Spectacle


Out of the shtetl, out of pogrom,
(My mother whimpering till America),
My son, nine, sits among macaws and hibiscus
At a white piano bar, handsome
As a movie star, smart as a physicist,
Ignorant (my doing) of his heritage.
We listen to a tinkling
Of T.S. Eliot's poems about cats,
Until my son yawns. It is getting late,
Near the end of a millenium.
The sky over Disney World is turning black.
The stars breaking through report light
From a time more primitive than my mother's era.
We leave the gentle fascist to his audience
And rise, American angels, in a glass
Elevator over the posh lobby
Of the hotel, with its three-story palms,
Its narcoticizing fountains.
I stretch out safe on the turned-down bed
And nibble the Godiva chocolates the maid left.
My son flicks on the end of a t.v. show
About a war orphan foraging
For roots in the Russian countryside. We watch
Until an artillery of fireworks
Begins bursting over the Magic Kingdom:
Red orange yellow blue indigo violet.
We kneel to watch between the bars of our balcony
As my mother, nine, kneeled behind a tombstone
And peeked out at the spectacle of her burning town.


Proud father's note: My son David in "Spectacle" is now spectacular as an adult. He has a terrific son Luke who just turned 2 and another on the way. He was going to follow me into the film business (where I worked as a writer under contract) and become a movie producer. On the advice of the head of Fox Entertainment he went to law school. When he got out he told himself he didn't want to sell crap. Instead he became a Mergers & Acquisitions lawyer which is like putting a show together. When he was 36 and 38 he was voted one of the five top M&A lawyers under 40 in America. This year for instance he closed a deal for Warren Buffet's South American Partners. As in the movie My Favorite Year, my favorite year with him was when he was 8-9.