January 2019
Michael L. Newell
astrangertotheland@yahoo.com
Poet's Note: Harry is a character I have worked on, now and again, since the early nineties.  I have written close to 120 of these poems. Harry's age in these poems ranges from his mid-fifties through his late sixties.  He is divorced, an alcoholic, and has a daughter in her late teens.  He is a cynic and a romantic, a failed idealist and a realist, an agnostic and one who hopes for more than that.   
Whether these poems are worth a damn, I have never been sure, but I cannot bring myself to abandon them.  Here are three samples of what I have been trying to do.

HARRY ALONE WITH ECHOES
 

Her hand, he remembers,
cupped his cheek
as though he
were fragile, a vessel
 
to be handled
delicately, like her
mother's vase
on the counter
 
sprouting roses
and perfume
to fill a room;
his cheek cradled
 
in her protecting hand,
sheltered in memory, the reality
long vanished, along with roses,
the delicate vase, and their vows.
 


 

HARRY TELLS HIS DAUGHTER GOODBYE
 

His daughter slips on the garb, mental
and emotional, of an adult, ready
to sashay freely into the wide wild world
awaiting her, and yet she hesitates;
 
it is a big step, one that looms without pity
before her, and old Harry, tired Harry,
ready to be alone Harry, fears for her, yet
he does not know how to allay fears, hers
 
or his, and awkwardly pats her shoulder
as she boards the train taking her 
to a future where they will seldom see
one another; both face new futures -- she
 
enters the whirling swirling world 
of a young adult, and he recedes into corner
bars, a living room with blinds pulled down,
and midnight arguments with himself
 
and whatever concoction he is imbibing;
he would give her words of wisdom, but
he has none, and if he did, she would not
hear them, not now, not on the precipice
 
of unfettered life; their goodbye is both
tentative and final; she will move past it
as soon as the train leaves the station;
he will store it in memory and take it out
 
periodically to contemplate and worry over;
they will never again be so close and so distant.
 

 


HARRY'S SUMMATION OF A FRIEND'S LIFE


Ragged in the world, she 
whirled past astonished faces
carefully tied in place,
nylons straight and vests adjusted.
 
She knew alleys lit by starlight
and the wind's howl on a bender;
her tangled locks and muddy teeth
testified to her griefs.
 
All of heaven, all of hell could swallow 
Bonnie's bones and fell her days, 
without dazing her will, that remarkable
growth sprouting from her every gesture.
 
When they came to bury her, her lips
were curled, a joyous snarl, and all
who visited at the last remembered only she
was the one never vanquished, never lonely.
 
She buried daughters, sons, and husbands;
lost generations of friends and lovers;
cast away church and state, created a slate
all her own on which to fashion a life's meaning.
 
Save your Requiems and toll no bells; what was
buried here today no grave can hold nor eulogy
enfold -- a woman's life unfolded, folded into
earth, sprouts anew through all who knew her worth. 
© 2018 Michael L. Newell
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