Bill Roberts, Poet

The Leap From Imagination

Author: Bill Roberts

I was mad.

The enemy had humiliated me

and I needed to retaliate.

My thought process wasn’t working too well

but I settled on a hand grenade.

I pulled the pin -

actually a broken shoelace -

and tossed the grenade -

one of my worn-out tennis shoes -

into the nest of unsuspecting Japs -

the enemy in 1945 -

masquerading as my new, third-grade

classmates who’d laughed at something

I said when introduced to them

the previous day.

No harm was done.

The teacher deposited the smelly sneaker

in her trash can

and marked me down as tardy.

Kids still see other kids as the enemy -

as I had done -

but sometimes react differently.

It’s not make-believe any longer.

They go after their schoolmates

with real guns,

live ammunition,

intending to inflict real damage.

Years back we relied on our imagination.

We’ve come a long way since 1945.

(Published in George & Mertie’s Place, Vol. 4, Issue 9, October 1998 – magazine now defunct)

Note:  This poem was written after several shootings occurred in the South, schoolkids killing other schoolkids, making we wonder what it was about the South that caused such carnage.  I’d done some contract work in South Carolina and knew how fond the populace in general was of guns – a gun culture, I thought.  Shortsightedly I also thought, surely something so awful couldn’t happen in Colorado.  The poem was published before the massacre at Columbine High School, not fifteen miles from where I live.

February 4th, 2010  |  Posted in Children, Human Nature, That's Life, War  |  No Comments »

Gangsters

Author: Bill Roberts

I hang onto you, my little man,

for you demand undivided attention.

It’s spring and things fly up

from new moist grass,

flitting erratically, causing you

to leap, bound, squirt in different

directions, ignoring the leash,

pulling like a sixty-pound sled dog

instead of the standard dozen-pounder.

A lady runner this morning

suddenly stopped to caress you,

laughing when I told her you were

half longhaired dachshund,

most likely half black alligator.

You’re four and a half and

should have outgrown your childish

ways by now, but no matter.

I’m going on seventy and

together we’re the childish, mis-

chievous, unpredictable gang of two.

(Published in the Vol. 22, No. One issue of Bellowing Ark, January/February 2006)

Note:  We never thought Marco (the Barko) would grow up.  He’s eight now, still pulls erratically at the leash, and obviously hasn’t grown up.  He’ll always be a child, for whatever reason.  We’ve tried everything, so please, no advice.  He’s our first boy dog….and he’s my boy.  It’s hard for us to separate.  I’m not sure which of us is the bigger child.

February 1st, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Animals, Children, Humor, Love, That's Life  |  1 Comment »

Postcards From the Next Life

Author: Bill Roberts

Dear Son – Bet you won’t like it here.

We can’t have tobacco products, so I’m

forced to chew on the rope I was led in

by.  Also, they confiscated my choppers.

When you come, sneak in a sealed pouch

of those rum-soaked cigars.  Love, Mom

Son – Brace yourself for what’s coming.

There’s a vast library here, but it contains

only children’s books, nothing but fiction.

Remember when I read you Mother Goose?

That’s all you’ll have pretty soon, so OD

on pornography while you’re able.  Dad

Brother Bill – I wonder if I can ask another

favor before you join us….would you mind

bringing me a pair of those Crocs, size 13?

We go barefoot – and often bareassed, too -

and my poor dogs ache all the time.  We

never seem to stop marching.  Bro Maxie

Billy Boy – Remember me, your girlfriend

from high school (the one with the big

yum-yums)!?  Ha!  Can’t wait to see you

again, little man.  It’s boring as h-e-l-l up

here, so hurry to my rescue.  Don’t worry

about protection – sex is a no-no.  XXX, Viv

(Published in Vol. 5, No. 2 of Main Channel Voices, Spring 2009 – the magazine now defunct)

Note:  Totally written for fun, but I do admit a love of postcards, real or imagined.

January 22nd, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Human Nature, Humor, Love, Nostalgia, That's Life  |  No Comments »

Respect for All Living Things

Author: Bill Roberts

–  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.

January 18th, 2010  |  Posted in Human Nature, Movies, Nostalgia, Politics, Prejudice, That's Life  |  No Comments »

Into Darkness

Author: Bill Roberts

I have merely to gaze at my fading

features in the low light of the mirror

to witness the return of my father,

each day coming back more surely -

the clouded eyes, flaring nostrils,

parched lips damp at corners, lazy

man’s stubble, knotted throat apple

bobbing through trebled chins -

a sight I was certain I’d never see again,

but here he is, back once more to follow

my slow progress of transformation

to becoming what I’d feared:  him.

I could turn up the lights, perhaps

rediscover me, but too many years

have passed and my inclination is to follow

his lead, begin dimming them instead.

(Published online in Issue #10 of Chantarelle’s Notebook, November 2007)

Note:  Why this dark poem today?  Maybe because it’s dark and dismal outside, snow threatening.  But probably not.  Maybe because we saw the movie “Precious” yesterday, tossed and turned all night – an important film that makes me thank lucky stars we have such a great welfare system in this country, at least in Harlem and throughout New York State, I presume.  But probably that’s not the reason either.  The reason is:  with age, I’m coming to look more and more like my father.  Am I becoming him?  That’s an answer that will have to wait….but possibly so, very possibly.

January 14th, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Human Nature, Movies, That's Life  |  No Comments »

The Death of Bambi

Author: Bill Roberts

A man quietly slipped his hand

inside her panties

as we watched Bambi

on the too-close screen

from the second row.

My neck hurt after the movie

and my little sister

couldn’t stop crying.

It’s when I learned

there are predators in the world

who if chance offers

take advantage of little sisters.

Now that I’m old

they seem to be all over

making every loner

and balding senior suspect.

I might never see Bambi again

unless I rent the CD,

watch it from my couch.

(Published in the March 2006 issus of , Red Owl Magazine, now defunct)

Note:  Education comes in many forms, some of them unpleasant, but that’s life.  Maybe I was too skinny, too ugly to attract the weirdos when I was a kid.  Besides, I could outrun them anyway.  D.C.’s streets were full of the halt, lame, untidy and unsightly back in the Forties.  I recall asking my Dad once why a man we’d just passed was wearing a leather patch across the spot where his nose should have been.  He said simply, “Syphilis,” as if I knew what he meant.  Saw more than a few such patches in those days, some covering blinded eyes, others missing noses.

January 9th, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Children, Human Nature, Nostalgia, That's Life  |  No Comments »

Assignment: Find Ernest

Author: Bill Roberts

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.

January 7th, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Human Nature, Love, Nostalgia, Politics, That's Life, Travel, War  |  No Comments »

Let Me Know If You’re Dead

Author: Bill Roberts

The last of five messages on the phone

is a real beaut, a classic.

I play it a second, then a third time.

Roberts, I heard you died.

I hope not but you never know at our age.

Call me if you’re really dead, okay?

I play it a fourth time,

then decide to call my old friend

whom I haven’t spoken to for months.

No answer, then his message

thingamajig kicks in:

Make it brief – I’m getting too impatient.

Norris, hi, I say.  You heard right.

I died when I heard your voice.

Please send flowers but don’t call back.

(Published online in 2008 by Chantarelle’s Notebook)

Note:  I have some whacky friends who do things like this, as I often do myself.  “Hey, good seeing you again.  The mortician did a nice job!”  Gallows humor, I guess it’s called.  But if you can’t make fun of death, at least on occasion, then you’re liable to live in constant fear of it.

January 5th, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Health, Human Nature, Humor, That's Life  |  No Comments »

Desire Under the Arms

Author: Bill Roberts

– with sincere apologies to Eugene O’Neill

Quite impossible not to notice

when I go to water aerobics class

three times a week the untidy

condition of the underarms

of my fellow – I should say,

lady – aqua thrasherettes.

I’m usually the lone male

in the pool, ostracized to the deep

end I presume so I won’t notice

that the ladies haven’t shaved

their armpits this century,

but I’m not exactly blind yet.

Because most of them are larger

than me, I’m a bit reluctant

to inquire about this hirsuteness

they’ve adapted, perhaps on purpose -

a cult possibly or, like bralessness,

a current cause they’ve taken up.

Maybe it’s ecological, growing hair

instead of grass, or they figure

it’s sexy, as cave women undoubtedly

thought long ago.  Come to think of it,

it is kind of, well, sexy in a way,

if hairy septuagenarians turn you on.

(Published online in the June 2009 issue of The Orange Room Review)

Note:  Shortly after this poem was published and my social analysis was exposed, I was voted out of the pool by the offended Thrasherettes.  I now work out regularly in the weight room at the gym with all the hairy, sweaty men, some of whom apparently prefer to bathe only once a month.  I’m of a mind to suggest they try water aerobics, check out the Thrasherettes.

January 4th, 2010  |  Posted in Aging, Health, Human Nature, Humor, Sports, That's Life  |  No Comments »