3 Poems - The Thinker. A Trilogy.

 

How can one abandon
such strong feelings?
Am I that weak?
Are you that strong?
I look at what we had
and wonder...
Will i ever feel that way again?
Are there really other eyes out there
that sparkle like yours,
or shine like mine?
I really dont think so.
Turn it over,
look at the other side.
It was worth the changes,
the joys, the sorrows.
I can never forget
the way my heart pounded
at our first kiss.
Or  how time stopped when

i first entered you.
But now we are closed to one another,
and yet time moves on?
................

Sometimes i think i am
all that i need.
And at other times
I need you to be with.
It's so confusing
all of these
conflicting thoughts
and emotions.
If i seem to lean on us,
or you,
is that weakness?
Even the Pillars of Rome
had their faltering moments.
And this moment is mine.
............

How can i avoid
picking up the phone
to call you
when i feel like this?
You might call it weak,
but i don't think so.
Is it wrong to need one another?
(though it scares us both)
Do you need me?
When i ache inside,
can i lean on you?

 

Zeus and Hermes

Zeus was the Greek equivalent of the Roman God of Speed Mercury, pictured here on our old US Mercury dime.

Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia. Hermes was Zeus messenger. Zeus was the fastest of the gods. He wore winged sandals, a winged hat, and carriied a magic wand.

"Zeus and Hermes came disguised as ordinary peasants, and began asking the people of the town for a place to sleep that night. They had been rejected by all, "so wicked were the people of that land," when at last they came to Baucis and Philemon's simple rustic cottage. Though the couple was poor, their generosity far surpassed that of their rich neighbors, among whom the gods found “doors bolted and no word of kindness."

After serving the two guests food and wine (which Ovid depicts with pleasure in the details), Baucis noticed that, although she had refilled her guest's beech wood cups many times, the pitcher was still full (from which derives the phrase "Hermes's Pitcher"). Realizing that her guests were gods, she and her husband "raised their hands in supplication and implored indulgence for their simple home and fare." Philemon thought of catching and killing the goose that guarded their house and making it into a meal, but when he went to do so, it ran to safety in Zeus's lap. Zeus said they need not slay the goose and that they should leave the town. This was because he was going to destroy the town and all those who had turned them away and not provided due hospitality. He told Baucis and Philemon to climb the mountain with him and Hermes and not to turn back until they reached the top.

After climbing to the summit ("as far as an arrow could shoot in one pull"), Baucis and Philemon looked back on their town and saw that it had been destroyed by a flood and that Zeus had turned their cottage into an ornate temple. The couple's wish to be guardians of the temple was granted. They also asked that when time came for one of them to die, that the other would die as well. Upon their death, the couple were changed into an intertwining pair of trees, one oak and one linden, standing in the deserted boggy terrain."

Thinking of Hootch - Cats Paws

Love this little pink paw. First time I saw one was on a kitten which had fallen  out a window of a second floor apartment on East 19th between Ave O and P in Brooklyn. I figured the owner was too stupid to own it and put him in my coat pocket and took him home. Named him Hootch.

If you were ever a steady "visitor" at 2132 Ocean Avenue you probably remember him coming and going. He led a lifestyle best described as ephemeral, like the stages of the moon.

Hootch lived for about 4 years, getting into scrapes but always making it back from the edges. Literally had 9 lives! He even got a job as a "mouser" at the butcher on Avenue O an East 15th street when I left to join the Navy. This was about 45 years ago, and the photo of the pink paw reminded me of him.....

Here is the little guy with his mom. Got the photos from a post by a woman named Peggy Sue on the Simon's Cat (fun) site, which can be found on Facebook. You can also contact the Underdog Pet Rescue Mission of Wisconsin at 608-224-0018

 

Wycoff-Bennett House - King Highway 1880's

 What a pleasure, what a treasure,

to be taken back in time,

to a place I so remember as uniqely mine.

A simple photo of an era,  that predates my own,

it's like a voice out of the past

a timeless telephone,

to an era, long since gone, older than my age.

A magic trip, a magic trick,

written on a page.

If those people could but speak, what tales they could tell

To mesmerize me, and surprise me

'twould be like a magic spell!

Further back past my own youth, to a time that was their own.

What a treasure, what a pleasure 

If i could only find that phone!

Photo courtesy of Brian Dobrin on Facebook.

Waves; No Waivers

It comes in waves, but never wavers,
there is no cure, and no Life Savers.
Just ride it through, it never changes.
A one day break, occassionally savored.

My friends all help and pull me through,
and Sue does all that she can do,
to steer me past these mountainous ranges
of endless views, no changing flavors.

I parse the info which my way passes,
with pain so pure, yet still amasses.
But I hang on, no hope in sight,
I'll never go without a fight.

I know I'll lose, so there's no fright,
there is no wrong, there is no right.
I soldier on, my endless march,
my frailty mixed with ironed starch.

No rain can wither a suit of mail,
a knight in sunlight, in a hopeless jail,
therein which dwells an optimist
who never cries for what he's missed.

What sustains me, I do not know,
so, I'll remain to see the show.
And how it ends, thats the part,
which marks the man, and shows the heart.

And, when they bring the curtain down,
I'll not ask another round.
I've proved my point and shown my mettle,
there'll be no accounts for me to settle!

"Summer Storm" (1944) with Everett Edward Horton

Disregard this misleading movie poster. The film takes place in 1919 and is a film version of Anton Chekov's 1884 novel "The Shooting Party", with the screenplay written by Rowland Leigh.

The trick with this film was how to convey Chekov's 1884 beliefs in Justice, and it's meaning, in pre Revolutionary Russia, with the plight of it's main characters in a post Revolutionary Soviet Union 35 years later. And to make it work.

When all is said and done Rowland Leigh did the remarkable  with a screenplay based on an adaptation by Michael O'Hara. The message i got from the film is the same i took away from the novel.

The question is clear to me; is justice truly blind, or is it just blind to the facts? Or, is the only pure justice one's own conscience; the verdict which one never evades or truly escapes?

With stars George Sanders, Linda Darnell, and a brilliantly nuanced performance by Edward Everett Horton, that question is posed beauifully, and in the end is answered perfectly.

The film is available for free, without commercials, on you tube. The link is as follows: https://youtu.be/7xZOZmoWEag But disregard that bizarre poster! 
 

Bee Bee's Tray

The tray pictured here belonged to my friend's Grandma Bee Bee. She lived at 1900 Quentin Road in Brooklyn, N.Y. When I was in Juinor High I thought nothing was classier than this tray- which was always filled with goodies like Bridge Mix and other delights we didn’t have in my home.

I’m not really sure of the year but it was around 1971 or so when Bee Bee passed away. I was offered a “souvenir” to remember her by- and I chose the tray. To me it epitomized an era of genteel living, when people had “company” on Saturday nights, or “guests” during the week for cards or Scrabble. TV came along and changed all that.

The real “meat” of this story involves the loss and later recovery of this tray- possibly with the aid of “cosmic” forces beyond our understanding or control.

The tray had been on top of a black steamer trunk which I used as a dresser in 1973 while living at 2132 Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. Remember in July of 1973 I packed up and moved to Ohio where I ended up engaged to Monica and working in the paint factory.

In December of 1973 I left Ohio by car (a 1964 Ford Galaxy 500) for NY- trunk in tow. But the car didn’t make it and I was forced to abandon it on the side of Route 80 in Ohio within sight of an Arco station. Not being able to hitch with the trunk I carried it over to the service station and asked the owner if I could leave it there for a bit, intending to send for it later. The owner gave his consent and I lugged it up a ladder to the attic/storage area and continued to the airport and a flight to NY.

I mentioned to my friend that I had left the trunk at a service station in Ohio alongside Route 80. And then I don’t think I thought about it again except in a passing- “Gee, I wish I had my trunk back” kind of way.

So here it is, almost 2 years later at 2:30 in the morning and my front door bell rings back at 2132 Ocean Avenue. At the door is my friend with a black steamer trunk on his back going “Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!” It was my trunk!

Inside we opened the trunk and I started going through all the things I had missed in the previous 2 years. And the big surprise was that not only was the tray in there- but my friend, who had given me the tray to begin with, had no idea it was in there!

Eventually I got the whole story- he had been driving back to NY from school at Ohio State in Antioch and along Route 80 found himself outside of Cleveland when he remembered that I had lived near there a couple of years back. And then he remembered that I had left a trunk at a service station somewhere alongside Route 80.

Looking up he saw the sign for an Arco station at the next exit and got off. He went in and asked the guy if he had ever stored a trunk for some tall, skinny guy with shoulder length hair. The reply was something like- “Yeah, and if he doesn’t come for it soon we’re throwing it out!” So he took it and drove through to Brooklyn and woke me up.

And that’s when he saw the tray!

We have pondered this little oddity between us over these many years. He didn’t know it was an Arco station- he didn’t know exactly where on Route 80 I had left it- and only a brief whim caused him to stop and check it out. Was it Bee Bee calling out to get the tray? Or just one of those odd coincidences that make life the joy it sometimes can be?

I don’t know- but I do still have the tray.