Bill Roberts, Poet

Giving It Up

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

– for Maxie

Maxie couldn’t have been happier

than he was the day our sister got married.

I picked him up at the hospital

as I usually did most Saturday mornings,

then headed directly for my apartment

where his new outfit awaited him:

brown wool suit, white shirt, rakish red

tie and matching pocket hanky,

sleek brown loafers with tassels –

even new socks and underwear.

He looked spectacular when finished,

even more handsome than sister Eileen’s

husband-to-be, who was plagued

by the jitters, as was fretful Eileen,

whose chief concern was Maxie.

I made sure Maxie swallowed two

Ritalin tablets, then my wife gave him

a final once over before we left

for the groom’s parents’ church.

Maxie circulated with snacks at the reception,

danced with every willing female,

and charmed everyone who noticed him –

many didn’t, because he fit right in,

regardless of the demons he suppressed.

His smiling mug showed up in many

of the wedding pictures, testaments

to his having enjoyed a wonderful day.

I picked him up again a week later,

expecting him to be wearing his new duds

but found him instead deep in thought

in his usual uniform, scruffy cottons.

Maxie said one of the other patients

had a sister who was getting married,

so he’d given away the suit and accessories.

I silently cursed his misguided generosity, but

finally gave it up when I saw how

genuinely pleased with himself he seemed.

Note:  Golly, Miss Molly, another too-true story.  Maxie, movie-star handsome, came down with the too frequent affliction of young men in those days, paranoid schizophrenia.  After nearly ten years in a mental hospital, the infamous St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, D.C., he began coming out of his long funk of  non-communication after starting on what would later become known as the miracle drug Ritalin.  Returning home most weekends, he came back to family but was, of course, never quite the same.  This incident of dear sister Eileen’s wedding had to be one of the highlights of his tormented life – a day of great merriment for him and for us, his family.  Alas, his dosage of Ritalin was said to be a hundred times what today is normally prescribed for patients and, after too few years, killed him.  We had him back for too short a while.  Good to remember a happy day, Eileen and Dave having recently celebrated fifty years of married life together.

(Published in Into the Teeth of the Wind, Vol. II, Issue 2-3, 2001)

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A Day Is Long

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

–from Peter Lieberson’s “Neruda Songs”

A day is long sometimes.

When winter lasts too long.

When silence invades, occupies.

When birds fear to return.

A day is long when work wearies.

When morning comes too early.

When fatigue sets in midday.

When on the lone ride home.

A day is long as children grow.

When all homework is done.

When they leave for school.

When they find their mates.

A day is long as life lumbers on.

When sickness strikes, stays.

When drugs are prescribed.

When fate hangs in the balance.

A day is long when word comes.

When advised of better days.

When the future is foreseen.

When you know what’s in store.

A day is long when you are gone.

When you take your leave.

When you say good-bye.

When day is finally over.

Note:  This poem is written in remembrance of Jim Peterson, whose memorial service Irene and I attended just yesterday.  A very fine man, very brave man, fighting against prostate cancer for thirteen years.  Not ones to let the stubborn foe intercede, Jim and Margaret Peterson traveled far and wide during those years, determined to get the most out of life with what was left to them.  They had great success.  Together they represent the true meaning to me of Valentine’s Day.

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The Beast in the Bottle

Monday, February 8th, 2010

We know where he hides,

in those bottles in that cabinet,

no locks on the doors,

screw caps easy to uncouple,

let him breathe before you

start the transition, drinking

all of him so you become him.

Once you start, no stopping

until the transformation is complete -

you once again the beast you fear,

couldn’t keep bottled up.

Your weakness, no secret,

usually in control until….something

happens, trips an unquenchable thirst.

Then the beast rages, for days at

a time, contained within the walls

of your domicile, no longer a castle

but a prison, you in the dungeon.

With time, the beast will exhaust

himself, creep away into shadow.

You will recover, though the brain

has taken another concussive blow.

Slowly a form of normality returns

and you return to the world of

semi-beasts, wondering, wondering…

when will he return, the beast?

He’s there, always, waiting for you

in stores – purchase prices always

reduced twenty percent Mondays

and Tuesdays, still beastly prices.

(This poem was published today, 2/08/10, online by Marquis Cafeteria Round Table)

Note:  I was probably spared the life of a drunkard for several reasons, the most important being that I saw so many ruin their lives and the lives of others as they came and went through my mother’s rooming house.  So many!  Being an analytical kid, I studied cause and effect, said uh-uh, not for me.  Oh, I love my wine, have a cellar full, try to keep it well stocked in case the Big Drought ever hits.  Fortunately, don’t see too many drunks these days, just read about them occasionally in the newspapers after they’ve crashed and killed themselves.  Brother and sister, so it goes…

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Let Me Know If You’re Dead

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

The last of five messages on the phone

is a real beaut, a classic.

I play it a second, then a third time.

Roberts, I heard you died.

I hope not but you never know at our age.

Call me if you’re really dead, okay?

I play it a fourth time,

then decide to call my old friend

whom I haven’t spoken to for months.

No answer, then his message

thingamajig kicks in:

Make it brief – I’m getting too impatient.

Norris, hi, I say.  You heard right.

I died when I heard your voice.

Please send flowers but don’t call back.

(Published online in 2008 by Chantarelle’s Notebook)

Note:  I have some whacky friends who do things like this, as I often do myself.  “Hey, good seeing you again.  The mortician did a nice job!”  Gallows humor, I guess it’s called.  But if you can’t make fun of death, at least on occasion, then you’re liable to live in constant fear of it.

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Desire Under the Arms

Monday, January 4th, 2010

– with sincere apologies to Eugene O’Neill

Quite impossible not to notice

when I go to water aerobics class

three times a week the untidy

condition of the underarms

of my fellow – I should say,

lady – aqua thrasherettes.

I’m usually the lone male

in the pool, ostracized to the deep

end I presume so I won’t notice

that the ladies haven’t shaved

their armpits this century,

but I’m not exactly blind yet.

Because most of them are larger

than me, I’m a bit reluctant

to inquire about this hirsuteness

they’ve adapted, perhaps on purpose -

a cult possibly or, like bralessness,

a current cause they’ve taken up.

Maybe it’s ecological, growing hair

instead of grass, or they figure

it’s sexy, as cave women undoubtedly

thought long ago.  Come to think of it,

it is kind of, well, sexy in a way,

if hairy septuagenarians turn you on.

(Published online in the June 2009 issue of The Orange Room Review)

Note:  Shortly after this poem was published and my social analysis was exposed, I was voted out of the pool by the offended Thrasherettes.  I now work out regularly in the weight room at the gym with all the hairy, sweaty men, some of whom apparently prefer to bathe only once a month.  I’m of a mind to suggest they try water aerobics, check out the Thrasherettes.

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How Poor Were We?

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

So poor the mice scampered next door

for three squares a day

and didn’t hurry back,

afraid they’d be eaten.

No, we couldnt even afford a stray cat.

We dressed in each other’s

hand-me-down clothes – threads

by the time they got to me.

My best friend was a skinny cockroach,

too weak to crawl to the neighbors.

We told each other bedtime tales -

his about crumbs, mine about delusions.

A teacher threatened to send me home

one day when I fell asleep in her class.

She relented when I told her my folks

had sent me off as their only hope.

I was so thin I fit in the pencil sharpener,

couldn’t slap chalk from the board erasers.

Then, the miracle meat Spam was discovered.

A cure?  If only we’d owned a can opener.

(Published in the Fall 2005 issue of the Parnassus Literary Journal)

Note:  Hyperbole?  Of course.  Or was it?  We were poor, but in those days, the late Thirties and early Forties, almost everyone was poor.  We just didn’t know we were, all of us pretty much lookalikes in the neighborhood.  One advantage I and my siblings had over most:  we ate well each day, our mother a wonderful cook, Dad the provider.  Our days often started with a huge mound of boiled rice, topped with butter, salt, pepper and crunchy bacon rolled into bits with our hands.  An Oklahoma luxury, we were told.  Got us going in the morning, sustained us throughout school hours.  Oh, yes, we did befriend the cockroaches and mice, all non-paying boarders in Mom’s boarding house.  Seemed to go with the territory there in D.C.  All of us survived tough times, mice and roaches included.

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A Sort of Christmas Story

Friday, December 18th, 2009

We were planning to head East, to

hometown D.C., to see friends, then

onward to Ocean City to stay with

Brother Jim and Laurie in their high-

rise, the fourteenth floor at the beach.

The latter sort of reminds me of all

those old folks forsaking their even

higher-rises in frigid New York City,

moving down to Miami Beach to

sequester themselves on the forty-ninth

floor, excellent view of sand and water.

But I got a call from kid sister in Mesa,

Arizona, saying she was ill – stage-four

ovarian cancer, she sounding like

maybe this was the closing act of her

slow-but-steady drama through life.

Once a kid sister, always the kid.

So, plans shifted and we were there

with her gigantic Mormon family night

before hysterectomy-plus, the plus

the great unknown, to be determined.

After a big Mexican take-out meal

hosted by eldest daughter, my sis just

observing, no intake of jalapeno flavors,

two sons, a son-in-law and husband

performed a “blessing,” perhaps a

secret Mormon ritual that wife and I

were allowed to witness, the four men

stationed north, east, south and west

of kid sis, all hands on her head as

they alternately prayed for deliverance.

Moving doesn’t do the blessing justice,

its simplicity and honesty so electric.

Next afternoon, the operation was

performed with a DaVinci robot,

through belly button and two sets of

holes either side, with a wash of belly

cavity to secure biopsy fluids and tissue.

Sis was home again within 24 hours,

feeling better than she did after any of

five rambunctious children – even hungry.

Her CA-125 blood indicator for cancer

started off the chart at 1,675, plummeted to

14 after the third chemotherapy, within

normal range and quite unprecedented.

Biopsy results a few days later showed no

further evidence of Big C or its spread.

A miracle in early December, just weeks

before Christmas, the news a blessing.

I don’t know if Mormons have special

powers, other than the magnificence of

family magnetism and beauty, but I,

semi-heathen that I am, have to admit

this Christmas is special, a gift, something

one might read in the Bible or whatever

it was you were made to study religiously

in your youth, probably foreseeing the day

you’d be free to follow your own path.

I will look for a star in the West – not East -

this Christmas, won’t be surprised when

I don’t find it because it showed up early.

Note:  The poem says it all, can’t add very much.  If miracles happen, sister Bee’s experience surely is one of them.  With great joy, Irene and I wish all of our family and friends peace, joy and good health to close out the year and throughout the new year, 2010.

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Crows Perched On Crosses

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Peering as we walk solemnly toward

the rectangular gap in the ground,

a jury of crows,

judging perhaps which of us

will take the next available opening.

Could be any of us,

all older than the chap this day

being permanently sealed underground.

Crows know a ripe crop

when they see one.

The old man wearing a cross and

speaking in tongues

also qualifies as a candidate,

but the crows favor eying me.

Perhaps it’s my shuffling gait.

Could be the squawking hearing aids.

They know all the signs,

as I try to ignore them,

singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.”

They nod, join me in the second chorus.

(Published online in the November 2009 issue of Chantarelle’s Notebook)

Note:  Today as I enter this poem it’s a beautiful Thanksgiving Day.  So, what do I give you but a deeply dark poem.  At least there are birds in it, just not the edible kind.  This is one of my nightmare inspired poems, of which there are many.  So many nightmares, so many poems.  Maybe inspired too by all the crows hunkering about the neighborhood.  I love Chantarelle’s Notebook, which is courageous enough to occasionally publish my material, not all of it dark.  Let’s be thankful for what we have, what we’ve been given.  And as Julia would say, Bon appetit! But please – don’t eat crow.

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Terrorist

Monday, November 16th, 2009

My palms were sweating again

when I met Pete some forty years later.

I used to sweat all over back then

when we were in school and he,

a vicious, unrelenting bully,

was my one and only reason

for being late so often mornings:

I didn’t want to confront him

and go through the humiliating ritual

of being grabbed by my shirt front

and shaken down,

having to expose the contents

of my pockets and lunch bag.

The years hadn’t been overly kind

to Pete, though his flower business,

I’d heard, had made him wealthy:

he was entirely bald -

not a pleasant prospect in combination

with his menacing, pockmarked face -

and the scars from various invasions

of his brain coursed wildly

over his yellowish skull.

He slammed down the receiver,

after eying me through the several minutes

of his vituperative conversation,

stood, lurched toward me,

grabbed my hand and shook it nearly off.

We spoke of old times,

even joked about the money I had contributed

to the purchase of his business.

We spoke as friends -

he not apologizing for teenaged terrorism,

me not mentioning I knew he was dying.

(First published in The Raintown Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, June 1998 under my then pseudonym, Bartlett Boswell)

Note:  Funny day back in the summer of 1995.  I’d just escorted my best friend, Rodney Miller, to his last chemotherapy treatment at George Washington Hospital very near the White House in D.C.  Rodney knew he was on borrowed time, his mind sharp as ever, suggesting that we stop in and visit with our old nemesis from Central Junior High days, Pete Chaconas (the same guy from the previous poem, “Floored”) at his thriving flower shop.  It happened just as described in the poem and turned out to be a delightful day, scary though those few moments were before the handshake.  Amazing how people can bridge that awesome gap in time, hurdle over painful memories and find pleasant things to talk about.  My pal Rodney died soon after this.  A note on him:  last time I came to visit, I brought him a black and gold T shirt with the charging buffalo logo from the University of Colorado in Boulder.  He cried, told me it meant a lot to him and that people too often forget to bring presents to friends who are dying.  Never too late to learn how to be human.

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