May 2018
Here are two poems in honor of Mother's Day. My mother, who would have celebrated her 99th birthday on April 26th, would say each of these is full of lies, and who am I to dispute my mother? I miss her love and good humor every day. For additional untruths, see
www.alan-walowitz.com
www.alan-walowitz.com
Downsizing
No tears when the stately old divan
departed. Only when the new owner
sawed off its middle leg to get through
the door, did it give my mother pause.
Meanwhile her three remaining pals
dutifully chose one shmata each
they’ll surely never wear themselves,
but come Christmas might offer the help.
Finally a few items had to be trashed
—moldy Good Housekeepings: recipes
she couldn’t bear to part with,
but never good enough to make;
tchotchkes varie: the alligator nut-cracker
from the Everglades, Baby Big Ben
that once played God Save the Queen,
olive oil we pressed ourselves in Spain,
surely rancid now,—then we thought we were done.
Till we looked at the glacier
that had formed in the freezer:
Interred there like a twelfth century mountaineer
hiding lost truths, were meals from lifetimes ago:
a meatloaf from the 90s buried behind
more recent triumphs; half pints of milk
smuggled from the Senior Center in case of natural disaster.
And this, a shriveled piece of wedding cake.
Ma, that was to be eaten
your first anniversary, for luck.
She pauses, thinks about her husband
long dead, longer mourned and says,
Maybe that’s why things didn’t work out--
and drops it in the trash.
first appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily
My Mother of All Bombs
Last year, the U.S. dropped the most lethal bomb, literally titled the mother of all bombs (MOAB). It is time the so-called
superpower realized that its invasion in Afghanistan is not only a complete failure, but one of its biggest mistakes
--The News on Sunday April 4, 2018
My mother wouldn’t let me have a gun for a toy,
which made cowboys and indians a burden
for whichever side I was on—nobody wanted
a guy with a finger but no trigger.
You’re shooting blanks, my friends were heard to say,
when I’d point in their direction
and holler, Gotcha. They’d also say,
the hell you did! and how could I argue
except the moral right
of a guy who yells, Bang! the loudest
ought to decide who’s dead
and who gets to stay alive.
All of which is to say, I’m all in favor
of MOAB, the Mother of all Bombs,
22,000 lbs. most of it explosives,
and nothing like a cap gun,
but no civilians hurt, just some
bad guys in tunnels--but we can’t be sure
cause the tunnels and caves are mostly collapsed
and the bad guys mostly got obliterated
with their faces blown off.
My mother would have been so proud--
she never told me I couldn’t have a bomb.
First appeared in Rat's Ass Review.
© 2018 Alan Walowitz
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