Bill Roberts, Poet

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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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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Gambler

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

My mother loved the tinkle

of the nickel falling

through the slot

the tug of the steel arm

as she pulled down

with deliberation

the dizzying whirr

of the three drums

rotating so madly

the chink, chink, chink

as they suddenly

bounced to a stop

then the silence

that followed

for she’d closed her eyes

waiting for the rattle

of coins falling

into the winner’s tray

or more often

the longer silence following

the immediate silence.

Note:  Mom usually played the nickel slots at broken-down North Beach, Maryland, where we’d vacation one week every summer, its water as nasty as the decayed town itself.  But there was magic of a sort.  What was it?  Well, for us kids it was the adventure of just getting away from home, driving all those miles (40 maybe), and camping in another person’s rooming house.  A whole week away!  Mom never brought any money back from the slots, but she did well at other gambling investments.  Her dime-a-day habit of playing the numbers (3-1-4 her favorite combo) about once a year netted her three hundred dollars in cash from Whitey, the old one-eyed numbers runner for the local mob.  About $13 to make $300 is a pretty fair return.  Too bad she didn’t have a dollar a day to play.  But so it goes.

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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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When Dinahshore Roamed

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Her delicate bones

Are barely settled,

But once she roamed

This diminished planet,

Eating its veggies

And fruits and nuts

And the occasional cheeseburger,

Singing its praises

To the sky,

From peak to peak,

Shore to shore,

This talented

And now extinct Dinahshore,

So perfect God made only one.

It’s been tough going

Since you left, Dinalshore,

But, if it pleases you,

I’m still seeing the U.S.A.

In my Chevrolet….

Though it leaks oil badly.

(Published in the Summer 2001 issue, Issue No. 15, Vol. 7, No. 1, of Rattle:  Poetry for the 21st Century)

Note:  Dinah.  Was there anyone finah?  I’ve just come back from Palm Desert where I studied an old photo on the wall of a 5-star hotel, a picture of Dinah Shore in her golf finery, swinging a driver much like she could swing onstage.  What a beauty.  And what a great representative of this great country of ours – scolding us to see the U.S.A. in a Chevrolet.  Had one once.  It didn’t get me very far before it started leaking oil, chugged a death rattle, and stopped in the middle of M Street in D.C., zillions of motorists all about me screaming to get the hell out of their way – they still had plenty to see in the U.S. of A.

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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.

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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.

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One-Man Band

Monday, October 12th, 2009

A light mist doesn’t dampen the concert

under a bridge by the Seine,

pausing en route to yet another art museum

on this snappy cold autum day.

He leads the band, plays all the instruments,

alternately and sometimes simultaneously,

familiar French tunes, with violin,

accordion, harmonica, trumpet, clarinet,

flute, tuba – yes, tuba too! – and piccolo,

time kept with a bass drum he hammers

with busy left foot.  Oh,

he sings softly when squeezing his

ornate squeezebox or

bowing his gleaming Stradivarius.

No one else stops for his concert,

beating us to the artwork.

I place a ten-Euro note in the maestro’s cap.

Using his entire mismatched orchestra,

he plays the American National Anthem

as we stride arm-in-arm into the cool mist.

This was in Paris in the fall of 2007, after a delightful lunch on a parked bateau on the Seine, an overcast and misty day.  Art all over the city, in every direction, from the over-regarded Mona Lisa at the never-enough-time-to-see-everything Louvre to honest-to-goodness dirty postcards along the river.  And one-man bands aren’t exactly novel either, but this guy was so good, so arresting, like the city itself, making us want to come back, again and again.

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