Poetry Journal 1 Nov. 17, 2023


 


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Home Monday, October 30, 2023

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    I went home yesterday although home is defined by a number of places none of which are the one I have to live in now. Part of the ritual of going back is stopping off at Peggy's grave where I had left a blue teddy bear a few months ago, blown off to someone else's grave but put back a number of times, still surviving the weather. She, of course had, wanted a Paddington Bear and complained about the one that was stolen -- this in between her rants about the New York Giants I pinned in New York Giants pin onto the lapels of the blue bear, repositioned it in front of her grave and then moved on, aware that next St Valentine's Day Eve will be the 25th anniversary of her suicide. Our world is full of such sad moments, especially when I return again and again to find change. My ritual is to go to the old laundromat, have a cup of coffee, write some and then wander the neighborhood. But the rain made it impossible to walk far. So, I drove passed the old apartment o...
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Written in sand October 15, 2023

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    Our former temporary boss was right about her writing; she really was the best in our office while she worked there. The unfortunate part is that the new ownership in destroying the paper completely gutted the Archives and so to the general public her work is no longer available. An inspiration to me since then I had kept all of her stories in my own archive and downloaded into my Kindle in order to reread hem the way I used to do another great writer for office years earlier, and the way I reread Orwell, Joseph Mitchell, Mark Twain and EB White. More than once I've been tempted to post all of her stories on my blog but that's not my prerogative and the best I could do is simply read and reread the work she did while she was employed with us. (though I still cringe over the story she once wrote called Pizza man). This is one of the great tragedies of modern media that the Legacy that you build online can sometimes vanish as if it never existed As with her poetr...
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Depending on what happens next Dec. 19, 2023

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  Got up early to drive the car to the repair shop two miles south of where we live. With the engine light flashing and the car stalling, I figured the earlier I got the car on the road the less traffic I would encounter, so if I stalled and couldn’t start the car again, I wasn’t going to be bumper to bumper and getting a lot of people peeved. This worked. But I got to the shop an hour before it opened. I sat writing today’s poetry journal about my car, and then waited for the man to show up, greeted by the garage cats that rubbed against my legs – no doubt looking for food. Then, I walked down to Central Avenue looking for coffee on my way to the light rail station at 9th Street. None of the bodegas were open. I stopped in at a Spanish place on North and Central, where two ladies who couldn’t speak English giggled, both wearing Santa hats, and red shirts with reindeer. They were in a very festive mood, as was the Sheriff’s Department cop who ordered coffee after I did. ...
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