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.

Continued to grow,

Wilder and wilder,

Petunias and marigolds and

Pansies peeking through

Weeds grown so thick

The flowers looked like

Prisoners peeking through bars,

Thanks to abundant rain

And my grandmother’s

Inability to leave the second

Floor where she was held

Prisoner in her room

Overlooking the garden,

Things growing wilder

As she too grew weaker,

Choked off from life,

Just like her precious flowers,

By wild, uncontrollable

Growing things.

(Published in the July 2002 issue of Offerings)

Note:  Just in the mood recently to write about loved ones lost.  I’ve written so much about my dear grandmother and her garden, which was maybe  a metaphor of life for her.  To watch that garden go the way it did after she began going downhill was another slow death to witness.  Oh, if only I had this love of growing things back then that I have now.  At least she, Emma Bartlett Boswell Roberts, left me her rich inheritance – the love of working in a garden.  Thanks, Grandma.

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)

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.