Bill Roberts, Poet

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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War, Incorporated

Saturday, March 13th, 2010

– To the memory of the George W. Bush era

Let’s face it:

Our business

In this country

Is the business of war.

We make weapons,

We sell weapons,

We like to use weapons,

Keeping WMD hidden in reserve.

The stock market climbs,

The economy thrives,

Millionaires become billionaires -

All’s right with our world.

Our President knows

Who we are,

How we respond,

Our natural inclination.

We thrive on war,

Launch into one willingly.

Hell, who’s next?

Bring ‘em on!

Note:  Just got nostalgic today for the good old days.  Don’t you miss George Bush and his gang of terrorists?  Naw, didn’t think so.

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My Sister’s Record Collection

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Just as CD’s were becoming affordable,

my sister gave me her large record collection

after Jimmy, one of her younger boys, was killed.

Jimmy had been waiting for a red light to change,

a bunch of Harley beneath him, waiting to surge,

when the drunk in too much of a hurry hit him

doing almost ninety in his Olds 88.

The coroner said he’d never before seen a

person with every bone broken until Jimmy.

Jimmy with long hair and long pauses between thoughts,

killed by a well-known man in the community,

nary a blemish on his record and still not

to have one after this nuisance of a hippie

kid without a job and little hope had gotten

in his busy path on the way home late to his

precious wife and their three darling kids who needed

their daddy more than the world needed another

unkempt kid on a Harley – no job, no promise.

The records were warped and didn’t play worth a damn

but I took them off my sister’s hands, already

moving too anxiously, in need of things to do,

to get busy again with her life, having lost

a son to a system that no longer enjoys

old records that should be broken to pieces.

(Published in The Raintown Review, January 2000 issue)

Note:  Sadly, a too true story, Jimmy one of sister Patsy’s twin boys.  They visited us in Boulder shortly before Jimmy was killed by this “solid citizen,” showed up with a pal in their love wagon, a temperamental VW bus.  Neighbors were aghast.  I was delighted – nothing I like more than surprising the neighbors.  We had a ball with the kids, though didn’t partake in any pot smoking.  Funny thing, Irene and I missed the drug generation.  Not nearly as much as I miss my nephew Jimmy.  Terrible loss.

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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.

Posted in Human Nature, Movies, Nostalgia, Politics, Prejudice, That's Life | No Comments »

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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Saving Whales

Saturday, December 26th, 2009

Now I’ve topped upright head

with my beaver-skin cap,

I admire myself in the mirror,

resplendent in real-chamois shirt,

tanned leather pants, snakeskin belt,

and slick lizard boots.

Ah, of course, my necklace of

gleaming yellow bear teeth.

Yes, I’m ready to slip into my

precious coat of non-faux fox fur

and stride off proudly to meet

with friends of similar mind:

we’ve set ourselves a course,

perhaps impossible:  Save the Whales.

(Published in the Winter 2005 issue of P.D.Q., Poetry Depth Quarterly)

Note:  Written entirely with tongue in cheek.  However, how many times have I seen doers of good setting off to save the world or whatever, outfitted with all the tell-tale trophies of animals or whatever, similar to the objects they’re bent on saving.  ‘Tis a sobering sight to watch their plight.  Poetry Depth Quarterly, alas, has become extinct, so indeed….save the whales!  Save the magazines and newspapers!  Save the printed word!

Posted in Animals, Fashion, Human Nature, Humor, Politics, That's Life | 2 Comments »

A Christmas Card

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

I have seen the place

Where Jesus was born,

At least where they say

He was born,

Those three wise fellows

There outside the ancient church

Standing against the low wall,

Their machine guns

Slouching lazily

Against their thighs,

A hallowed picture of innocence

Which, had I been brave enough

To take it,

Would have been perfect,

Without words,

As this year’s

Greeting to family and friends

At Christmas.

(Published with the title, “Bethlehem,” in the Piedmont Literary Review, Vol. XXII, No. 3, 1999)

Note:  What a photo that would have made, but I chickened out, certain those guns were loaded.  One of the most moving experiences of my life, visiting the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, then the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Bethlehem.  You don’t need to belong to a religion to feel the magnetism of the spirit in the presence of such sacred shrines and hallowed ground.  How far we’ve come since the birth of Christ.  Alas, how little it often seems we’ve learned along the way.  May Peace always be the goal, whether or not we reach it.

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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 »

Say Something Nice

Monday, November 9th, 2009

It’s tiresome listening to people whose

first inclination is to utter negative

words about someone – an acquaintance,

celebrity, politician – or something -

a ball game, movie or TV sitcom.

It’s irritating because, pretty quick,

I’m inclined to do the same thing,

jump right on the person or thing and

say those famous words, “I don’t like.”

It’s easy, spilling those words, and then

completing a sentence or two on the subject.

Whoever I’m talking to will support me

with a backup negative comment, and we

go off feeling like we’ve just done

something important – dissed a dissable.

But what’s the profit in it, always hitting

below the belt instead of aiming higher?

There surely was something good about

the movie, the meal, the episode on TV,

a neighbor, movie star, even a windy pol.

So, I’ve taken the pledge to start such

conversations in the other direction,

beginning with, “You know, one thing

I really liked about…”  Soooo much nicer.

When asked a stumper, like what do you

think about these last eight years, courtesy

of the Bush administration, I pause and

consider, can’t come up with anything nice

to say, so I take another tack – say nothing.

Hey, saying nothing is hard to do, too.

Note:  An editorial sort of poem.  Don’t you get tired of negativism all the time?  There are people you and I both know who thrive on it.  My kid brother Jim, the sage, once told me:  “Get all the negative people out of your life – they’ll just pull you down with them.”  Good advice, maybe.  Funny thing is….haven’t heard from Brother Jim since he uttered that, what, ten years ago.  Just kiddin’…

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