your passing, quite a shock,

your life suddenly over.

We lost touch these past few years,

and that’s regrettable — my fault

more than yours, certainly.

Your life scrolls before me in segments

familiar only to you and me,

nothing monumental.

But there were times we had fun,

together, and I’ll remember

our funny moments.

Life is over for you, gone,

but you’re on my mind, will be,

as long as I have one.

(Published in a 2010 issue of Pegasus Magazine)

That’s how 2011 has gone, losing way too many people — family members and friends.  This poem is written to all, not with any one person in mind:  Doris, Mary, Pat, Bill, and five or six others.  It’s a year I won’t forget but wish I could, for the sake of those gone.  The memories of each one lives on.

to transport Dr. Sigmund Freud from Vienna

to our home on the Potomac, his last — and quite

surreptitious — analytical endeavor on this earth.

My snooping parents found me each day manipulating

the machinery in my undertogs, my crystal-ball-

gazing mother predicting I’d be blind before I was

twenty, a mere eight years from seeing Sigmund.

Sigmund noticed my trembling hands, said it was Long-

fellow’s Palsy, tell-tale sign of the masturbator, and, as

Mumsie predicted, I’d probably be blind before too long.

I admitted, to his delight, that I also play with others.

Which sex, he wanted to know, and I further admitted

both, my sight was failing and choices were quite

independent of rational thought, just free thought, as he

nodded in agreement, my ego grew to superego.

He did me no harm, Sigmund, and little good as well,

for blindness did ensue, my rational thinking slowly

advancing to irrational, my choices of sexual

partners irresponsible at the Sightless Children’s Clinic.

To my credit, though Sigmund might have disagreed,

I was the first to marry a person of the same sex,

though by then I was in my twenties, no longer

given to foreplay, simply content with companionship.

(Published online in the 6/14/11 issue of Thick With Conviction; nominated for Best of the Net 2011 on 9/16/11)

NOTE:  This poem is pure, not so simple, whimsy.  A spoof about sexual mores, an attempt to make fun of most of the old taboos — masturbation, going blind because of it,  playing with others (both sexes), and finally marrying a person of the same sex.  I would hope that Sigmund Freud would get a snicker out of it.  And, many thanks to the three brave young female editors at Thick With Conviction for recognizing an old codger enjoying horseplay involving the creative process.  Longfellow’s Palsy is pure invention, taking great liberties in my case, where Shortfellow’s Palsy may be more fitting….though not giving buoyancy to the poem.  And apologies to Dr. Freud for pretending to understand the intricacies of his theories — rational/irrational thought, ego and superego.  I am a student of the human condition but, alas, not the human brain.

than whatever — seventy, eighty,

one possibly ninety.  All women,

of course, their men having disappeared

years before they gathered here.

Why do they seem so happy,

so diligently engaged, so light on

their feet though seated, playing cards?

They’re like quilters without thread

and needles, just the hand they’ve been

dealt, though they discard a few, examine,

arrange new ones with nimble fingers.

And these girls play for real money –

nickels and dimes, no worthless pennies.

It’s a joy to see them, watch their faces,

study their moves.  But, holy crap,

their language often sears the air!

(Published in a 2011 issue of Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream)

Note:  A slightly different take on my dear Grandmother Roberts, always so ladylike, so well and soft spoken, almost saintly, who, when she entered a Catholic hospital to recover from a broken hip, cussed like a drunken sailor.  My father had to take her home well before schedule, so my grandmother would get her way and the hospital could recover from the blue cloud of words she left behind.

]]> http://www.billrobertspoet.com/light-on-their-feet/feed/ 0 http://www.billrobertspoet.com/the-taste-of-snowflakes/ http://www.billrobertspoet.com/the-taste-of-snowflakes/#comments Sat, 11 Jun 2011 16:22:57 +0000 Bill Roberts http://www.billrobertspoet.com/?p=335 Indians taught her how,

she once told me,

to catch a snowflake on the tongue

and savor its flavor.

What do they taste like? I asked.

Why, snowflakes, of course –

each unique, a different flavor.

Of course.  Of course?

Toward the end, she would sit

in the community gazebo

down the hill from her house,

place herself strategically,

bald head back, open mouth,

and let snowflakes fall on

awaiting tongue, tasting them

one or two at a time.

Her passing this summer

won’t allow me to share my

experimentation at same gazebo

when snows again return.

She said not to expect too much

the first time out –

snowflakes are an acquired taste.

(Published online in a 2009 issue of Foundling Review)

Note:  Mary was a lovely, delicate lady who played the piano and organ at her church for fifty years, writing poetry most of her life — mainly for the pleasure of her grandchildren.  I coaxed her to send her sweet poems off for publication, but she demurred, said it was just for her grandkids.  I’ve taken her advice and have tasted snowflakes (when I’m certain no one is looking).  To me, they all taste like chocolate.  Oh, not just any chocolate — seventy percent or better rich, dark chocolate.  Try ‘em sometime.

Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

Or did I hear her say something else?

It’ll cost you a golden egg to get laid.

Or, Don’t goose the moose

that drinks jungle juice?

Hearing not only goes as you get older

words and their meaning blur, too.

I’m a good listener, or so I’ve been told.

Or did she say, Listen, mister, I’m your sister?

It all gets damned confusing, if you ask me.

Did you?  I have trouble hearing.

Or did I tell you that already?

Hey, lady – stick what up my what?

(Published in the October 2010 online issue of Chantarelle’s Notebook.)

Note:  To admit that I don’t hear all that well is easy for me, after long practice.  I do listen, try to interpret words, but often get them jangled or jumbled, answer with a totally off-the-wall reply, making some wonder if I’m all there.  Well, no, actually, I’m not.  Next question, please.

We’ll always be Jung together -

Dorothy Parker, “Collected Poems”

Times are stressful, money’s tight.

I’ve held on, truly, with all my might.

The car went first, gas so expensive.

Horse’s-ass-power walking I do, intensive.

But walk to where? – no longer to stores.

Holes in my pockets, wallet full of sores.

Oh, I still eat healthy, lots of beans -

cereal, too, nearly beyond my means.

And I seek daily for work that fits,

until I tire, cramp up, get the shits.

Oh, the wife, her mother and the dogs -

gone long ago, leaving me a pair of shoes, clogs.

But still I walk the few miles to see my shrink,

says I look healthy, not wealthy – in the pink.

He assures me worse has happened to man over time -

being poor is a social disorder, not a crime.

But to crime I must turn to pay his bill -

claims things will improve, and he needs me still.

(Published in the 7/23/10 online issue of Thick With Conviction, one of my favorites)

Note:  Just a humorous commentary on the state of financial affairs across the globe.  Rest easy: I don’t wear clogs.  And I still have dogs.  And a wife.  A shrink?  Don’t need one….yet!  This was written, as I do so often, just for fun.

as I write, between my

beloved wife and our dear

expatriate New York friends

now living the suntan life

in San Diego, e-mails flying

back and forth to choose

exactly the right cooking

course at exactly the right

place, Tuscany, of course

at precisely the right time, spring

so we can meet as a foursome

to learn how to cook spaghetti

and lasagna and pizza and

ravioli and cannelloni and cannoli

washed down with the right

wine, Italian, of course

studed and lovingly prepared

in Tuscany on tomato-spattered

stoves, sweat dropping into

the mix of whatever’ll be mixed

all ours for the price of $3995

a head, when I’d just as soon

go out and get, and I’d better

get to getting A-sap, an Italian

cookbook, one of the fancy ones

with a recipe for everything

Italian we’d ever want to eat

cook and eat, I should say

at the bargain-table price

of $50, marked down from $75

by the very same gal who’ll teach us

Italian cooking in Tuscany.

(Published in the Spring 2003 issue of Nanny Fanny Poetry Magazine)

Note:  I didn’t buy the cookbook, we took the more expensive means of learning instead.  Did we love Tuscany?  Yum-yum, how could you ask such a silly question.  Irene and friend Joanie literally looked at over 500 potential courses we might have participated in in Tuscany, finally chose the best one, offered by a young lady who lives just miles from us in Boulder – Peggy Markel, “Corso di Cucina al Focolare,” 17 miles NW of Florence.  Again, yum-yum.

said Enrique, our nimble tour guide,

and who would argue with him, telling us

Spanish olive oil ranked Number One too,

much of it carted to Italy so Italianos

can slap their red-white-and-green label on it.

The Spanish speak four different languages,

each incomprehensible from the other,

making it burdensome for a tour leader

to move around easily and convey knowledge.

But it’s easy to see why the Spaniard lives

so long – he and she walk!  Walk briskly,

everywhere, striding like marathoners,

thinking while ambulatory, only good thoughts,

for frowns are rare, perhaps even forbidden.

The Catholic Church finally gave up

its Inquisitional ways long ago, and cathedrals

are everywhere, offering mass every hour

some days, the godly on strudy bent knees,

defying the church’s supplication to give it

more children, the godly more interested in

the fun part of sex rather than the reproductive.

We did see one rather young fellow in a

mechanized wheelchair, though he seemed

more interested in speed rather than recovery,

probably one of Spain’s many NASCAR nuts.

There is little fault about Spain and the Spanish -

the streets are pristine clean, the highways

uncrowded, maneuverable, the food in great

variety and tasty, the women slim and

fashionable, the men….who gives a shit?

But one fault:  few, very few, speak English.

Imagine that:  we go all the way over there,

toss our dollars at them, and they don’t speak

our language.  Makes you wonder, eh?

Note:  Irene and I are recently back from Spain – Madrid, Toledo, Avila, Salamanca, Zaragoza, Laguardia, Bilbao, and Barcelona – loving every minute of it.  Spain is clean, underpopulated, proud, polite, p0lished, and healthy, both in mind and body.  Immigrants are welcome, to do the unpleasant jobs the natives prefer to hire out.  Think about that a minute.  Their life expectancy is something like 88 years.  So, what’s wrong with us?  Nothing really, and it’s always good to return home, even after a two quick weeks.  We stayed abroad nearly ten weeks once, and I came home, kissed the ground at the airport, immediately went off for a juicy cheeseburger.  Did about the same this time, too.

so he hasn’t had quite enough years

to really get to know Mary,

my mother-in-law, whose funeral

service he’s guiding this cold morning.

Of course, when he visited with her

over the past four years they gabbed

but never quite made contact

because Mary’s communication system

had irreparably malfunctioned:

Alzheimer’s, the great divider.

He’s happily chatting away now up there

in the pulpit about another important

old lady in his life, his grandmother,

whose home at the beach in New Jersey

he loved to visit until she introduced

him to death at age eight, about the same

time he was getting close with God.

He told God he wouldn’t stay with his

grandmother any more if He’d let her

live, and he found out that God

doesn’t make deals like that.

It was a nice story, put a lighter touch

on the funeral.  Mary would have loved it.

I know she would have loved Father

Guido, too.  After the funeral, we all

went for a drive to the beach.

(Published in the Piedmont Literary Review, Vol, XXII, Number 2, 1999)

Note:  Another poem about my dear mother-in-law, Mary Kjersgaard, one of the true loves of my life.  It was a painful four years for Irene and me while Mary wound down to that dreaded invader, Alzheimer’s.  She’s been gone for quite a few years now, but never forgotten.  Her joyous, loving spirit still sustains us.

to see me this morning -

him waiting for his wife to finish exercising,

me having just showered

after water aerobics.

In greeting, he tells me he had

the craziest dream last night -

he was falling through space

and landed on his head,

which he rubs vigorously.

Again, he reminds me he’s had

Parkinson’s for fifteen years and

he’s originally from California

where the Silicon Valley now is,

from a large family of farmers.

I ask him to tell me more about

his dream, and he asks, What dream?

I tell him I had a crazy dream last night, too -

I was chasing naked girls and

couldn’t catch them.

He looks at me, either bewildered

or fascinated, and asks,

rubbing his sore bald spot,

serious as I’ve ever seen him,

Did you fall on your head, too?

(Published in 2008 online in Chantarelle’s Notebook)

Note:  This conversation with Howard occurred one morning at the Derda Center in Broomfield, CO, where Irene and I go for our workouts.  I love to chat with people, and Howard became a recognizable chat-mate over a period of months.  Most of his parlance was pretty much the same, hum-drum stuff, until this particular morning.  Not knowing quite how to answer his opening salvo about falling through space, I invented a dream of my own – oh, wouldn’t I love to chase naked girls! – and it made him pause and reflect:  maybe thinking, is this guy for real or off his rocker.  His final question was, in my estimation, the perfect response.  Sorry to say, don’t see Howard around any more.