Bill Roberts, Poet

Jesus in a Red Convertible

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Cruising carefree over mountain roads

I saw Jesus standing in an open

red convertible, long hair flying

arms stretched out as if off the cross

ready to embrace the world again.

A little old lady — Mary Magdalene? –

was hunched over the wheel

driving below the speed limit

so I pulled a U turn at the first safe spot

and sped after them, flooring it.

I wasn’t able to catch up

wondered if they’d turned off

but there were few turns

so they must have sped up

reached the city shortly before I did.

How curious.  I told my psychotherapist

and he agreed, though seemed doubtful

of the plausibility of my tale.

I saw him, Jesus, in a red convertible.

Just sorry I missed the plate number.

(Published online in the December 2010 issue of Decompression Magazine)

Note:  Did I see Jesus, you might ask.  Well, I thought I did, but the vision ain’t what it used to be.  I admit, I could have been wrong……….it could have been a yellow convertible.

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The Well Attired Frankie C.

Monday, March 21st, 2011

Haven’t seen him since we left

high school, me with a diploma,

Frankie kicked out for brawling.

He lived with us awhile, after his

own mother threw him out and he

threw himself at the mercy of my Mom.

She fell for his line and handsome face,

so we took him in for better part of

a year, that year I got so sick.

One night, I came down with spinal

meningitis, nearly died, was in a coma

a week before waking up, cheating death.

First thing I saw was Frankie, standing

at the foot of my hospital bed, wearing

all of my best clothes, shoes, underwear.

I turned deep purple with rage,

resolved to get out of that bed, get home,

as soon as I could, salvage my wardrobe.

Frankie then went to live with Eddie,

just a few blocks away, also charming

Eddie’s mother with his handsome looks.

He hung in there for nearly another year,

convincing poor Eddie that he looked

better in Eddie’s clothes than Eddie did.

So, the years have flown, when suddenly

I get a call from Anaheim, Frankie,

telling me he’ll be in Denver next week.

We chitchat, of course, resurrect old times,

good and bad, ring off with him saying,

“I hope you and I are still the same size.”

(Published online in the February 2011 issue of The Orange Room Review)

Note:  Always great to go back in time, recall good times, bad times, rarely the in-between times.  Frankie Boy was real, a handsome dog of a guy, always a tough home life, smart enough to land somewhere, usually with a buddy like me and Eddie, survive and eventually thrive.  Oh, what happened, you might wonder, when he showed up in Denver after the phone call?  He decided not to come after all.  Well, after I told him I’d ballooned to 350 pounds.  Whew, that was a close one.

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Friday Comes Early

Friday, December 24th, 2010

Alvaro’s studio is a series of

dark rooms in a low adobe home

tucked away in the hills of

northern New Mexico.  Charming.

Easy to stumble over the pottery

if you’re not careful, miss

a black-and-white sketch if

your eyes don’t attune to dimness.

We’re in no hurry, meander to

and fro, studying Alvaro’s many

creations, all of them attractive,

but we meet finally at one.

A lithograph of mesquite-dotted

hills, a lone leafless tree, the very

essence of New Mexico outside

Alvaro’s home in deep winter.

As so often happens, we’re not sure.

Look about again, meet again at

the lithograph, and still can’t

make up our minds.  So we decide.

We tell Alvaro we like his lithograph

and probably will be back Friday,

three days hence, and make our

final decision then.  Okay?

Alvaro shrugs, in no hurry himself.

We drive off into the rambling hills,

feel the magic of New Mexico.

After twenty-some miles, we stop.

I turn the car around, drive back.

A tiny bell tinkles as we re-enter

Alvaro’s studio, he turning, asking,

“Oh, is it Friday already?”

(Published in the October 2010 online and print issues of Flutter Poetry Journal)

Note:  This piece about New Mexico and its magical enchantment was told to me by dear ex-New York friends, Joan and Jack Salb, so I dedicate the poem to them.  The Salbs now live in San Diego where Jack has become a prized photographer.  Check out his amazing photos from all over the world at jacksalb.com.

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Talking to My Many Selves

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

Likely you’ll consider it weird,

dangerous perhaps, that

I talk silently to myself,

get answers, also in silence.

Not always the answer anticipated,

once in a while from left field,

for at one time, it appears,

I played left field for the Yankees.

Seems I’ve slaved most of my life,

working hard to save money,

relax in leisure in old age – day-

dreaming as a slave to Thomas Jefferson.

Always fearful of an early death,

as happened when crippled as

King Tut in ancient Egypt,

today I shudder as a septuagenarian.

It all started there in lush Eden,

the voluptuous Eve whispering

she preferred being the stronger one,

thereafter siphoning my masculinity.

Some might ask, Do you

believe in reincarnation?

My answer, I’m not sure, but

all my former selves seem to.

Note:  This is an unpublished poem, another in a series of “reincarnation” poems.  I study the subject, but only obliquely, not sure if indeed I do believe in it.  Dr. Brian Weiss makes a convincing case for reincarnation in his two books, the first his flagship, “Many Lives, Many Masters.”  I think I’ve given away more than fifty copies to friends and relatives, most yet remaining friends and relatives.  None, I’m sure, buy into the notion that my fantasies got started way back in the lush Garden of Eden.  Why so hard-headed, I wonder.

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Psychoanalysis, Farewell

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

– Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed/

We’ll always be Jung together -

Dorothy Parker, “Collected Poems”

Times are stressful, money’s tight.

I’ve held on, truly, with all my might.

The car went first, gas so expensive.

Horse’s-ass-power walking I do, intensive.

But walk to where? – no longer to stores.

Holes in my pockets, wallet full of sores.

Oh, I still eat healthy, lots of beans -

cereal, too, nearly beyond my means.

And I seek daily for work that fits,

until I tire, cramp up, get the shits.

Oh, the wife, her mother and the dogs -

gone long ago, leaving me a pair of shoes, clogs.

But still I walk the few miles to see my shrink,

says I look healthy, not wealthy – in the pink.

He assures me worse has happened to man over time -

being poor is a social disorder, not a crime.

But to crime I must turn to pay his bill -

claims things will improve, and he needs me still.

(Published in the 7/23/10 online issue of Thick With Conviction, one of my favorites)

Note:  Just a humorous commentary on the state of financial affairs across the globe.  Rest easy: I don’t wear clogs.  And I still have dogs.  And a wife.  A shrink?  Don’t need one….yet!  This was written, as I do so often, just for fun.

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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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Present at Birth

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Present at the birth of my brother first,

in 1939, then my sister in 1941,

born in the same maternity ward,

our parents’ upstairs bedroom at

1245 35th Street in Georgetown,

northwest Washington, D.C.

I watched at Dr. Donald McDonald,

known to me as Dr. Donald Duck,

pulled first brother Jimmy from his

worn medical satchel, then sis GeeGee

from that same satchel a year and

a half later, like a magician pulls

a fluttering pigeon from his top hat.

Within a few months of GeeGee’s

arrival, the Japanese pulled their

infamous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor,

announced to us on our enormous

upright Zenith radio, causing my Dad

to cry like a baby, so Mom followed suit.

We were all crying, we kids because

earlier in the day we learned of

the passing of famous Dr. Donald Duck.

One more sister, Bee, was born three

years later, near the end of the big war,

a new doctor coming to do the honors,

no magic from his satchel, just all

business, no slight of hand – the price I paid

for being a big shot, all of eight years old.

Note:  This is a new poem, recently minted (like yesterday), to prove that the memory is still intact….though I can’t always remember where I left the car keys.  Yes, I thought babies were delivered by doctors from their worn black satchels.  Well, at least until I was eight and knew better (wink, wink).  ‘Twould be a far, far better way of knocking them out, instead of the long, tedious nine-month waiting period.  I recommend to all who read this to take up Dr. Atul Gawande’s books, especially his second one, titled Better:  A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance.  There’s a chapter later in this important book titled “The Score,” which everyone – especially all men! – should be made to read.  It’s about childbirth and it will open your eyes to some revelatory facts.  If all men read this lone chapter, the rate of childbirths in the world would plummet by at least half, within a year.  Enough said.

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How Poor Were We?

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

So poor the mice scampered next door

for three squares a day

and didn’t hurry back,

afraid they’d be eaten.

No, we couldnt even afford a stray cat.

We dressed in each other’s

hand-me-down clothes – threads

by the time they got to me.

My best friend was a skinny cockroach,

too weak to crawl to the neighbors.

We told each other bedtime tales -

his about crumbs, mine about delusions.

A teacher threatened to send me home

one day when I fell asleep in her class.

She relented when I told her my folks

had sent me off as their only hope.

I was so thin I fit in the pencil sharpener,

couldn’t slap chalk from the board erasers.

Then, the miracle meat Spam was discovered.

A cure?  If only we’d owned a can opener.

(Published in the Fall 2005 issue of the Parnassus Literary Journal)

Note:  Hyperbole?  Of course.  Or was it?  We were poor, but in those days, the late Thirties and early Forties, almost everyone was poor.  We just didn’t know we were, all of us pretty much lookalikes in the neighborhood.  One advantage I and my siblings had over most:  we ate well each day, our mother a wonderful cook, Dad the provider.  Our days often started with a huge mound of boiled rice, topped with butter, salt, pepper and crunchy bacon rolled into bits with our hands.  An Oklahoma luxury, we were told.  Got us going in the morning, sustained us throughout school hours.  Oh, yes, we did befriend the cockroaches and mice, all non-paying boarders in Mom’s boarding house.  Seemed to go with the territory there in D.C.  All of us survived tough times, mice and roaches included.

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Wild West

Friday, December 11th, 2009

It takes practice

to ride a cactus.

City slickers

feel the stickers.

Real cowgirls and cowboys

don’t make the OW! noise.

They ride ‘em hard,

never get scarred.

You too can ride….

if you have a tough hide!

(Published originally in the wonderful children’s magazine, Cricket, quite a few years ago when I used Bartlett Boswell as my pseudonym)
Note:  I often use this poem to warm up an audience when I recite.  To get them in the mood, I suggest they imagine themselves as six-year-olds again, wearing a cowboy/cowgirl outfit, sixshooter tucked in a sagging holster, staring up at one of those gigantic saguaro types of cactus with its many prickly arms, and the cactus stares down at them, repeating this poem of warning.  Would I enjoy being a kid again, say, just for a few minutes?  Wouldn’t we all?

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