12th & 13th November, 2005
Rod in Concert
Holland, December 2005!
San Sebastian Strings
albums now available on CD! Order
now!
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Photo by Edward McKuen 9/24/2005
A Thought for Today
Brotherhood begins with you and me and we
are responsible for extending it.
TO BEGIN WITH
‘Topical’ verse often becomes dated from the day it is written, let
alone read. Still some topics are irresistible to the poet even though
they may only mirror the moment. In the first of a pair of poems from
The Beautiful Strangers I offer my take on a war that took place in the
early 1980’s in the Garment Industry by of all people the once and
future purveyors of Designer Jeans (!).
The second offering from the same book is of a more serious nature and
has, alas, no expiration stamp. Nevertheless it has been almost totally
rewritten.
RM 11/12/2005
FROM the¨BOOKS
TWO POEMS from THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS
Designer Genes
With laissez faire each derriere
with nom or nom de plume
is held in place with little space
to wiggle or sha-boom.
Though upper class,
with hips en masse
may swoon or merely moan
the denim set does not abet
though Sassoon sues Sasson.
Francophile in cut and style
and lusty ambiance
hello, goodbye, Bon Jour for sure
is just a pair of pants.
For those unyoung
who would be built
Glorioski! Vanderbilt.
For thighs the size
of shepherd’s crook
three guys devised
the Jordache look.
Some new fanglers
with longer danglers
prefer, I’m sure
the lure of Wranglers.
Jesse Jeans, a better bet
for punning than for running
jumping, standing still,
or passing twenty.
In singles bars
spot would be stars
in Sergio Valente.
If it’s the gods
who choose the bods
to illustrate each line
the lord must be decidedly
a clone of Calvin Klein.
Double stitched and TV pitched
in boardroom or bunkhouse
hip, hip hooray, a toast we say
to Levi and to Strauss.
Who knows what crazed couturiers
await to trip their trap
or slip the invite through the gate
Come ! Fall into the Gap.
Sad but true, blood may run blue
in veins of kings and queens
but outwardly, true royalty
reigns in designer genes.
With so much green
from selling jean
the markets far from thinning
pegged or flair, both get their share
the end is the beginning.
-from The Beautiful Strangers, 1981
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Saturday 13 November
Hermione Baddeley o Nathaniel Benchley o Edwin Booth o Justice Louis D. Brandeis o Linda Christian o William Gibson o Whoopi Goldberg o Richard Lucus o Joe Mantegna o Dack Rambo o Bruce Samazan o Alexander Scourby o Jean Seberg o Robert Sterling o Robert Louis Stevenson o Oskar Werner
Sunday
14 November
St. Augustine o Travis Barker o Stephen Bishop o Charles, Prince of Wales o Aaron Copland o Rosemary De Camp o Chris Demetral o Johnny Desmond o Mamie Eisenhower o Robert Fulton o Nina Gordon (Smashing Pumpkins) o King Hussein of Jordan o Barbara Hutton o George S. Kaufmani o Brian Keith o Veronica Lake o Marya Mannes o Senator Joseph McCarthy o Claude Monet o Jawaharlal Nehru o Jim Piersall o Dick Powell o Leonie Rysanek o Harrison Salisbury o McLean Stevenson o D.B. Sweeney o Martha Tilton |
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Love is another word for sharing. If you go out into and beyond the day
with love in mind and heart, you are probably as close to life as you
can ever hope to be.
God never holds back.
The only thing we own without condition is
experience.
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PENSIONER |
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Deprived of cats
and children and now
her eyes begin to go. Fetch my glasses
from the dresser or wherever
she calls out to me. I do so out of habit,
as my shirttail polishes each lens
I bring the dimestore plastic
to her unsteady hands.
She is now past needlepoint and any need
for old friends dropping by. They interrupt
my television, she says to me.
Double lock the door before you go.
I do. And think as I go down the walk,
I will not watch this woman, though no kin
of mine, be folded over like a day bed
and trucked away to Leisureland – robbed
and rolled of her own loved, long lived in
and enjoyed magazine stacked rooms.
I have heard the mutterings of brother,
aging aunt who I believe to be not altogether
held two-gether by the tissue of humanity.
Mere strings of marionette with much cord
missing bind them. When I visit and I find
the aunt, the brother there, or both, even as
they speak to her their eyes are dancing
down the top of dusty trunk that time and
desire to the unattainable has assured them
holds spoils unspeakable, coins uncounted,
unaccounted for. I imagine them imagining
the desired divvy their eyes dissected,
divided and divined for ages, ions maybe
Sensing their maneuvers almost as long
as they believe they have been managing
her boat along the river Styx our aging
heroine of the story has allowed their gifts
of dimes, quarters, once a dollar – even
five from the pockets/purses of these
irrelevant relatives’ for sustenance and
decades worth of TV Guide subscriptions
by allowing their suspicions letting them
suspect the trunk holds wads of forever.
What notes negotiable or bricks of gold
reside inside this all but ruined reticule?
More magazines and pamphlets, pictures
of an only husband hide behind the lock.
A tattered Teddy Bear of some age and
long past hope of rescue or retrieval
resides there too. These are the sum of
one old woman’s life who leaving it will
have but one regret, no more Rifleman
repeat. No Law & Order on demand.
I bring a lock each time I visit and flush
the old key down the drain, then hide
the new one in one more not too secret
niche as I snap the new lock on the old
trunk shut, pocketing last week’s padlock.
Six keys have turned up missing in half
as many years - through half closed
eyelids, feigning sleep she watched as
each was seen and snatched by he or
she who made the latest obligatory visit.
On Mondays we take schnapps together
and giggle at the prospect of the great
opening of her hope and hoped for chest
once her own chest gives up the natural
rise and fall. The brother hovering, the
aunt all fingers. This imagined scene had
been replayed between us in a dozen
variations until the middle of last week.
On Tuesday last her brother died, more
from meanness than old age. The aunt
was willed his share of keys. The ecstasy
of such good fortune overwhelmed her.
Told the news she too expired in that
Same hour that took his useless keys .
I was running out of padlocks or cash
to buy them and so I too found much
relief. Next visit we will have to think
up new diversions, brand new games.
-from The Beautiful Strangers, 1981 /
Revised November, 2005 |
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