Hard Times: January 2009

This is an older poem, written right after the real estate bubble burst.

                Hard Times: January 2009

The new year and the bubbles have burst.
Before Christmas, the neighbor’s yard was filled
with inflated hopes: Santa, Frosty, Rudolph
and the whole gang, spotlit and swaying
in their own breezes, towering
and teetering toward the holidays -
a homegrown Macy’s parade.

Now all those luminaries litter the lawn,
a collection of collapsed dirigibles,
deflated and dead, like wrinkled corpses
on a suburban battlefield, as if
the Grinch never learned to sing
and pulled the plug on them all.

They’ve been there for weeks.
Has that neighbor given up
and quietly moved out?
Or is he simply waiting for a miracle,
for Santa to rise again as the Easter Bunny
with all his eggs in some new basket?

Honest Appraisal

As the sub-title indicates, I wrote this after watching a TV show where people have their antiques appraised.  The poem borrows language from the show but applies it to something different.

                                              Honest Appraisal
                                      (after Antiques RoadShow)
                         
                           If these memories were in near mint condition-
                           without the ragged repair work after the divorce
                           or the obvious embroidery around the first date-
                           then they might be worth restoring.
                           But since there is a glut in the failed marriage market,
                           you should put them back in the attic,
                           along with the dead pets and lost football games
                           and the love letters you always meant to write.

In Praise of the Erasable Pen

I write almost all of my first drafts in my journal in erasable pen.  It looks more serious than pencil but can still be erased and changed easily.

                                                     In Praise of the Erasable Pen

                                                  Less than indelible, it admits
                                                  all permanence is pretence anyway
                                                  while its eraser top proclaims
                                                  perfection is a ruse as well.
                                                  Mistakes have been, are being, will be
                                                  made. Aye, there’s the rubber that meets
                                                  the written word, promising to expunge
                                                  all error, eventually, so that even this poem
                                                  may be pardoned as part of a perpetual first draft.

List-less

In a creative writing class, we students were challenged to write a list that was a poem.  Contrarian that I am, I wrote about being without a list at the grocery store.

                                                                  List-less

                                             I wander the grocery store aisles,
                                             trying to visualize my refrigerator
                                             while passing by what I need.
                                             Then I stare at the shelves
                                             and grab what I want.
                                             Mick Jagger was wrong.



Note to those who don't know the Rolling Stones: One of their most popular songs says something like, "You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might just find, you get what you need."
That's the gist of the quote; Stones fans can correct any words I have wrong.

Inside the Box

During the summer, we collect our mail at a very old post office.

                                                     Inside the Box

                                       The antique post office boxes
                                       stand stacked in rows
                                       like tiny treasure chests,
                                       their aged brass dully glowing
                                       in the lobby’s filtered sunlight.
                                       Patrons peer through misted glass
                                       to glimpse shadowy possibilities
                                       (the staggered lean of envelopes,
                                       the graceful curl of magazines)
                                       then crouch or stretch like safecrackers,
                                       slowly spinning concentric circles:
                                       the outer letters, the inner pointer
                                       carefully aligned. The doors open and
                                       the prize is revealed: mostly coupons
                                       and come-ons, counterfeits reminding us
                                       in this life of circulars, much is promised
                                       and little delivered.

On Losing Another Poetry Contest

This is a poem by a sore loser- me.

                                                      On Losing Another Poetry Contest

                                                    Does this race go to the swift,
                                                    with the first poet out of his writer’s
                                                    block and into a blazing
                                                    metaphor winning the day?

                                                   Or does strength prevail, and the
                                                   heavyweight lifting love
                                                   and death and time over the head
                                                   of his audience is the one
                                                   who gets to give a victory
                                                   grunt and drop his subjects
                                                   to thud and bounce on the floor?

                                                   Or is it sheer endurance
                                                   as the last poet standing
                                                   goes on and on about some crushed
                                                   flowers or Grandma’s cooking
                                                   and staggers across the line
                                                   to embrace the prize?

                                                   More likely, though, it comes down
                                                   to artistic impression
                                                   and all the judges
                                                   are from East Germany.

Note:  From an American perspective, back when there was an East Germany, its Olympic judges were notorous for favoring their athletes and being biased against all others.

Permission to Land

In this poem, I mix some things about my dad with some things about me and some total pieces of fiction. I hope it gets to the feeling I was trying to convey.

                                                        Permission to Land

                                         Sometimes when we kids got cranky
                                         in the backseat, our father would
                                         pull the cigarette lighter from the dash
                                         and pretend to be the pilot
                                         he had once hoped to be,
                                         back when he had a private license
                                         and had followed the turnpike
                                         in the fog from Wilkes-Barre to Philly
                                         in a Piper Cub with his new bride
                                        white-knuckled beside him,
                                        wondering how wild a man
                                        she had married.

                                        She was more comfortable
                                        in the Studebaker as Dad,
                                        the traveling salesman, merely
                                        made believe, speaking into the
                                        lighter as if it were a microphone:

                                        “This is your pilot speaking.
                                        We are cruising at 60 miles an hour
                                        at an altitude of three feet. Please
                                        keep your seat belts fastened.
                                        Estimated time of arrival,
                                        shortly after you stop saying,
                                        ‘Are we there yet?’”

                                       This would keep us quiet for a while.
                                        If Mom and Dad were lucky,
                                        we would even fall asleep
                                        and have to be carried
                                        from the car into Pop-Pop’s cottage.

                                        I think of this while driving the same turnpike,
                                        late at night, the backseat empty, the kids grown,
                                        a thin Jersey wall between me
                                        and the oncoming traffic.
                                        Dad landed long ago on some far-off,
                                        smoke-filled field, killed by all those
                                        cigars he said he never inhaled,
                                        leaving me alone at the wheel,
                                        staring into the dark and wondering
                                        are we there yet?

Note to my Greek students:  Yes, this is an old one that you've already read - and maybe even written an essay about.