us face it!
No two-bit convention possesses me.

Long ago,
It was in the woods of Western Massachusetts,
I saw time tunnel down the trail before me.
I saw the nature of things,
The whirl into which all we know disappears.

And tonight faces of the dead startle me awake.
Family and friends float before me.

Oh the calamity!
Death holds both young and old alike!

Darling, the air in my bedroom
It drops to the temperature of ice.

I envision my aunt, Helene, and see her
When she says to the child, who is me,
"Stanley! Go ahead! Touch her!"
My cousin, Barbara, lies in her coffin
Before the age of six; she was a year older than I.

My buddy, Burton, cut down well before prime.
Thought of him occupies my every day.

Revelry brings me to Joey who cried
"Whitney's dead!" And right there
On Fifth Avenue, opposite the Public Library,
He placed his gun on the glass of the showcase
Counter top. I was in the jewelry shop.
I dream a slip back to my former ways, the drinking life;
I could taste the whiskey shots, the beverage
Dispensed that afternoon, it was Johnnie Walker Black.

The haunting goes on;
More of the dead, they parade before me.

Omar, tall, dark, forgive me here for I know
No better than the honest truth, handsome,
The child, Spencer, my son's best friend,
My high-school sweethearts, Arlene and Lynn,
All taken, all unwitting emblems, as if to prove,
Life bears no promise of continuance.

Nightmare arms with disembodied hands,
Wag imaginary fingers
They seem to demand I pick up pen and write.



2.


But before one dream ceases another appears.
I see the birds of the air keep still.
Those who were eating did not eat,
And those who were conveying material to make nest,
Did not convey it. And before me opens a scene
Of low surf beaches upon which are long ships,
Vessels whose hulls have center masts
With single, rectangular sails, blood red,
And from gar boards up are stakes, broad-axed
Hewed, each board a color its own,
And each board nailed one upon the other,
The sides of those ships appear,
Like the bands of rainbows, red, orange, yellow,
Green, blue, indigo and regal violet.
Color upon color runs the length of keels,
Which themselves are crowned gold
Each has its own fierce, dragon-head prow.

Rudders are mounted at right, and within each craft
Upon rows and rows of chests sit oarsmen.

The ships are set to sail,
Yet the entire assembled host
Seems as if stuck in stone,
Like sculpture done in high relief. Nothing moves.
The waves have stopped, they break not.

What a night! It is,
It really is, what a remarkable night!

Never before have I beheld,
Have I seen such Technicolor panorama.
The closed world of family and friends
Falls to vision from other time and place.
My bedroom warms. And a seemingly true,
But sixth sense intimates Spring,
I bear witness to a prelude,
The dream carries me and I sense the long days,
The glory of Scandinavian summer awakens before me.

Light, bright, bright day dawns, and it thrills me.
I ready for adventure. I am happy;
I am exhilarated beyond normal human expectations.

And, then, suddenly, right before my eyes,
From within a quick, upward swirling smoke,
A bearded visage materializes.

The image takes me aback.

It is strange. It wears a helmet,
(The likes of which I had never before encountered)
A four part iron dome with a sharp spike atop,
A braided chain surrounds its eye sockets,
It gives a spectacle-like appearance to the visor.

Down the back of this visage’s neck,
Mounted from the edge of his helmet,
A chain-mail curtain falls
Directly to the shoulder of a thick, hide tunic.
A strap from ear guard to ear guard
Runs behind his beard, holds his helmet in place.

He says, "Action! Please!"
At once, as though my dream a set scene
Belonging to some kind of cinematic construct,
I hear birds of the air singing,
And those who were eating, eat,
And those who were conveying material to nest,
Now fly about and convey it.

The shipyard has come to life, the din already terrific.
On horizon's plane I hear low thunder.
I see the spray of waves sparkle in the daylight.

I wonder do I sleep or do I wake?



3.


"Today", the specter says,
"Before I appeared in vision to you,
A fierce fit seized my brain, and I took my sword
And smashed it mightily against this stone
Which our men had trundled from the moraine,
A monument on whose face
Inscribed characters memorialized my life."

Wordlessly he hands me a leather roll to unfurl.
It is a runic manuscript and though
The writing, the script olden, it is Norse,
In my dream I could read it!

"My Darling Brunet," the salutation goes,

"I am your countryman, a remote ancestor,
I tell you true, and whether you believe me or not,
Or how you choose to act,
The matter rests entirely with you.
Nonetheless I urge you. Harken!

"Death has deprived me of ability to speak,
The poet’s verse, the dream
It communicates to you, is channel,
The vehicle this ghost employs,
Without this medium no correspondence would exist.

"You have heard of the hurried activity that
Animates the point of embarkation,
Note anticipation of mere material success,
It dwarfs so much noble human endeavor.
The business these ships portend had once been mine.

"The business the ships portend had been mine.

"And now voyager, you, like we before you,
Pursue the world to bring it to your feet,
You seek new riches and hope
To bring them home to dazzle compatriots.

"Yet, whatever the greatness now awaits you,
Yours can not compare to ours, to our accomplishment.



4.


The reverie continued with me reading the ancient text.
The leather roll in my hands,
Wondrously I unfurl it.
The ghostly visage on guard, he insures I wake not,
That I remain under his command and tell his story.

I read the document aloud.

"Forgive the invidious note. Still mull it over;
Allow me this moment. Imagine it!

"The joy! We sat well in order
And smote the sounding furrows,
And sailed into the sunrise
We headed toward the baths of the morning stars.

"And when we landed, we crossed a vast,
Unnamed landmass between Europe and Asia,
Harnessed captives to forge the rivers,
Fought numberless skirmishes,
We used native allies to establish posts for trade.

"And while we traveled we beseeched Odin,

"Oh Father! Oh Father of Fathers! Oh Allfather!
Soak us in the blood of enemies, and let its
Stench increase our fury. Help us to violence!
Oh Great God guide us to murder,
Death to any who would dare to, who might defy us!

"The greater bloody smell that filled our nostrils,
The more the madness drove us to fight and conquer.

"And when we lit the funeral pyres,
Made from the ships of our current travel,
And burned the bodies of our fallen comrades
Into the heaven that awaits the warrior,
Our hair became matted thick,
We were crowned with the ash of the departed.
In the smoke from those fires
We breathed in the spirits of heroic conquest.

"We were men of prayer and momentous belief,
Utterly we turned our will and
We turned our lives over to care of Father.

"And I ask, again, how your may compare to ours,
How may your enterprise
Compare to our conquest of the East?

"We founded Kiev, established the thrones
That became the Royal house of a great nation.

"All the way from the soil of Stora Alvaret,
We crossed the Bosporus,
And battled foes on the plains outside Byzantium,
Our work was in the employ of oriental Emperors.

"We had vanquished the expanse of land
We ruled from Baltic to Black Sea.

"And when we returned to homeland shores
We had ships which were filled with slaves and honey,
And were heaped with all variety of fruit.

We brought women to the North,
Awesome beauties of the East were ours.

We stole the horses of the Hungarians and the Czechs.

Our ships returned laden with pelts, fur, which we
And our people used to win our great fight against winter.

"We had returned home rich beyond measure.

“No one need tell me how great the events,
How the gravestone script commemorates
The immortality of your ancestors’ deeds and mine.

"Yet nothing matches the warmth, the memory,
My dear wife’s body lay in bed, her sleeping next to me.

"And now, so many years ago, I remember
I happened upon my wife while she lifted
Our son to seat him on the front plank
Of an oxcart parked in the front of our home.

"I must convey that there is
More lasting memory and real worth for me
In the way dappled sunlight
Had illuminated my son's head
Than is upon all the runes in the homeland today.

"Our paths emerge but for a while
Then close forever within a dream.

"Time cuts us a length so short only the moment
May be cherished, all else, vanity.
And once we recognize the transitory,
The fleetingness of all we savor,
We may seize the instance and know treasure.

"I am a phantom. My victories mean nothing.

"Were I only able to spend
An hour more in bed with my beloved,
Could I once more bear living witness
To sun’s light across tree tops at height of day.

"If only it possible to play, to tumble,
To crawl along with my toddler son,
Were we to have opportunity for our knees
And our hands to be upon this earth once more.

"Goodbye! Sweet woman, Goodbye!

"Farewell! Farewell! Remember me!"



5.


He vanishes. The runic, leather manuscript,
His letter with its seemingly magic unfurling,
The record of the glory and the moral of his story,
I attempt to continue my grasp, but it, too, is gone.

The dreamscape has turned green.

And the color now before me matches the hue,
The verdant, the summer green of those
Preserves of forest that stretch
For mile upon mile along the River Deplanes,

The green equals the shade of the woods,
The same shade as the leaves of trees,
Which circle the cemetery stone,
The burial ground of the Chippewa Chief
Whose bravery saved the pale skins at Fort Dearborn.

The green is the summer color surrounding the burial plot,
The Indian Burial Ground where I played in my youth.

And out from behind this world of green, voices,
Voices, which I hear, but do not see, they declare,

"Go slowly, my lovely moon, go slowly.

"Time chases upon our heels,
Before long it quickens its pace to furious gallop.
All earthly stores succumb to this onslaught.
In a wisp, as with the language of our monuments,
We cease, and we are remembered no more."

And now -- over and against this flood of green --
A white, spectral chorus appears.
And from amongst the ensemble
A single, ghost figure steps to the fore, and says,

"I am here to repeat ancient wisdom:

"We care not; who cares what the joyless say?
They should get lost, all of them!

"Once our tiny, brief light is pinched out,
There be no night, like that everlasting night,
When earth, it replaces heaven.

"So let’s kiss, and let’s kiss again.
Let’s kiss a thousand times, and, then,
Let’s do it all over again, those kisses.

"How many? How many? How many?
How many, you say?

"Let’s not number our kisses.
There are people with evil eyes,
Workers of black magic,
Who would wish to bewitch us.

"They should not know how many."

COUNT SLOBENDORF’S MISFORTUNE

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COUNT SLOBENDORF’S MISFORTUNE


He was unable to recall
When he had last seen the words,
‘I love you’, form upon her lips.

Still he had not known
The woman sought only his fortune,
Until the time he spent with her
Began to feel the same as
A life sentence in prison.

HER GRANDMOTHER, Early Morning Refrain, October 2010

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HER GRANDMOTHER,
Early Morning Refrain,
October 2010




Was not handsome, nor was she particularly wise,
No one ever said she was the smartest,
But she painted well, an artist,
Today her family treasures and enjoys,
Landscapes and still lifes,
Wonderful evidence of her output and skill.

She applied the oil heavily, used both trowel and brush,
And captured wood and river, and rural architecture
All around her North New Jersey home;
She also rendered, remarkably, the wonder of Atlantic
Waves lapping upon her state’s South shore.

And following the common adage,
Different time and place, who knows the fame,
The renown she might have attained?

She dressed her grandchild, a girl, in pricey sets,
And family and neighbors seem to appreciate it,
“Oh isn’t Elsie wonderful!” They often said.

For all intents and purposes, the child was orphaned.
Her Mother was sick,
And had long-time stay in sanatorium,
Dad was gone;
He had run off and started another family.

Two other girls, her sisters, older, likewise deserted,
They stayed with paternal father and mother.
And she, the baby girl, was cast off, separate,
She went to her Mother’s Mother and Father.

Hard to explain the cause, yet jealousy reigned.
The new wife kept their father away,
He hardly ever saw the previous wife,
Or bothered to visit the three girls he abandoned.

Grandma's girl was tall, naturally curly, blonde hair,
And cheek bones high enough to make for real beauty.
Possessing natural, happy disposition,
Her eyes beamed, and when all-dressed-up,
She looked as though,
She might model for children’s fashion magazines.



2.


But Elsie, she did have her ways,
(Really, I am told to put it nicely!)
She paid no heed to underwear,
Only interested in outward appearance,
Think on this a moment, for who could see it?

Though it might be tattered and dirty,
And Lord knows should have been replaced,
Especially when one consider the expense,
She cared not the dollar amount of any outfit’s cost.

She favored subtle, flower prints,
Nothing garish; she was master seamstress,
A healthy woman, who loved her cats
(Fed those both inside and outside the house)
And took in every kind of stray, animal and human.

A former dancer who partook of chorus,
Had her training at LUNA PARK,
And, all who knew her swear,
She practiced kicks, over head, when
She had already celebrated birthdays past seventy.

Did she swap a place for her star on the walk,
Take lead role in gilded cage instead?

No way, she was tough and worked hard,
Created a wonderful home and with natural talent,
She made a big garden, a green-thumb delight.

And guess what? To top it off,
She married well, a union man, a good provider,
A leader, he was respected and adored by all.

Sure he was a hard-nosed guy.
He had his trouble with the Schuberts and the mob,
No easy matter getting a salary for men,
Who changed the bulbs on marquee boards
Who hauled wire, and painted sets,
And whose days involved going up and down ladders.
Her grandpa made sure there was a decent wage
For the man whose job it was
To clean and bag after circus elephants.

Over the years, testimony holds,
-- Here we have no mean feat --
They fostered twenty-five kids, adopted four,
And then wound up having a girl of their own.

But something went amiss;
Grandpa went upstairs to bed,
Grandma slathered in wintergreen, and liniment
Slept on living-room couch at night,
Hard to believe,
How long a time they spent their lives that way.

And after her Mom was finally released from hospital,
Grandmother balked when time came to return
The girl to whom she had grown attached,
The girl she helped to educate and rear.
She pretended the child were her own.
She used every kind of conceivable excuse;
Grandma tied to keep the her real daughter away.

And then I heard,
I heard the granddaughter say,
We sat at kitchen table,
It was very late; sun had begun to signal new day.
I heard her wax, granddaughter waxed on the refrain,
Though she said it quiet and was ashamed,
‘I can not wish she were here.’

‘I do not wish she were here today.’

SAD, Following an Ancient Writer’s Reflection*

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SAD,
Following an Ancient Writer’s Reflection*


Etta, do you not care when I am ill?

Remember last week, when a pinched nerve
Kept me in bed for most of a day?
I could not walk,
I began to panic, and
Believed I might never be well again.

And your response, terrible, cold and unmoving,
Declaring what in my heart was apparent;
You told me that you had no aspirations,
That if I sought a Florence Nightingale,
I had barked up the wrong alley.

It hurt most, when after a moment’s reflection,
I came to believe your response sounded rehearsed.

It had a tone, which seemed practiced more than once.

Yet when I had fallen,
Became lost to pain in an otherwise robust frame,
And you had shown no worry, commiserated not a bit.

You had actually precluded concern.

Now that my health returns,
I must wonder,
No matter the many times you have claimed
That you loved me,
If you ... had you ever cared for me at all.

*The inspiration for this poem was Suplicia's POEM 5. She was a woman poet of the 1st century CE, and, as usually is the case, little about her life and work has survived the ages.



Estne tibi, Cerinthe, tuae pia cura puellae,
quod mea nunc vexat corpora fessa calor?
A! ego non aliter tristes evincere morbos
optarim, quam te si quoque velle putem.
At mihi quid prosit morbos evincere, si tu
nostra potes lento pectore ferre mala?