November 2015
Alan Walowitz
ajwal328@gmail.com
ajwal328@gmail.com
I'm a retired teacher and school administrator and I've written poetry, seriously and less than seriously, since I was a teenager. It's only recently that I've taken seriously the idea of sharing my poems beyond these four walls—where they're met with great acclaim by my wife and sometimes by my daughter—and my poems have appeared in journals, e-zines, and anthologies. Now I've put together a chapbook that's looking for a publisher.
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The Philco model 4XX was introduced in 1937 as one of Philco's "No Squat, No Stoop, No Squint" style radios (tuberadioland.com)
1938 Philco 4XX Radio
A shapely lady in heels,
tucks her legs modestly under,
but still enough akimbo to evoke faint possibility.
Dress demurely covers her knees
but her fanny casts a shadow like a seahorse.
Light-headed, and no wonder,
all this squatting to tune the radio
perched hip-high on spindly Queen Anne legs—
for that matter, her own might soon give way
to make ready for some swooping by a handsome man
come to save, if not herself, then her dignity
so she might reclaim her proper station.
Instead, here comes one with Churchillian bearing
who looks as if he’ll never resume his position,
upright or otherwise, now that his trunk,
rendered nearly unsupportable,
has formed a permanent perpendicular
at the top of his legs.
His nose is firmly up against the dial as if to dare it
to remain distant and impossible to occupy
with the immobile and elephantine army
he’s turned out to be.
The news from Dover is no better.
And now the mistress of the house
gives it a whirl, her glasses perched on her tiny nose.
Though her rump, challenging gravity,
remains improbably in the air
like a crane left the night by workmen
--and this contraption delicately counter-balanced by her ample bust.
Those ankles are not to be taken lightly
though her feet have been poured into dancers shoes,
a final affectation from days
she’d rather not discuss, but would if asked.
The call letters she’s seeking
are from a faraway land and remain,
like the man she might have twirled with once on holiday,
so close at hand, but distant as a dream.
1938 Philco 4XX Radio
A shapely lady in heels,
tucks her legs modestly under,
but still enough akimbo to evoke faint possibility.
Dress demurely covers her knees
but her fanny casts a shadow like a seahorse.
Light-headed, and no wonder,
all this squatting to tune the radio
perched hip-high on spindly Queen Anne legs—
for that matter, her own might soon give way
to make ready for some swooping by a handsome man
come to save, if not herself, then her dignity
so she might reclaim her proper station.
Instead, here comes one with Churchillian bearing
who looks as if he’ll never resume his position,
upright or otherwise, now that his trunk,
rendered nearly unsupportable,
has formed a permanent perpendicular
at the top of his legs.
His nose is firmly up against the dial as if to dare it
to remain distant and impossible to occupy
with the immobile and elephantine army
he’s turned out to be.
The news from Dover is no better.
And now the mistress of the house
gives it a whirl, her glasses perched on her tiny nose.
Though her rump, challenging gravity,
remains improbably in the air
like a crane left the night by workmen
--and this contraption delicately counter-balanced by her ample bust.
Those ankles are not to be taken lightly
though her feet have been poured into dancers shoes,
a final affectation from days
she’d rather not discuss, but would if asked.
The call letters she’s seeking
are from a faraway land and remain,
like the man she might have twirled with once on holiday,
so close at hand, but distant as a dream.
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Morning In a City Edward Hopper - o/c - (1944) |
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The woman stands naked before us,
but we’ve lost our desire to look. Whether morning chill, or mere ennui, she makes us want to turn and run away, go out and start a life like nothing she’s shown us here: rumpled bed, empty basin, tattered chair. But soon we’re climbing the same creaky stair, disgruntled, lonely, spent, and there she is again, staring out the window, still wearing nothing of the way she feels. We’re left to guess her casual human complaint of the world she’s turned her back on. Or maybe it’s us she’s turned on, ready at last to fix the bed, or her hair, then hearing the key jiggle the lock just when she figured we’d gone for good. Will she unleash a smile our way? Well, she couldn’t live without us, but we’d only wilt in the heat of such easy compliance |
©2015 Alan Walowitz