OLD GUY WITH THE NICE POOL

“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor.

Do you know your next door neighbor?”- Mother Teresa

Red lights splashed into all of our back yards,

guessed it was the old guy with the nice pool,

but it was his wife, a loud lady I talked to once.

She suffered a heart attack and died. He’s been

alone for ten or twelve years now and for hours

he sits watching TV on the back porch, I’d hear

MASH, CNN, John Wayne westerns, war movies.

His pool always crystal clear, open Memorial Day,

closed on Labor Day, check the calendar and see

the trampoline-like green cover perfectly placed.

He moved slower, didn’t swim, watched more TV.

Had less pool parties with his family and last winter

a sign went up on his lawn, the house sold quick,

luckier than most who have been trying to leave.

Another neighbor says, “His kids got him to sell and

moved him to assisted living, on his first night there,

he got out of bed, tripped on the rug, broke his leg.

Doctors find he’s filled with cancer. Three weeks later

around Christmas, he’s gone. Dead. Jack was his name”.

LET ME THINK ABOUT IT

I was probably 3 or 4 when

she first encouraged me to

create art, always plenty of

markers, crayons, paper.

And I love her for that.

I was probably 5 or 6 when

she first taught me to

love plants, flowers like

forsythia, hyacinths, lilacs.

And I love her for that.

I was probably 7 or 8 when

she first pushed me to

read books, thick books on

history, animals, mythology.

And I love her for that.

I was probably 9 or 10 when

she said nothing as he turned

his anger on me, wish she’d

said “Stop”, that first time.

And I can’t forgive her for that.

MONSTER MOVIES ON TV, B.C.

Television before cable, 13 channels if you count the UHF,

did it even work, remember antennas on all the rooftops?

When the set was busted, we’d say Oh no, better call Ono!

Mr. Ono, a TV repair guy knew how to get it working again.

Now we put them on the curb, head on down to Best Buy.

Creature Double Feature on 48, Dr. Shock on channel 17 

from Philly, same time, Saturday afternoons, the Seventies.

Mighty Joe Young always on Channel 9, not sure about 5,

maybe that’s where Abbott and Costello met the monsters?

Now we laugh, can’t believe we watched in black and white.

When it was a little chilly and rainy on a Saturday, she’d say

Be a good day for a nap on the sofa and a Godzilla movie.

How come they don’t have any scary movies on TV anymore?

Only people our age would know what she meant by this.

Now it’s easy, she grabs the remote and finds one on Netflix.

VINTAGE LETTERS

mail was valuable way back then

in the days of grandfather’s youth

letters were the way to send friends

messages, money, and kind words.

his mother wrote him at college,

mail was valuable way back then.

words of encouragement arrived,

fine crafted letters full of love

weather updates, daily routines

anecdotes from a place called home.

mail was valuable way back then,

she assured him Father was proud.

in the basement, letters kept for

a lifetime, unshared memories.

I read them now, decades later-

mail was valuable way back then.

SIGN IS IN THE HEAD

-for Jack, my Papaw

A million seeds arrived from Florida today.

Last week, peat moss was trucked in from

Canada and was stacked at both ends of

the prepped greenhouses.Weeds chopped,

poison set out for mice, little seed thieves.

No more smoking, tobacco causes disease

for the young seedlings that’ll pop up once

the heaters make it nice and toasty inside.

He shows me the stipple board and vacuum

that will drop the tiny seeds into plastic trays.

Orange Kubota tractors with water and hoses

are ready to go, but we won’t be planting yet.

In his kitchen he drinks coffee at the counter

and points to a tall, fancy clock in the corner.

The stoic face of Moon Man rises on the dial.

If you want them plants to grow right, then

you have to wait for the sign to be in the head.

After so many generations, he still followed the

Cherokee way of waiting for a full moon to plant.

IN THE TOBACCO BARN

It had been a dry fall, without morning fog or dew

leaves are likely to shatter if you pull them off dry.

Already November, with an auction on the horizon.

It was his Christmas check or the last of the money.

Not a word said between them, men climbed high

in the rafters, straddled poles and beams and formed

a chain to pass stakes with sticky stalks, cured tobacco.

Others pulled it, put it into piles- tips, brights and lugs.

They worked in silence, each knew exactly what to do.

It was Saturday, someone plugged in a boom box and

as they worked, they heard the play by play, straining

to hear their team battling with the perennial favorites.

Finally the announcer’s famous call of “Give… him… six!”

and “Touchdown Tennessee!” went over the airwaves.

The men yelled and hollered, but never stopped working.

They kept pulling, grading, and baling the burley tobacco.

THE VISIT, 1990

At a counter in a crowded kitchen

decorated with roosters and hens

we sat on stools drinking black coffee

in mismatched cups and chipped mugs.

He showed me his gun cabinet, his prized

Winchester, the gun that won the West.

I knew you’d come one day, he said as he

pulled my kindergarten photo from his wallet.

She mixed the flour with shortening and

used a jelly jar to perfectly cut out biscuits.

I told your Dad that when you got two babies

you have to stay, but he just couldn’t do it.

Sharing memories of the times back in Jersey

turned to a conversation of misunderstandings

and regrets but when I went to leave they said

what they always said to us all, Stay with us.

ALMOST WROTE A LETTER

So much was made of the heading,

the greeting, the body, the salutation.

Red line drawn down the right side of

the white lined composition paper to

align the home address with the closing-

“Sincerely yours,” and my new signature.

Penmanship and punctuation- a must.

Rewrite it, do it again, not right? Again.

Stamps purchased for their artistic beauty.

There were special boxes of pastel, floral

themed stationary or was it stationery?

Finding a letter in my mailbox today made

me sit on the steps to read it, to follow the

numbers of the pages, to keep track of the

anecdotes about people we once knew,

last week’s weather, a meal made for dinner.

And as I read it, I heard it all in your voice,

the way I’d seen it done in so many movies.

I sat for a moment to think of how I should

write you back, mention the coming season,

ask about your health or wish you well before

closing with a “Truly yours,” or “All the best”.

THE FARMER'S STORY

The greenhouses are gone now and

I see many new buildings, but the shed

next to his parents’ house still stands.

Boards are busted, some rotten, all of

them have changed to shades of gray.

A flickering shop light was always on and

there never was a door to you could close.

For years, an engine block caked in oil sat

in the corner. Pick axes, tractor tires, hoses,

disc plates, pipe fittings, welding tanks, boxes

of fertilizer mix, buckets of bolts, nuts, screws,

and nails littered the shed’s grease stained floor.

He told me many times about the move back

to Tennessee with flat bed trucks loaded down

by rhododendrons, nursery supplies, azaleas.

He’d talk about that first season of farming,

fifty acres and a mule, and how at the end of

harvest- the mule died. Then he’d laugh loudly.

The tomatoes were packed by hand, wrapped

in newspapers. They thought about quitting.

I asked if they’d ever knock down the old shed

and he said he couldn’t do that, because we

all need to be reminded of how we got started.

THE CLOCK COLLECTOR

I think of how he lays in his bed all day

long listening to the ticks from more than

a hundred clocks of all shapes and sizes.

Does someone still wind them each week?

Did some get sold when times got tough?

I wonder if he remembers the auctions,

antique shops and fine furniture galleries.

I think about them chiming on the hour,

half hour, at a quarter of and fifteen after.

All were off a minute or two, never in sync

a good thing for the neighbors and anyone

visiting during the holidays or special dinners.

Strange, his obsession with clocks and time

now holds him prisoner. And after all that

happened, I truly hope he’s at peace when

he hears those sixteen notes and strike for

each hour from his prized Grandfather clock.

http://www.clocksnmore.com/midi/westminster.mp3

DAY OF THE DEAD

“What have I become, my sweetest friend?

Everyone I know goes away in the end.”

- Hurt, Johnny Cash (written by Trent Reznor)

Lately, every day feels like it’s the Day of the Dead.

I always wonder what it’d be like to drink one more

cup of black coffee with him from a chipped mug on the

porch as the sun goes down. I find myself thinking about

nights before supper, listening to her stories as she makes

biscuits or I imagine riding with him in his white pickup truck

around the fence line of his cattle fields, looking for calves.

Some days it feels like I’m watching a movie called, My Life

and each time it’s shot with different camera angles or lighting.

My favorite scene is when I’m seated with her on the boardwalk,

eating a sugar cone. Then there’s the one where I’m covered with

an itchy stadium blanket and he’s making a fire as we get ready

to watch the Saturday night hockey games in the “back room”.

Another great episode is set on the highways of New Jersey

and New York, we’re laughing about the 100 degree heat,

the hard work, our basketball games and getting easily lost.

Some days the regrets start up, I think you know what I mean?

It’s usually the unanswered invitations, the wasted moments

or the simply because the list is getting longer and the dead

are accumulating as I get older and I don’t like feeling this way.

Lately I’ve been thinking of others too, and this worries me.

Some days I stop to recall the old lady on the beach who

used to give us all candy, or a girl from elementary school

who was found dead, floating naked in our town’s river.

My Sunday School teacher’s granddaughter, she had a hole

in her heart or a high school classmate who feel asleep at

the wheel and never made it home from the third shift.

I wonder if others are haunted by the memories too.

I wonder if they’d confess too or if there are days when

nothing triggers thoughts of the ones who have left us.

Will there be a day when I won’t think of them or will I

keep shaking it off with a sigh, a laugh,or will I always cry?

TOMORROW'S PHONE CALL

Usually it’s the flowers that remind him-

grape hyacinths, lily of the valley, forsythia.

He meant to, but too much time had passed.

How awkward it’d be for them to speak now.

At a funeral, she didn’t recognize him, seated

in a corner away from the crying and hugging.

A slide show with self selected soundtrack

playing “it’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday”.

His wife found it odd when he came home and

told her how his mother hadn’t recognized him.

Must’ve been the white hair, my beard, or all the

years without a single word spoken between us.

They say, even animals know their young

when they see them after years of being apart.

He didn’t blame her and planned to call,

once he found the time to talk about it.

Tomorrow I’ll call her, before the next

funeral, which could be hers, or his, or mine.

A CHANGE IN PRAYERS

I used to ask for things when I prayed.

I prayed for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl.

I prayed for first place in the Spelling Bee.

I prayed for fame and fortune in Hollywood.

I prayed to marry some hot chick from TV.

I prayed to be able to travel to the great cities

of the world- London, Paris, Tokyo, Rome.

I prayed for the bright lights of Broadway.

I prayed for a big mansion with a swimming pool.

I prayed for more things, like a black Corvette.

My prayers have changed so much since I was a boy.

Decades later, I stopped asking for things in my prayers.

Instead I pray to thank God for my health, my job,

my little house, my education, and a car that works.

I thank him for my loving wife, an exceptional son,

and for never having to go without a meal or drink.

I thank him for a couple of weeks at the beach,

so that I may sit for a while and look at the ocean.

I thank him for a week in the mountains with my boy,

for the moments when we stop take a deep breath.

I thank him for my big brown chair, gray sweatshirts,

books that come in the mail and Willie Nelson songs.

I thank the Lord for sunny days and baseball games

with cold beers and cheese steaks with fried onions.

And now that I think about it, there is one thing

that I do ask for when I pray-I ask for time, more time

to be here with my family to enjoy all I’ve been given.

NONE OF MY BUSINESS- notes from Commerce Street

The names of the streets seem so ironic now-

Commerce, Laurel, Pearl and Broad Streets.

Plastic soda bottles closed the Glass Factories.

No smell of tomatoes cooking into ketchup,

no smell of dye boiling at the fabric company.

Workers and their families, are all long gone too.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

Department Stores, Woolworth’s, Beacon Auto,

The Enterprise Men’s Store, Morton’s Jewelers,

Riley’s Sporting Goods, Smashey’s Shoe Store,

even the Farmers and Merchants Bank is missing.

Tourism and Victorian architecture were suppose

to boost the economy and stop the city’s decline.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

When tourism failed, a bid for a new State prison

made the folks say, some will build it, some will

work as guards in it, many will end up living in it.

Victorian homes got divided and rented to multiple

families, you can tell by the dozen mailboxes on the

front porches put up by some landlord’s handyman.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

Stores are open-signs for calling cards, Ranchero music,

Santeria candles, Quinceañera party supplies, taco stands,

whatever else new citizens need to feel at home, at ease.

Men work all day in the fields of thriving nurseries while

young pregnant wives walk the streets with children in tow,

and older children wear maroon and khaki school uniforms.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

In the last few moments of my visit, I see Big John’s Pizza,

The Towne Tavern, and Terrigno’s Bakery-all still here.

And when I step into Weber’s Candy Store I go back in time

to the heyday of a Glass Town, when the downtown was

a showplace of commerce, industry, and community pride.

It’s all the same, same shelves, same candy, same signs.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

Maybe I’m exaggerating, but every building looks like

it needs a couple of coats of paint, a new roof, and

new windows. I start to wonder how it all got this way.

I hold back my tears when I see my grandparent’s home

with its faded, dented aluminum siding, dirty windows

and the back door swinging and slamming in the breeze.

It’s none of my business, but it was my hometown.

MEET THE AMERICAN POET

A boy called Fish, son of a cowboy, son of the beach.

Grown at the real Jersey Shore, found in the mountains.

Changed to Lawrence, “crowned with laurels”, raised

by Bewicks, emphasis on Be, in England, Buick-like the car.

L.L. Cool or Larry squared, double L like Llama they said.

Dreamt of drama, plays, scripts, a call from Hollywood.

In school since 1972, ‘cause he likes a place called school.

Honored to be working with the gifted and talented ones.

Works all year, thinking of his escape for a few weeks to

coastal Carolina, the hills of Tennessee, the streets of DC.

The Jeep knows the highways and all points South, just as

it finds the soccer fields on the weekends with his son.

One morning, crossing The Victory Bridge, he figured out

finally what it’s all about- family, good meals, good drinks,

great books, quiet times. Now he works toward his dream

of finding his book of poetry on the bookshelves of all the

bookstores across the country, before the books disappear,

before stores close, before the words all float in cyberspace.

PHOTO ALBUM

“The present contains nothing more than the past,

and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.”

-Henri Bergson

How pitiful and scared they both looked.

Two teenagers cutting a wedding cake,

staring into a camera surrounded by gifts.

Him- tall, wiry, baby faced. Her- with a fancy

60’s hairstyle, belly the size of a basketball.

And with the flashcube’s blast, a complicated

chain reaction overwhelmed the three of them.

Nobody could have told them how cruel it would

be once the dominoes begin to fall or how they

continue on, faster and in so many directions.

Sometimes he thinks of what it’d be like, if-

he never happened, if- he’d never been born.

“They must’ve loved you enough to go through

with it, many girls back then didn’t follow through,

if you know what I mean”, a lady at work said once.