Bill Roberts, Poet

Respect for All Living Things

Monday, January 18th, 2010

–  from an Arapaho Indian proverb

Most men and women have it, live it -

respect for all living things.

Some of course don’t, which reveals itself

in wanton killings of people,

innocent animals, plants, the environment.

The American Indian in general believed

in respect for all living things – the belief

nurtured him – until the white man

appeared and practiced his

destructive, menacing, killing ways.

The Indian, try as he might, lost respect

for the living, at least the living,

breathing, thieving, conniving and

murderously unscrupulous white man.

But we see who won that contest

of wills, the Indian now consigned

to tiny parcels of property fit only for

the proliferation of mind-numbing casinos.

Still he dies by age forty-nine, on average,

eased into a final stupor by white man’s

sneaky-pete fire water – straight, uncut joy.

There is much to be learned from the Indian.

Simple study of who he was, who he has

become, where he’ll be in the future

could reveal a lot about mankind’s survival.

(Published online in the 1/17/10 issue of The Saturday Diner)

Note:  Does this poem result from the drops of Indian (Cherokee) blood that courses my veins?  Perhaps, but after so many years of watching the denigration of the former owners of the land we now inhabit – oh, those awful/wonderful cowboy and Indian movies of youth! – one does tire of the excrement from the bull.  We watch as the American Indian fades slowly away, someday extinct so those once mighty tribes can be spoken of as myths and white man’s actions as unparalleled acts of kindness.  Excuse me while I retch.

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Into Darkness

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

I have merely to gaze at my fading

features in the low light of the mirror

to witness the return of my father,

each day coming back more surely -

the clouded eyes, flaring nostrils,

parched lips damp at corners, lazy

man’s stubble, knotted throat apple

bobbing through trebled chins -

a sight I was certain I’d never see again,

but here he is, back once more to follow

my slow progress of transformation

to becoming what I’d feared:  him.

I could turn up the lights, perhaps

rediscover me, but too many years

have passed and my inclination is to follow

his lead, begin dimming them instead.

(Published online in Issue #10 of Chantarelle’s Notebook, November 2007)

Note:  Why this dark poem today?  Maybe because it’s dark and dismal outside, snow threatening.  But probably not.  Maybe because we saw the movie “Precious” yesterday, tossed and turned all night – an important film that makes me thank lucky stars we have such a great welfare system in this country, at least in Harlem and throughout New York State, I presume.  But probably that’s not the reason either.  The reason is:  with age, I’m coming to look more and more like my father.  Am I becoming him?  That’s an answer that will have to wait….but possibly so, very possibly.

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The Death of Bambi

Saturday, January 9th, 2010

A man quietly slipped his hand

inside her panties

as we watched Bambi

on the too-close screen

from the second row.

My neck hurt after the movie

and my little sister

couldn’t stop crying.

It’s when I learned

there are predators in the world

who if chance offers

take advantage of little sisters.

Now that I’m old

they seem to be all over

making every loner

and balding senior suspect.

I might never see Bambi again

unless I rent the CD,

watch it from my couch.

(Published in the March 2006 issus of , Red Owl Magazine, now defunct)

Note:  Education comes in many forms, some of them unpleasant, but that’s life.  Maybe I was too skinny, too ugly to attract the weirdos when I was a kid.  Besides, I could outrun them anyway.  D.C.’s streets were full of the halt, lame, untidy and unsightly back in the Forties.  I recall asking my Dad once why a man we’d just passed was wearing a leather patch across the spot where his nose should have been.  He said simply, “Syphilis,” as if I knew what he meant.  Saw more than a few such patches in those days, some covering blinded eyes, others missing noses.

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Assignment: Find Ernest

Thursday, January 7th, 2010

The sun also rises in Havana,

and when it did, we went in search

of Hemingway at his local haunts.

We started early, after exploring

one another’s body one more time,

with a drop-in at Harry’s Bar.

The only waiter awake at that hour

said, after pouring Coke on top of our

rum eye-openers, that Hem had disappeared.

The early lunch at Zargonana, a full bottle

of fino sherry blended with snapper turtle

soup, left us groggy and still clueless.

We took a nap in the afternoon, as Cubanos

do, and decided our next inquiry would be

at the Partagas Cigar Factory nearby.

The sweating, shirtless guys rolling those

splendid, perfect cigars told us, yeah,

Ernesto was in last month – or was it last year?

The fragrant rum distillery was peopled with

several shady characters from his novels, none

willing to talk about the Old Man or the sea.

We finally caught a glimpse of him one evening

at the Tropicana, where Nat King Cole was

playing, but the suspicious host shrugged,

opened up only after I slipped him a fin, seated us

next to Nat’s piano, and whispered that the pug

we saw was just a Hemingway impersonator.

Re-reading Hem killed the rest of our honeymoon.

(Published online in the December 2007 issue of Long Story Short)

Note:  Our diversionary search for Ernest Hemingway took place in February 1958 on our honeymoon to Havana, seeking him out at all of his known bars and hideaways.  Havana in 1958 – exotic, erotic, scary, with soon-to-be-deposed Ferdinand Batista guarding most street corners with high-piled sandbags, behind which were khaki-uniformed men carrying sub-machine guns ready to fire.  In the nearby hills, Fidel Castro and his small but loyal and growing band fired off occasional shots to remind Batista he’d soon be coming.  And he did, taking over the city less than a year after we returned to our lives in D.C. – me finishing my senior year at A.U. (plus working part-time at the National Bureau of Standards), Irene in her new security-related job at the Library of Congress.  So much to write about Havana.  ‘Twould be nice to return someday, see it again.  Friends who’ve been there recently say the decay is palpable.  In ’58 it was evident the underclass of poor residents weren’t going to tolerate mighty Batista’s thieving shenanigans much longer.  They welcomed Fidel with open arms.  And so history is written.

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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 It All Got Started

Friday, January 1st, 2010

I imagine my father said to my mother

something like, “Would you care to do it?

Go upstairs and start a family?”

No, it couldn’t have been that way.

There was no upstairs to their two-

room apartment in pre-war D.C.

Probably more on the order of

“Hey, good looking.  Let’s make a baby!”

Naw, my father didn’t talk like that.

He was kind of shy, probably

came at Mom from an angle:  “After

dinner, I thought we might, you know…”

Nope, it didn’t happen like that either.

Probably after cooking dinner and

washing dishes, my mother confronted

him and stated, quite to the point:  “Say,

handsome, I’m in the mood.  How’s

about putting down that stupid book.”

(Published in the Fall 2001 issue of Concrete Wolf, Vol. 1, No. 3)

Note:  Starting off the New Year/2010 with a piece of humor, but maybe a factual report on my humble beginning.  1935, when I was conceived, wasn’t any better than 1936 when I arrived on a cold day in February.  As I’ve been told, I really didn’t want to come out, preferred remaining in warm, cramped quarters.  Now here it is, 2010, all of seventy-three years later and, voila, it’s sort of like 1936 again, though survivors of The Depression have said “This ain’t nothin’.”  Well, it’s surely something, but slowly, surely, and with a generous topping of hope, we’ll come out of this stronger than ever.  No, maybe not stronger, but hopefully wiser. If you’re into praying, pray that our leaders learn from past mistakes, one being, it’s easier to start a war than finish it. Been some damned dumb mistakes made in this last decade, mainly by people who should have known better.  End of sermon:  Happy Year 2010, to one and all.

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City Boy Visits a Farm

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

I visited a farm once.

Tobacco was the crop.

As I recall, hazily,

They also had

Farm animals,

All much larger

Than I’d imagined.

A horse kicked

My brother in the head.

He was never

Right again.

Or did the horse

Kick me instead?

I can’t be sure.

It’s the reason

I never liked vegetables.

They grow on farms.

It’s also the reason

I don’t ride horses.

They grow on farms, too.

Note:  Goes to show what I know about farms and its inhabitants.  Fortunately, over the years, some of my work colleagues and close friends grew up on farms and were kind enough to suffer my questions.  Their answers provided a liberal education such that I’m glad I didn’t grow up on a farm as they did – too damned much work involved.  When asked if they’d ever consider going back, say, after retirement, not a single taker.  That was then, this is now.  The poem, though broadly drawn, is essentially a true retelling.

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Cruising On the Hudson

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

At one time I was gainfully employed

on Hudson Street on the eighth floor

of a building housing Oakite Products,

an old-line company that produced soaps

and metal-finishing chemicals,

my first and only job in New York.

The Hudson River was one block west,

and often at lunchtime I’d grab a sandwich

at a deli and walk over to see the ships

just in from or, more entertaining, getting

ready to cast off for European destinations.

I’d board some of those ships, unabashedly,

make my way into state rooms and join in

lavish parties, consuming canapes and

bubbly drinks, join in merriment with

the well-heeled travelers and their guests,

me an interloper who didn’t have enough

gumption or wherewithal to stay aboard,

visit far-off lands, extend my liberal education.

Instead, I heeded the warning bell that

sounded for us landlubbers to go ashore,

back to work, continue our humdrum lives.

That was in the early Sixties when Ethel

Merman was on Broadway in “Gypsy”

and the astounding “Threepenny Opera”

played nightly at Theatre de Lys in the Village.

Never would I have imagined an airplane

landing on the scabrous Hudson River to save

the lives of all aboard from disaster – the water

was for boats, not commercial airliners.

Thank goodness for the Hudson – it provided

me many noontime pleasures.  And it

saved the lives of a hundred and fifty folks

who hadn’t signed on for a river cruise.

(Published in the 2009 issue of MOBIUS:  The Poetry Magazine and nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize)

Note:  This is a true story, from beginning to end.  We, Irene and I, moved to New York from D.C. after a visit in 1959 when we saw both “Gypsy” and the incredible “Threepenny Opera,” the latter perhaps the best musical event of my life – magic!  We transferred ourselves in the fall of 1960, living in a lovely brownstone house (the equivalent of two rooms) at 68 Perry Street in the Village, a great place to live.  Too expensive, so we packed up and moved to a rent-controlled apartment on the eighth floor of another great building at 35 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights.  Our view was of the lower Manhattan skyline and further north, the great city right out our windows.  And all the ships coming and going, mainly sleek cruise liners but also enormous battleships and aircraft carriers, seemingly right below our windows.  A thrilling time to be in New York, but after three years we decided to move to Colorado.  Another of our smart choices in life.

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