As I have probably mentioned in these pages, the college radio station at which I volunteered when I was in college, required that the Sunday schedule be "educational" or "religious". When one of the professors, Vivienne Thaul Wechter, an "artist in residence" took a sabbatical from her WFUV-FM, show, during my sophomore year in 1974, there was a half hour opening the students were invited to fill. I proposed a poetry show, though I knew virtually nothing about poetry. So began "Poetry Because I Like It" later to be called "Poetry is for People", a program with a theme of poems ancient and modern. I waxed philosophical with a prepared script on a subject punctuated with poems that characterized the subject, "Love", "Loss", "Friendship", and yes, being who I am, "Cats". I was reading T.S. Eliot on the feline long before the play ever opening on Broadway. I finally had one or two actual courses in poetry, and despite my many years' long radio show, I never really fell in love with it. But during one year or so, from 1975 until 1976, about a year or two after my mother died,
(though she had lived long enough to hear me at WFUV) too young at 48 or breast cancer, I found myself attempting to write some of my own.
Most were sad, as I tried to sort out the past, and my place in the world. I had been a "lapsed" Catholic since 1970--the reasons having to do with my inability to comply with certain of its precepts, and a view that it made no sense to demand my religion to conform to me rather than me to it, mixed with a bit of irritation that I had to be the one to conform. My mother's death did nothing to inspire me back into the religious fold. I wasn't angry at God. I had enough basic theology not to expect him to act as, what Dennis Prager calls, a "Celestial Butler". Prayer is not always answered, at least in the ways that we human beings dare to demand of God, forgetting that we are not the authors of life, but that He is. But also, I hadn't been enamored of the priest who celebrated my mother's funeral Mass, and who accompanied my father and I to the cemetery some distance away from the Bronx. His example, poor man never realizing it, sitting in the front of the car reading while we mourned in the back, was not likely to encourage me to re-explore my faith. I was silently seething at him. But then, after all, my mother hadn't been to Church for years. What did I expect? He didn't know her. She had never set foot in the parish out of which she was buried, Our Lady of Angels, on Sedgwick Avenue, except in death. My Dad, I think back fondly, nonetheless did the right thing by her, for which I am grateful to this day.
My days as a "poetess" --a name a kind, blind fellow student who was one of our fellow WFUV'ers, Rich Adcock, denominated me--at least one who actually wrote poetry, lasted from December 1975 when I was 21 until about July 1976, just after I graduated from Fordham. I've kept the efforts all these years, along with a myriad of other memories through which I now pour to pare or to dispense to storage of one sort or another. This blog is one place of "storage", the holding of memories.
The first one is undated and I suppose it sets the stage for my brief stint effort at iambic pentameter and other meters I knew not of at the time (like trochees, spondees, anapests and dactyls), so I begin with it.
The Muse poets have.
Not I.
To take thought mundane
Of Love
Of Life
Of Death
And create, with words
carefully arrayed,
a masterpiece of written art.
Philosophy profound.
Human life explained.
Oh, miniscule episodes
of earthbound dwelling
made momentous with
THE PEN!
⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫
Toss and turn.
Almost every night I think
of her,
as my eyes burn with need of sleep.
Toss and turn.
Each night my mind searches for
concrete memory.
A moment caught. . .
No, it escapes too fast.
Wait!
Let me smile awhile
at what was said that day.
⧫
Toss and turn.
I must sleep.
There's time enough for memory.
Concentrate on glorious rest.
What!
The pillow is wet.
The swallowing comes hard.
Toss and turn.
God, I wish we could talk together.
Useless.
It is dark and
there is no one in the room.
⧫
Is this not the same beautiful child who
on a warm morning in May
in that year long forgotten
donned wedding gown and veil and
expectantly walked down the long, dark
aisle in silence, hands folded and head down?
Is this not the same purre girl
who received the Host-God into her heart
promising, publicly and silently, to
love her fellowman and who, in a
child's simple way vowed to live a
life worthy of St. Therese?
Grown now she feels futile frustration.
Did God die an unnoticed death with her
and continue to exist only in other hearts?
No more thinks she of faith that moves mountains.
Seldom thinks she of the Trinity--Father, Son,
or Holy Ghost.
God suited not her needs.
He answered not her needs.
Is that the reason?
No, sometimes it seems that God just faded away.
Didn't He? Didn't He?
Still, strange force of heart
brings the once-child to walk down
a long dark aisle in silence
hands slightly folded and head down.
Alone in the huge Church
she looks toward the altar and
feels the Presence of God.
Yes.
This is the same beautiful child.
⧫
Christmas, 1960
Wide-eyed babe
is readied by mama for the evening to come.
Celebration!
The Lord is born!
This is the reason we go tonight.
Is it?
Six year old knows nothing of this.
Celebration!
Pretty girl child has vivid picture of
dancing, loud music, loud talk, drink,
DRUNKENNESS
Celebration!
Tot in red velvet dress cannot laugh
with the other children.
Off to hide, cry in a large empty room.
No one can hear.
Celebration!
Watch them.
Watch them open old wounds that came
before her time.
Again, the once a year
airing of petty grievances.
Do they know a child listens?
Celebration!
A new morning breaks.
A little lamb inwardly begs for
home and sleep,
sleep with which she will not be blessed.
Not this night.
Celebration!
Quiets descends on the worn family.
Thank you, God.
Leave now. No more
celebration.
Tired tot lies in bed.
Little eyes stare.
Little ears assailed with a deadly sound of silence.
Outburst from her beloved ones.
Celebration!
opened their old wounds.
Seething resentment,
hurts still linger.
A young woman readies herself
for an evening to come.
Celebration!
The Lord is born.
This is the reason she goes tonight.
She remembers tears of old.
In days gone by,
how she hated Christmas and
Celebration!
⧫
Security, blessed security
knowing that mother sleeps
next to father
as she always has.
It is a happy child who hears them breathe
rhythmically, peacefully.
The child smiles and feels the
Security, blessed security.
Change, fearful change
must never touch them
plaguing only others
as it always has.
But now, death comes.
Mother is gone
quickly, unjustly.
A child screams and curses the
Change, damnable change.
⧫
Childhood simplicity
was born
is lost
Left a ruin
amid hard complexity.
Childhood faith
was taught
is shattered
Left a whole
in old dreams.
Childhood dreams
I had
I need
They are remembered
at this moment.
⧫
There is nothing
so fearful
as
not knowing
of the future.
In the dark
so tearful
for
not knowing
of the future.
Closing the eyes
so hopeful
for
ever dreaming
of the future.
To find love
so warm
for
ever embracing
in the future.
⧫
I am sorry, America.
That fellow is laughing under
his breath at the sound of your
patriotic song.
He looks about him to see
if others think it's funny too
to love one's country.
I am sorry, America.
That child has never heard about
the founding of his nation
or its struggles to survive.
He hears that times are changing.
The past is better dead.
Disillusion is a lovely thing.
I am sorry, America.
A philosopher now wisely says
"Your past is an evil sham
perpetrated on the common man."
We must join to build a better future.
This is his joyful aim.
Utopia is the
mighty plan.
I am sorry, America.
That fellow is crying in his soul.
He hates the sound of the people's song.
He looks about him to see if
others understand the pain of
his submission to oppression.
You have died, America.
⧫
He took a healthy
swig of his straight scotch
and he wheeled around
elbows on the bar
that kept him standing
and he shouted at
the unfeeling crowd,
"This drunk has no dreams!"
"Ya hear me, do you?
I just said somethin'
This drunk has no dreams!"
No one dared to look
but they heard him well.
"Let's get out of here.
These drunks always ruin
a good Friday night."
The barkeep barked now
at the offending creep
who slumped mumbling
and begged for more.
"Come on, old buddy,
just one little more."
Forget it fella.
Out he went, the bum.
Face in the cold snow
he whined and groaned for
the pain of being a nobody brings
slow death to the sould.
He sobbed and slobbered
and cried out in vain
for what might have been.
He took a deep breath
and shouted in rage
at a long-dead God,
"Damn them, it's their fault
this drunk has no dreams!"
He sprawled on the ground
while a late night crowd
stared and crossed the street.
⧫
I could not put my arms around her
and in one earnest time-suspended hug
express the love that overwhelmed me
for I was afraid.
I always had the deep affection
of my parents, given freely,
in a strange and hidden way.
I got what I never had earned,
the best of everything
and that indeed, is love.
But to touch, to speak of it, of love
a family of three
this I never knew.
Affection was implied but
implication is too subtle
for a starving child.
So my mother lay
with a year or less to life
and my heart ached to release
long dammed-up emotions.
I knew I needed her
and there was so little time.
⧫
His broad, strong hand reached out
and ever so gently stroked her cheek.
His two brown eyes searched hers
waiting for her to speak.
No words came but only
her smile to encourage.
His body edged closer
and his arms clasped hers,
and caressed it.
In the peaceful silence
she thrilled to the touch of his hand
in her long, flowing hair.
Certain, yet careful,
he leaned slowly forward
and pressed his lips against her.
She answered.
Warmth consumed them.
From this simple moment
to the final 'good night',
they knew
there would be other times.
