Hi, My Name Is Bob

Photo credit: Talena Lachell Queen

Here I am in this photo, dressed as a poet for Halloween, reading at the open mic at the Prototype artists' community space in Paterson, NJ.

Thank you, Word Seed Inc., for hosting this event among so many others this October, Paterson's Poetry Month.

In the first event I attended, on the lawn of Dey Mansion in Wayne, I listened to Isabel Cruz introduce herself through a poem.

I've copied that idea below, as a sacrificial poet and pretender.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Please click on the links above to learn more about Isabel and these two great organizations... and please allow me to introduce myself, I'm no man of wealth and taste...

Hi, My Name Is Bob

       Introducing myself in 40 lines

 

Hi, my name is Bob. My father’s name is Bob,

but I am neither his junior nor his equal.

I am a page, not performance, poet. I write from the heart,

but much of my life is trite and cliched.

 

I love to celebrate, but I can’t dance.

I love art, but I can’t draw.

I love music, but I can’t sing.

I gave up on my boyhood accordion and on my Nonna’s inherited violin.

I play Easy Piano songs.

I once ran the New York City marathon, virtually, during Covid.

I am polite in museum crowds in front of every Van Gogh.

I once stood alone in front of the Pieta in Rome.

 

I have an alliterative love for photography, poetry, and penguins.

I have an irrational love for redheads, Mr. Met, and New York.

I revolve around a 4-woman sun: my wife, my daughters, and my mother,

grounded by the grave, gravitational memories of my father and his Italian parents.

I believe baseball is better than football.

Unlike Vince Lombardi, I don’t believe winning is the only thing.

Like Crash Davis, and despite all evidence to the contrary,

I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

 

3 favorite books: The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

3 favorite movies: Godfather 2 or Paddington 2, Casablanca or Airplane, The Wizard of Oz

3 favorite poems: Dover Beach, Annabel Lee, Sailing to Byzantium

3 favorite songs: American Tune, Mr. Brightside, Thunder Road

 

Since the age of 50, I have been invisible to women.

I like cats better than dogs.

I have always been invisible to men under the age of 50.

Dogs like me, but cats ignore me.

 

I once wrote an unpublished novel,

and I’ve always collected discarded coins.

Like my Nonno, I believe both contain magic:

what I have written and what I have hoarded.

 

You have my admiration… If you have no entitlements.

If you are an outcast. If you write well.

You have my love… If you are kind to others.

If you laugh easily. If you write well.

 

Finally, I sign this self portrait

proclaiming eternity to be as unfathomable to me as Heaven,

and believing Earth to abide a pantheon of false gods.

I live simply to honor my father’s name, the Great and Powerful Bob.