Bill Roberts, Poet

Facing the Future

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

Look at them, so young,

so happy – my parents

before I knew them.

So much hope

in those faces

in a year of little promise, 1936.

Ah, youth.

How little they knew

of the future

in spite of

the Great Depression

that drew them together.

Had they known,

they might have skipped

posing for the photographer.

(Published in Pegasus Magazine in 2008)

Note:  Ah, my mother and father, so unalike yet so attracted to one another, physically of course, which causes the world to keep spinning.  In spite of their mini-battles and major skirmishes during World War Two, they made peace often enough to create me, brother Jim, and sisters GeeGee and Bee/Betty during steamy truces.  What draws two people together, what pushes them apart?  The age old questions, too deep for me to fathom.  But I loved them both, in spite of their shortcomings.  Oh, yes indeed, mine, too.

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Hardly anyone would believe

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

Hardly anyone would believe

that you could have a French meal

for seventy-five cents, dollar-and -a-

quarter tops if you chose lamb ragout.

The seventy-five center was lentils and

spicy sausage, always my favorite at

Chez Odette on Wisconsin Avenue,

a tiny darkened room with seating for

twenty or so diners at five tables and

three booths with lumpy, cracked seats.

I had breakfast there every morning

before my Physical Chem class at A.U.

Always three fried eggs, white toast and

French roast coffee, as much as I wanted.

Also seventy-five cents and who knows

how much cholesterol over a year’s span.

How delicious, how atmospheric, how

unbelievable to think that a buck – I

always left a quarter tip! – could buy

so much savory pleasure and inner peace.

Jack and Jackie Kennedy must have

though so too:  we, my bride-to-be and I,

joined them every Wednesday evening

for dinner at Odette’s where Jackie also

preferred the lentil dish, Jack usually

springing for the pricier ragout of lamb.

We didn’t exactly eat with them, just

near enough by to nod when they came in

or left, their schedule a bit more erratic

than ours in those halcyon days of yore.

But who would believe such a tale, that

you could get a French meal for seventy-

five cents?  And in such good company!

(Published in a 2006 online issue of Slow Trains Magazine)

Note:  Growing up in and hanging around Washington D.C. from the Thirties to the Fifties, I’d see all sorts of people – celebrities,  the great, the gross and all the in-betweeners.  It was the great part of my education in human nature, to watch people, study them, analyze why they did what they did.  Jack and Jackie were obviously very much in love when they sat across from one another in cramped Chez Odette, holding hands across the table, looking deep into one another’s eyes, talking softly.  Pretty much like Irene and me, I guess.  Wonderful carefree days when we were both getting educated at American University, thinking our world was nearly perfect, nothing to change.  Ah, the changes indeed came.  After JFK was elected, then assassinated, with assassinations of MLK, RFK and John Lennon to follow, the world changed drastically and forever.  No longer were famous people so easy to spot on the street, in a corner of a restaurant.  And the world is still changing.  Alas, too often not for the better, but that’s the opinion of a nostalgia freak.

Posted in Food, Human Nature, Love, Nostalgia | No Comments »

The Lost Streetcars

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Lucky for me I got to know

some of the conductors

who courageously maneuvered

those old rattletraps I loved

so much along the tracks

in otherwise quiet, war-time D.C.

You could hear them coming

they made so much clatter.

When one of the streetcar drivers

regognized me, alone at a stop,

he’d often chime his bell

a few times in welcome.

I had no special destination,

though we’d go either to Union

Station downtown or way out

to Glen Echo’s amusement park.

The bumpy ride was the thing,

as well as the view, going or coming.

The stiff seats were covered with

crosshatched cane strips, often

worn through, stuffing coming out.

When we reached the end of the line,

we were supposed to push the back

forward, face the opposite direction.

If the cars weren’t crowded, those

friendly old drivers would let me

keep my seat back in place, so I’d

be able to watch where we’d been

rathter than where we were headed.

Not a bad idea, come to think of it.

(Published in the Fall 2008 issue of Bellowing Ark)

Note:  Thank goodness for publications like Bellowing Ark that appreciate nostalgia, the way things used to be.  Maybe more small press publications should be so appreciative, though consider what happens when you mention the initials JFK, LBJ or MM to a kid, not to mention AARP!  – total lack of understanding.  But I remember as a kid going with a parent to the open-air market right near Washington Circle in D.C., someone telling me, Abe Lincoln used to shop here too, not all that long ago. Abe Lincoln?  Who’s he?  So, dumb is as old as you are.  But, gosh, those streetcars were fun to ride, clicketty-clacking along.  For those of you who only know buses and/or subways, you missed a great thrill.  So did Abe Lincoln, whoever he was.

Posted in Humor, Nostalgia, Travel | No Comments »

Parents

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Parents were adults in my life

who seemed to delight in fighting,

physically, blood often drawn,

then make up behind a locked door

to their steamy upstairs bedroom.

After peace was made, usually

of short duration, we’d share a meal

of Dad’s favorites, usually Kosher

hotdogs, that he’d buy at the open

arcade, and New York sharp cheese.

Odd this combination – the food,

I mean – though my mother and

father were a strange pairing, too,

my Mom a farm girl from Oklahoma,

Dad, a Depression city boy of D.C.

What drew them to one another is one

of those mysteries of nature that

may never te explained, their chemistries

and physics so different, but their

physical magnetism worked wonders.

Me. It produced me, my being created

forced them into hasty marriage by a rabbi,

though neither of them was Jewish,

my father’s generous hooked nose

the product of evolution in Great Britain.

My mother’s IQ no doubt was closer to

half that of my father’s, but by some gift

of innate womanly wisdom she was able

to outsmart him on most occasions,

beginning with the expectation of me.

(Published in the 2008 issue of MOBIUS:  The Poetry Magazine)
Note:  How much could I write about my wonderful yet combative mother and father?  Several volumes, I’m sure.  They do figure prominently in my book-in-the-making, “Sneaking Out On the Rent,” along with other unforgettable characters.  At least they’re unforgettable to me.  I’m amazed at my memory for details of people, places, incidents, most of them minor, probably major at the time of happening.  But “truth,” as told in my poems from memory, is a curious bird – it doesn’t always fly too high with others who share the same memories.  My sisters in particular are fond of telling me, “It didn’t happen like that, Billy.”  Silly Billy, I’ll probably never outgrow the name.  Oh, my Mom could stop Dad in his tracks whenever there was a face-to-face confrontation, he the voluble wordsmith.  He’d be mouthing off, telling Mom all of her shortcomings, when suddenly she’d put up a hand, silence him, then say, “Kiss ass, Willy.”  He never, never once, was able to come up with a rejoinder.  Nice goin’, Mom.

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America

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

I’ve just returned from a visit to America.

It was wonderful seeing our country again

in all its glory, magnificent in sun and rain.

We saw bison we could almost reach out

and pet from our rental car, elk and pronghorn

antelope with their newborn, still wobbly.

Moose are as ugly as I remember and as beautiful

as I care to imagine – real, live, three-dimensional.

Bear tried to come into camp too, to steal food.

It was cowboy cookout night, steak and beans and

coffee cooked over wood fires, the bears tempted

no doubt by the meat smells, possibly the caffeine.

There were no newspapers, radio or television

up there in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, still

so pristine it makes you weep for their future.

A new-found friend on the wagon ride back to our

cars told me Tim Russert had died, nearly knocking

me over, so young a man he seemed, so much family.

I wept a little, unabashedly, tried to see where we

in America are headed, then reflected on this great

landscape that still defines who we are, our grandeur.

Where will we go in the weeks and years ahead, trying

so hard to hold on to what we’ve been, uncertain about

what we might become, this awesome land of ours?

I have a feeling Tim Russert knew what the outcome

will be, and is ready to pose the difficult question:

Are we ready, do we have the gumption of our forebears?

(Published in the Fall 2008 issue of Bellowing Ark)

Note:  Irene and I visited Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park in early June, 2008.  With us were two sets of old friends from France, Philippe et Francois Berge, plus Philippe et Francine LeBoucher, as well as brother Jim Roberts and his wife Laurie.  It was snowing pretty hard when we landed late at night, but all went well thereafter.  America, especially in the wild as we saw it, is magnificently beautiful, way too difficult for me to describe adequately.  The news of Tim’s death pierced my heart, since I’d long been a dedicated fan.  Tim, like my dear friend Diane Rehm of NPR radio, would ask the difficult question of pols and pundits, never aiming low, always after the truth, fairly requested.  Folks like Tim and Diane are among our national treasures – America! – just like Yellowstone and the Tetons.  Let’s preserve them – certainly their memory.

Posted in Animals, Human Nature, Love, Nostalgia, Politics, Travel | 1 Comment »

At the Old Poets Convention

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

– to Helen, whose beauty is to me like those Nicean barks of yore…

At the Old Poets Convention

This year we elected

A new Heroic Poet to lead us

Into the uncertain stanzas ahead.

It was close, Edgar Allan Poe

Edging our Allen Ginsberg,

Whose rants most of us thought

To be too tired, predictable.

Time to return to Nevermore,

The tintinnabulation of the belles,

None finer than Annabel Lee,

Or so quoth the Raven.

Oh, this next glorious year

Should be like the good old

Days, days, days, days,

Days, days, days.

I saw thee once, Edgar Allan -

Once only – years ago.

You’ve returned to the Haunted

Palace, old time entombed forever.

(Published onlie in 2008 in Slow Trains)

Note:  Can you tell I prefer Poe to Ginsberg?  Truly, I like all poets and never met a poem I didn’t like.  People who write poetry, good or not so good, are thinkers.  You have to think before you write a poem.  And, oh, it always helps if you have something of substance to say.  What am I saying in this poem?  Just a whimsical recalling of lines and words assembled as the Old Master, Edgar Allan, might have put them had the demons not gotten to him at so young an age.  A highlight of my life was visiting Poe’s dormitory room at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  What an experience and what a beautiful place.  I’m sure I saw his ghost, felt its presence anyway.  And heard vaguely, off in the distance, the admonition….Nevermore.

Posted in Human Nature, Humor, Nostalgia, Poetry | No Comments »

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.

Posted in Aging, Health, Human Nature, Nostalgia | No Comments »

Antiquity

Friday, November 13th, 2009

I use the Antique Mall, a giant relic

on Laurens Street in Aiken,

to boost my appetite for dinner,

intending to browse for perhaps an hour

and then scoot around the corner

to a prime rib and some dark beer

at The Bowery, a friendly eatery.

I know I’ve made a mistake immediately

upon entering the gigantic antique store -

the musty smell and degree of my error

increase with each slow step

through the venerable time capsule

as I gaze upon the entire contents

from our old house on Clifton Street

so many years ago:  the veneer

storage cabinet and upright storage chest,

so yellowed and shiny, chipped

by my assaults with hangers, belt buckles,

bony elbows; the garishly painted

cheap wooden table and chairs

from our kitchen arrest my appetite,

then all of the various utensils

and kitchen aids of my youth spread out

before me, plus our very own

place settings of worn metal spoons,

forks and knives, badly tarnished,

certain to taint any food they may touch;

the tiny dressing table and mirror

where my sister would sit for hours,

her beauty diminished by its tawdriness;

my mother’s uncomfortable lounge chair

that even she refused to sit in,

no matter how work weary;

the various wall shelves and upright stands

for knickknacks, scores of those dusty

little buggers there too, defying removal

of the dust built up over the years;

the beat-up chest in which we stored

undesirable bedspreads and woolen items,

affording mice a warm sanctuary;

comic books and mindless hardbacks

and old Life magazines protraying

Plastic Man, some fool in the Yukon,

and a Veronica Lake no longer so

provocatively attractive after so many years.

My stomach is in revolt.

My feet need breathing room.

I gasp for today, tonight, this moment.

Release me from yesterday,

long ago, the ill-named Good Old Days.

(Published in Illya’s Honey, Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 1998)

Note:  This is a natural follow-on poem to the previous one, where I lamented secondhand clothes.  True story:  I was staying in Aiken, SC, the summer of 1997 on a two-week project at the Savannah River Plant.  Most evenings I sought out The Bowery to dine.  This particular late afternoon, I made the mistake of entering the cavernous antique store and was overcome with unpleasant deja-vu trepidation.  My appetite vanished almost entirely and thereafter I steered clear of the quaint little stores all through charming Aiken, fearing I’d be transported again to the struggles of the Forties.  Though my childhood was five-dimensional with fun and excitement, I’ve never once wanted to return to the poverty so many of us took for granted in those less-than-halcyon days.

Posted in Aging, Antiques, Human Nature, Nostalgia | No Comments »

A Second Look

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Don’t ask why but I duck in

to the damp darkened store,

adjust my eyesight and

notice headless dummies

attired in clothes I once wore,

gave up when I outgrew them

or found them too depressing,

often having been handed down

by older brothers, never

as neat as me, even putting

a neat crease in patched pants,

sewing an insignia over a stain,

mismatching checks and colors

to the point of absurdity,

making those who might

otherwise stare look away,

clean and neat though I was,

never a fashion plate,

not once cited as best-dressed,

always curious to examine

new fall fashions I couldn’t

afford on classmates I envied -

not for their brains or

athletic abilities – just their

clothes, new clothes, never

handed down, too fine for

this store that reminds me

who I was, didn’t want to be.

(Published online in issue No. 13 of Thick With Conviction, October 2008)

Note:  Another painful reminder of growing up poor (hey, no tears – almost all of us were poor back in the dismal Thirties and Forties).  I’ve written quite a few poems about thrift stores and antique emporiums, always get the willies when I walk in, develop that terrible feeling like I’ve been here before, can’t wait to escape, get fresh air.  And, sorry to report, I never, ever buy anything secondhand.  That’s a vow I made to myself.

Posted in Aging, Antiques, Fashion, Human Nature, Nostalgia | 2 Comments »