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My 9th grade English teacher at JHS 59Q, the very delightful and kind Mrs. Carol Poteat, had her students read some boring old poems, but had us write some new ones too. I remember writing a poem about the budget-busting increase in first-class postage to five cents. Mrs. Poteat claimed she liked my poem and I was hooked. I became a poet and an English teacher, both occupations destined to leave me relatively poor, yet relatively satisfied. Mrs. Poteat, later Carol Poteat-Buchanan, died in 2018 at the age of 89 and I never thanked her formally enough. Look at her photo. No wonder I hung onto so many of her words. |
The poet and scholar, Stephen Stepanchev was a champion of my poetry when I hadn’t written much of it at all. As 20-year-old poets sometimes will, I took myself very seriously. Much to my everlasting gratitude, he took my poems quite seriously. Though I’ve fallen away from poetry at various times in my life, his encouraging words have always helped bring me back. Dr. Stepanchev died in 2017 at the age of 102. Fortunately, I got to thank him before he passed away. In a letter, he claimed, though 45 years had lapsed, that he remembered me and my poetry, and said I could call him Stephen, which I never, ever would.
Firestone Feinberg, the publisher and founder of Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry, very fitfully, but very kindly, agreed to publish a poem of mine in October 2015. Later still, he asked me to be a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual and submit some poems each month. Still later, I coerced Firestone into meeting me for coffee in Manhattan. What a sometimes curmudgeonly joy he was. Thanks to Firestone, my poems appear in Verse-Virtual this month, and most every month.
The Other Alan Walowitz
lives in New Jersey, but can’t remember how he got there, the odd way the highways are marked on the far side of the bridge. He’s been to the Drive-In Movie more times than he can remember, and even considered, in his youth, the Mile High Club— but settled instead for the top of a VW van while the fog was rolling in. He prefers small spaces—sleeping bags, cocoons, a seat at the opera: I’ve seen his picture at all the openings and am sure he can’t be me the way he travels comfortably in those tony circles, and only sometimes has something to hide like the half-finished martini I sometimes place surreptitiously on the table with the uneaten canapés. Once I saw his name in The Times and worried a month of Sundays, as I waited in vain for the late-night knock at my door. For all the pretensions we share, he will always acknowledge who’s real around here-- when someone needs a hand out or has gotten out of hand and must be put in his place. In fact, I might owe him money, though he never would give me the time of day. Now I hear he wants to see me about me, these poems, these airs, these appearances, though by now a few of his Facebook friends have begun to wonder what he’s up to in all those lost hours and what it all means. See, we manage to stay out of each other’s way. though could be he’s grown to like the attention. Me, I prefer to slink through my day unremarked upon and unnamed. In fact, forget I ever said this. If anyone asks, just tell them you never even heard of me.
A Sea Change
They’ve replaced your hips with cigar boxes that once held nuts and screws and fuses blown years before, but surely too valuable to toss away, the tungsten nearly intact, and who can ever know what we’ll need one day? Where were bones are metal rods instead, threaded for fittings that are counter-sunk and set for heavy lifting. This should serve when the gulls swoop low to mock us to our faces and the catfish go belly-up like buoys, tired from sucking all our leavings. Now: a metal detector lies on the sand bleating insistently even while you’re gone. Those are pearls that were your eyes: what good is finding any thing now?
Just like your father,
someone suggested,
which, having strived so hard not to be him,
could be a conversation-stopper,
create dead-silence,
as if the man himself
had entered the room.
Struck Dumb
Maybe Ronald Wimbush was right
to sock me in the jaw during gym,
after shoving me aside to take
the next shot. The foul line was a good place to hide,
mark time, not get dinged for poor participation,
nor sweaty prior to math and the chance
to sit near Susan Rosenkranz, who didn’t much care
I was there or not, or smelled of too much Old Spice.
For that matter, I didn’t know Ronald from Abel or Cain,
and I’m sure he would be nice enough if we’d met
another time, another place. Let’s say the library,
where I helped out, and we could look for
some books about brotherhood.
I see him in our yearbook now, in fact,
and he hardly seems the kind
would cold-cock a harmless stranger. Maybe
I didn’t budge enough when he blew past
and announced, My turn. Or I looked at him funny
though I can’t recall being amused,
nor did I launch my lacerating wit his way.
But let it be recorded here, I never hit the floor.
Instead, I looked confused, my jaw about to swell
the size of Boris (the Spaceman) Edmead’s head.
To this day, I never quite know what to say,
but as some might note, and not with admiration,
that guy can really take a punch.