March 2023
Bio Note: I was born in Worcester, Mass., and my first published poem (second grade!) was on the local newspaper's Letters to the Editor page, championing a proposed zoo for Worcester. My theater career brought me to New York City and culminated in a nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Guide to Live Performance, which won a Choice award. Lately l have been serving as host for the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Round Table at my library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins are always welcome.
Author's Note: If you are surprised or aghast at “Harry O’s mom” leaving two small boys unsupervised, think of Charlie Brown and friends in the Peanuts comic strip—no grown-ups anywhere, right? By the way, if you’ve never played the board game Stratego®, it’s a cross between Chess, Capture the Flag, and Minesweeper®. I highly recommend it.
Glass-top Coffee Table
We’d wrestle in Harry O's living room
the minute no grown-ups were there.
Stratego® was fine, but he usually won.
So we slid back the table and chair,
one third-grade Saturday afternoon
when his mom had some errands to run,
not pausing to designate either of us
to be The Responsible One.
It was a day of care-free fun.
We did what we’d seen wrestlers do.
It was a day like so many others
we’d manage to live through.
I checked the glass corner for blood (there was none)
when I heard Harry utter an "ow."
Our heads seemed unbruised, too. How happy we were.
Just as I’m grateful, now.
Author's Note: As a teen, my nephew filled his journal with "angst crap" (his words) every day; but in the process, notwithstanding nearly flunking out of high school, he turned into a writer. Today he churns out legalese rather than "fancies of abandon," but was recently promoted to partner in his firm. So if there happens to be any prepubescent progeny in your family, there may be no finer present you can give than a journal—or two.
The Bumper and the BlankI am between one book and another as one journal an overbooked comrade fills up the entries from the front about to collide with those begun in the back and the second hitherto dormant and pure like the fairy-tale princess who dreams of a smack awaits I just broke her cellophane casket as if by the time I open her to subject her to ardor and air I'll warrant the end of her peaceful sleep with my desultory stains and designs But at least at last she's ready for me my thirst fancies of abandon and possibilities
©2023 James B. Nicola
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