Bill Roberts, Poet

Learning Italian Cooking in Tuscany

Saturday, August 7th, 2010

Plans are being drawn even

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.

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A Thing So Boring

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

I think that I shall never see

a thing so boring as a tree.

A tree to me, just standing there, is all you see,

arms raised to heaven, praying for rain or dog pee.

Admittedly a tree can be

quite beautiful when leaf-ed ful-ly.

But, like this poem of cursed rhyme,

a tree just stands there all the time.

Does nothing, does a tree – gives shade,

of course, with summer’s lemonade.

But shade doth fade as chill invades the glade,

dead leaves on pavement splayed.

So tell me not about its beauty, cutie.

I prefer a tree that works, is rather fruity.

Ah, here under the banana tree or apple,

with thoughts of gravity I grapple.

Ouch, what hit me on the head like lead?

‘Twas Joyce Kilmer, whom I thought dead.

Thus I promise as you snore:

Write again in rhyme? Nevermore!

(Published online in the April 2010 issue of Thick With Conviction)

Note:  Just another whimsical poem, written in rhyme to make fun of rhyme – really forcing words to rhyme, which is why the genre has nearly died out.  Never thought it would be published, but it got scooped up right away.  Go figure.

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Update of Relativity Theories

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Einstein got it partially right when

his lightbulb flashed E equals m

times c squared, accounting for

the extra energy created when neutrons

begin to multiply like radioactive rabbits

during an angry nuclear excursion.

But, sacre bleu, m stands not for mass

but for money, c for collusion, not

collision, to Albert’s embarrassment.

George Gamow also badly missed

the target when he envisioned his lewd

Big Bang Theory, aka the Beginning

of the Universe and related destinations.

What he didn’t understand was that

it was Mom and Dad who mothered and

fathered Big Bang, creating G.G. himself.

Leonardo da Vinci was so befuddled by

scientific nightmares that he painted

his most lasting enigma, the curious

smile on the placid face of Mona Lisa,

a peripatetic prostitute and soothsayer.

Mona of smiling face soothsaw that she

and Leo would get serious, freezing for-

ever that smile so beloved by multitudes

of adoring Japanese tourists to the Louvre.

My own theory, in all humbleness, is that

Albert and George and Leonardo would

have made strange bedfellows in today’s

world, their gifts to science ignored by

modern Super-Thinkers – Leonardo di

Caprio, George W. Bush and Albert

Capone, all fiduciaries of the Big Bang.

(Published on 6/21/10 online by Marquis Cafeteria Round Table)

Note:  Just a piece of fluff, the “science” of the piece garbled on purpose.  Long ago, I did attend a lecture by Mr. Big Bang himself, George Gamow, at George Washington University.  It was curious to see how a genius operates:  though brilliant, Mr. G. smoked while onstage (a no-no), didn’t know how to tie his shoes and had to have assistance to blow up a balloon.  I ran into many folks like him – and thank goodness for them! – while a consultant at the infamous Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico.

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A Land Where Chairs on Wheels Don’t Exist

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Spaniards are the longest lived people on earth

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.

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My Love Affair With Pepper

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

It made no sense to me why

my mother would ruin

a perfectly good slice of cantaloupe

by dousing it with pepper

until the flesh turned black.

That was then, this is now.

Now, with age, I’ve added pepper

to my repertoire, always fresh-

ground, to season a salad,

crust a grilled steak, flavor pasta

coated with tomato-based sauce,

sprinkle liberally on fried eggs

and the side of grits, even dust

lightly the peanut butter I smear

on my toast – it adds a little s0mething!

Ah, yes, you guessed it – I have

also graduated to grinding pepper

over cantaloupe slices, till

the natural color turns charcoal.

I am, after all, my mother’s child.

(Published, I believe, in 2008 in the wonderful online magazine, Slow Trains)

Note:  My mother rained pepper on almost everything she ate, to the point where it seemed all she would taste was the pepper.  I’ve followed somewhat closely in her gustatory misstep with pepper, though not to the point of killing off all other flavor.  Funny that….don’t know if my sisters and brothers have done the same or not.  Our breakfast growing up often was a big plate of freshly cooked rice, topped with crumbled up bacon and a generous slab of butter.  Lots of salt and pepper, of course, too.  Might have been the Oklahoma (from whence my mother cameth) equivalent to cereal, the poor person’s oatmeal.  For quite a long spell there I was sure we were part Chinese.

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The Downside to Overachievement

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

At another time in another life

I was handsome, virile,

strong as an ox

and worked like a slave

because I was a slave -

handsome, virile and strong.

Because I outworked my fellow

slaves, and possibly because

I had all my teeth

and preferred the ladies

to the laddies,

I was chosen as The Chosen One -

the fellow bestowed with the honor

of capping the Pyramid at Cheops

with its uppermost stone.

This really killed me, it really did.

Two lessons:  (1) avoid pyramid schemes

and (2) never be a slave to anything.

(Published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of The Homestead Review)

Note:  Is this a message poem?  Read the last two lines again for the answer.  Just a fun poem, again linking me to that mysterious subject, reincarnation.  Do I believe in reincarnation?  I don’t, but all my previous selves do.

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Falling Through Space

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Howard seems more anxious than usual

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.

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Reckless Living

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

– In memory of Robert R. Riddle

Mrs. Easterday wasn’t my favorite teacher,

wasn’t even my teacher,

but all of us patrolboys had to pass

her inspection, in front of her class,

when we came off duty mornings from

protecting kids as they walked to school.

She made it a point to pick on me,

point out to her snickering class that

my hair needed cutting, a good cleaning, too.

Back in those days, I got a haircut

every seven or eight weeks, so by week five

or six I probably looked a pretty fair nightmare.

She made fun of my soles, too, because they’d

flap whenever I walked or ran, so I’d have

to cut them off, walk nearly barefoot.

One particular cold morning, I must have looked

awfully shaggy, so Mrs. Easterday made a big

production in front of her kids,

handing me thirty-five cents to get a haircut,

“And I want to see it cut by tomorrow,”

she admonished, gloating as I pocketed the coins.

I entered her room shivering the next day,

bald as a veritable cueball, horrifying her and

humoring her class of perfectly coiffed kids.

She left me alone after that.  I never spilled

the beans that my barber shaved me for only

a quarter, leaving the dime to be spent recklessly.

Note:  Mrs. Easterday was a sixth-grade teacher at H. D. Hyde Elementary School in D.C., a real terror.  But, oh boy, did I put one over on her, getting head shaved and keeping that precious dime for whatever I damn well pleased.  That I almost contracted pneumonia I try to forget but can’t.  This vignette hopefully shows two things:  how so many teachers “back then” were bullies (maybe in this case for the right reason), and also how a kid, me, could cut off his hair to spite his nose.  It was another life lesson in growing up.  This poem was read at the memorial service for Bob Riddle on March 17, 2001.  Bob and I had chatted in his hospital room shortly before his death about the crazy things we did as kids.  As I recall, his stories topped mine.

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Little Buggers

Monday, March 1st, 2010

– for Jimmy

My kid brother rarely started our fights,

I admit; he just happened to be withing range

when I chose to land the first punch.

I should give the little bugger credit:

he persisted in hanging around unwanted,

kept his oft-bloodied nose up near my face

even when I made it painfully plain

that he should get lost, grow up, go get his

own friends, other little buggers like him.

One day, I’m almost too ashamed to admit,

he’d grown to such an extent, I guess while

I wasn’t looking, that he figured out

it was smarter to get in the first punch,

gave me a bloody nose without reason,

went off, get lost, and found himself

some friends, thereafter making it

quite painfully plain to me that even

little brothers can be human, at times.

Note:  This is a tip of the hat to my brother Jim who not only grew up but went past me with the speed of light into the world, became quite successful and a wonderful family man.  I’m almost too ashamed to admit:  he’s very human and quite a wonderful person.

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