Poem: '11 Roses'

The streetlights of my hometown

Project Write Now is a wonderful arts organization based in Red Bank, NJ. If you are interested in writing, or in supporting young writers, check it out.

I'm currently enrolled in an adult intensive poetry course, and below is my first poem from that class. I want to share it here, just because.

"11 Roses" is based on three prompts inspired by lines from the poetry of Eduardo C. Corral, and a discussion of his work, including "The Autobiography of My Hungers" (accounting for "my" poetic phrase in one of the couplets below)...

---------

11 Roses

I stared at the deer

Because it stared back at me.

I walked my hometown streets at dusk,

Invisible to schoolboys on careless bicycles,

The women in the nail salon, and the families outside the Dairy Queen.

My reflection in store windows, the only evidence of me.

I held my breath as I passed the cemetery at the edge of town.

Where my father lies.

On the recent anniversary of his death,

I had placed a rock on his gravestone.

It wasn’t there.

I walked further, into the woods,

Hiding an autobiography of my secrets.

How my heart is easily broken.

How I never stopped loving you.

How I am a glint of light now.

Not even a ghost.

In the aurora of distant streetlights,

I blend into the ramble and the thorns.

So I stared at the deer

Because it stared back at me.

A Toast to Frank O'Hara

Lately, I've been haunted by the ghost of Frank O'Hara.

I found many references to the poet on the website and recent event invites from The Poetry Society of New York. They even sell a Frank O'Hara t-shirt.

Then, last night, I participated in an online workshop, led by New Jersey poet Michael Paul Thomas (you can find information about his future workshops... highly recommended... at his LinkedIn or by following him on Eventbrite).

Out of nowhere, Frank appeared.

Michael read from O'Hara's New York City "Lunch Poems," as he led us through writing and revision exercises. He based the discussion around how we develop a consistent practice in creative work.

"Do we always have to wait for lightning to bolt down our arm to the pen?" he asked, then answered with a description of O'Hara's practice of writing a poem a day during his lunch hours in the city. He simply described the world around him, then leveled it up with a poetic twist.

Michael urged us to write what we saw around us last night. So I did, and I've revised it a bit today.

I offer this poem to you, Frank, in Blogger's best typewriter font. I beg you to accept it.

Now, please stop haunting me.

---------

A Toast to Frank O'Hara on This Winter’s Solstice 

I’m sitting in a house that would otherwise be abandoned.

It’s my grandparents’ old home,

Which is still oddly filled with warmth

On this cold night in western New Jersey.

 

When I was a boy I would walk to the open field in the side yard

And gaze at the stars: the only source of light,

Save for the glow of the house and the headlights

Of a lone, lost, angry traveler bound for Pennsylvania.

Tonight, that sleepy country road is a four-lane highway.

From the upstairs bedroom window, I see spotlit car dealerships

Displaying comically large American flags across what is now Route 46.

 

The back road used to border acres of farmland.

Now, it provides access to the busy warehouses that replaced the farms,

And to the back entrance of TD Bank, whose garish green signage glows

Past the bones of the barn where Nonno used to keep chickens and a cow.

In the backyard, a cell tower looms over the ghost of a small orchard,

Which Nonna used to tend to make homemade wine.

Now, there’s a holiday-lit brewery among the back-road warehouses.

 

The hour is too late to talk to the Sun. When I look to the heavens,

Now, I am surrounded by ever-changing, earthbound constellations.

The stars have fallen from the sky,

And darkness envelops me from above.

Rain Won't Stop Saturday's Paterson Poetry Festival; See You There?

Rain won't dampen the conclusion of the annual Paterson Poetry Festival, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 21.

I just heard that due to the inclement weather, the venue has been moved from the steps of Court House Plaza to International High School, at 200 Grand St. in Paterson... where there will still be vendors and food trucks and poetry from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

It's a resilient bunch, and Allen Ginsberg would be proud.

You can read more about the festival by following Word Seed Inc. on social media. It's a great organization, led by Talena Lachelle Queen, Paterson's Poet Laureate since 2018.

At last year's event, I met some wonderful people, including poet Dimitri Reyes, representing CavanKerry Press. Since January, I've been trying -- "trying" being the operative word -- to write poems following weekly prompts from him.

Dimitri is encouraging and supportive. I love the music in his poetry and his readings, and I look forward to hearing and meeting more poets on Saturday.

The past two prompts from Dimitri this October have been:

1. "Spend some time thinking about 2 poems and 1 song that you really enjoy. Read the three of them together and see what conversation they're creating. Try your hand and putting these different lines together into one poem."

2. "Read this wonderful essay by Franchesca Melendez about Sami Miranda. Listen to his poem as well. Write a poem about any of the faces illustrated by Miranda."

See my attempts below. Anyone can be a poet!

Kinda. 🙂

See you in Paterson on Saturday?

---------

Annabel Brightside Alone

From childhood’s hour,

I have never been as others were.

I never, I never

understood the destiny

calling me.

This mystery that binds me still.

The sick lullabies

I intoned, reciting the poetry of Poe

to our children.

As if I were a child too.

My all-consuming jealousy,

this demon in my view,

has taken control.

Even now, as I approach my tomb.

Eyes open, seeing the price I paid,

I covet the angels.

They remind me of you.

My darling, my life, my bride.

It started out as a kiss.

How did it end up like this?

---------

Illustration by Sami Miranda

Greetings From Budd Lake

It’s Taco Tuesday at Buccaboo’s Burritos,

where poetry isn’t for sale.

It must be prompted,

summoned from the ordinary.

It must be earned.

So I consider your face:

Your eyes closed,

allowing me to see your pain.

The fluorescent highlights in your golden hair

mocking this red October.

Your exasperated expression

trivializing my attempt at transcendence.

Forgive me, Senora.

Forgive these lunatic scribblings,

freezing time on the margins of this receipt,

conjuring your apotheosis. 

Things to Do When You're Invisible

Coney Island boardwalk; I was one of the NPCs

I have reached the age where I am invisible to most people.

I recently roamed the Coney Island boardwalk, after struggling to wash up in a Maimonides Park restroom because my hands could not activate any of its motion-sensitive faucets, happily taking cell phone photos without anyone seeming to notice, or care.

I felt like an NPC, a non-player character in a video game. Everyone else was a participant; I was an observer.

The funny thing is, when I was a boy, I thought invisibility was the world's greatest superpower. It would allow me complete freedom. I could do whatever I wished without consequence.

I realize now, after all these years, how mistaken that is. Invisibility can be fun sometimes, but on the whole, it is the curse of the marginalized.

The one true superpower is the ability to stop time.

Tiny statues in a prayer garden near home

Last week in my hometown in suburban New Jersey, I nursed a serving of shaved ice at a new shop in one of the borough's strip malls. Of course, none of the young attendants or patrons were paying attention to me.

So I watched, unnoticed, as one of the employees adjusted the satellite radio providing the background music. She stopped at a station playing the opening bars of "Your Song."

I do not believe, from her reaction, that she had ever heard this song before. Not the original, anyway. It's more than 50 years old, from another generation and culture. Even the seemingly inimitable voice of Elton John, who just this weekend concluded his farewell tour in real life, was almost unrecognizable in its clarity and immediacy.

The young woman was mesmerized. After another minute, she said aloud to no one: "Wow! This is really good!"

And just like that, Elton John's song had suspended time.

That's what excellence does. The creators who conjure these moments possess Superman's power to pause and even reverse the earth's spin on its axis, keeping us all a little further from death.

That's the superpower I long to possess.

Walking home that evening, I wandered through the church grounds where our family has its name inscribed on a brick in the pavement by its front entrance -- as if that were permanent. The pastor was walking his dog. I waved to him, but he evidently didn't see me... or he ignored me, assuming I was (as I am in the confessional) just a random trespasser.

I continued through the neighborhood, wondering how it stays so light out so late these days, when I was startled by rustling branches in the tall, landscaped bushes at my back. Something hit the ground with a thud that was substantial enough to feel under my feet.

I turned and saw a deer. It stopped and stared at me. Or through me. It didn't run away.

I took its photo and turned for home. I knew that at least I could write about it all.

---------

How to Write the Great New Milford Poem

 

Before you start,

You must accept you are invisible.

 

You live in the suburbs.

People walk dogs past your house,

In front of your white picket fence.

Sometimes they stop and peer

Into your dining room window,

Pointing in your direction,

As if they’ve seen a ghost.

 

They don’t know you can see them.

You do not participate in Little League baseball,

Or Junior League football.

Your children left home long ago.

 

The town pool has closed without warning.

Its parking lot, empty; its grounds, overgrown.

Your family used to swim there.

The Burger King is still open.

Decades ago, the borough attorney

Protested the “Home of the Whopper” sign

Because he said it insulted Italian Americans.

Your children used to eat there.

 

Begin now by offering a prayer to Bertha Reetz

At her abandoned stone in the French Burial Ground.

Remain calm when you hear gunshots

From the range behind the Recycling Center.

The police are shooting blanks, scattering the deer

In your town’s only remaining sliver of woods

Along the Hackensack River.

 

Gather the scraps of your neighbors’ families:

Sticky, dirt-crusted Dairy Queen napkins and cups

Littering the curbside along River Road.

Cross the street to the garbage can

At the bus stop outside Canterbury Village.

Use extreme caution. You are invisible to traffic.

 

You return home alone.

You start to write a poem.

Haiku at Sandy Hook

Emerald City.

I can see it from Jersey.

There is no wizard.

It's no secret: I love New York's skyline, and I often write haikus about the city: Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2.

The view above is an edited version of what you'd see about 20 miles away from the northernmost point of Sandy Hook Reservation in New Jersey.

In un-filtered real life, you can even pan right to see the Parachute Jump, the iconic, now-dormant ride at Coney Island:

I visited Sandy Hook last weekend with photography friends from Black Glass Gallery.

These next few days are an ideal time to visit for yourself. Sandy Hook is part of Gateway National Recreation Area. If you get there before Memorial Day, there is no entrance fee and no charge for parking. It's a wonderful place to explore, with plenty of room to avoid crowds.

As Friend ChatGPT tells me, the park is named after the Sandy Hook Peninsula, which is a narrow strip of land that extends for several miles into the Atlantic Ocean. One of the main features of the park is the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, built in 1764 and one of the oldest lighthouses in the U.S. Visitors can climb to the top for panoramic views.

Another popular attraction at Sandy Hook is Fort Hancock, is a former military base that was active from the late 1800s until the mid-20th century. Visitors can tour the old barracks, gun batteries, and other historic structures at the fort.

Still, for me, it's the view from this platform, looking about 20 miles to the north, that's the biggest highlight:

I can't help myself. Just yesterday, Google Photos randomly sent me this video compilation of the New York City skyline photos from my photo cloud -- many taken from the back of a NJ Transit bus commuting to or from work. Google randomly chose a great Tears for Fears song as a soundtrack too (and assures me it is not a copyright violation :)

I love New York, even if there is no wizard there.

This Is the Way Poetry Month Ends

It ended with a howl!

This is a photo taken April 29, 2023, of Talena Lachelle Queen, the poet laureate of Paterson, NJ, reading Allen Ginsberg's virtually unreadable "Howl" at the Paterson Museum, where Ginsberg once read his poetry decades ago.

Although National Poetry Month has ended, "Paterson's Poets: Voices From The Silk City" will remain on exhibit there (at 2 Market St.) through June 24.

As the museum notes: "Since its founding in 1792, Paterson has been home to many poets. Still more have visited Paterson and been enthused by the beauty of the Great Falls or the ingenuity of the city's residents. This exhibit celebrates and honors the poets who were not only inspired by Paterson, but became a part of our community, whether they lived, worked or played here."

On intriguing display features "The Bulldog Poets" of School No. 4, a group founded by ESL teacher Joseph Verilla in 1994. Their motto: "No bull, just dog." According to the exhibit, poets Kamarra Fabor, Leslie Graham, Shernese Myers and La-Chaka Price drew from their experiences with crime, drugs and family struggles, and won acclaim at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in 1996. Earlier this month at a museum event, four members of the group re-created a photo from the '90s. Thanks to Chris Fabor Muhammad of yourcreativeforce.com for letting me re-post it here:

As for me, I'm ending poetry month with another prompted poem (with the prompt as the title), a little longer than usual, although not at all inspired by "Howl." 🙂

---------

What Have You Learned from the Study of Other Languages?

 

I studied Classical Latin, taught by “Father Bone Ass”

at a Catholic university called “Our Lady of the Lake” in French.

My professor was also my dormitory’s rector

charged with the enforcement of “parietals,”

which has nothing, and everything, to do with biology.

 

His name was literally “Banas,” a common word root for “being unbearable”

in the Tagalog dialect in the Filipino language.

Not quite “unbearable,” either.

“Banas” is a mix of sweltering humidity and annoyance

specific to the Austronesian climate.

 

Father Banas had a dry sense of humor.

He of course knew his crude, banal nickname,

although “Bone Ass” is untranslatable in Tagalog.

My professor bore our boorishness with a patient smile.

He taught Catullus, a poet who is untranslatable in English.

 

Which Father Banas also, of course, knew to be true.

 

We struggled in translation.

As an inside joke, he gave our class advice from a modern poet.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko had said that translations are like women:

The more beautiful they are, the less true.

Or Russian words to that effect.

 

What I heard in English studying Classical Latin inspired a love of poetry,

the way Yevtushenko inspired a generation of young Russians

in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War.

I am not a fighter, or a lover.

I am an observer.

 

I watched as Catullus’ poems for Lesbia

sank deeper and deeper into perversity.

The poet had no Latin words for the passion he sought to express.

“Odi et amo” encapsulated a messy entanglement of obsession and desire,

of love that strains against calcification in verse.

 

Of “love” only poets can begin to untangle.

 

And then I wondered, what is “perverse”?

I was born and raised in New Jersey,

on land the Dutch stole from the Lenni Lenape

and named after the Delaware Indian word

meaning “between the mountains and the water.”

 

Once Father Banas sat at my breakfast table

when he saw I was eating alone in a campus dining hall.

He was always kind, and he knew I was homesick,

alone on the shores of St. Mary’s Lake,

missing my life between the mountains and the waters.

 

He told me he missed his brother, a missionary in Bangladesh, “The Land of Bengal.”

The Indo-Aryan suffix “Desh” derives from the Sanskrit word for “land,”

now combined with a geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term

referring to the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal.

We spoke of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets.

 

We conspired, “breathing together” about the refuge of art.

 

I last saw Father Banas at his funeral at the grand basilica on the shores of the lake.

A “basilica” is not a “cathedral,” but a church accorded special privileges by the pope.

It houses an “ombrellino,” a silk canopy striped in papal colors of yellow and red,

and a “tintinnabulum,” a bell atop the pole carried in procession on special occasions,

and somewhere within, a basilica also displays the crossed keys symbolic of St. Peter.

 

The funeral of Father Banas, like the future pluperfect of my own,

was not a special occasion, save for the procession of his brother priests.

I remember the reading from the Book of Wisdom:

how the souls of the departed darted about

as sparks through stubble,

 

And how we the living… every one of us, even the poets…

raised our voices in formulaic prayer,

professing the word “thy” three times during the “Our Father,”

invoking the ineffable power of intercession

that “your” does not possess in modern English.

 

This is how I learned that everything simple is complicated.

Words are translations of nuances we universalize and neuter.

Forgive me the length of this poem.

I considered all these words carefully, today,

alone at my breakfast table:

 

in homage to the hallowed life of Father Banas,

in praise of the trespasses of Catullus.

--Bob Varettoni, 4/30/23

---------

PS- The photo of Paterson behind Talena on top of this page is a sight that inspired another poem I once wrote... "Scenic Overlook."

Poetry Month in New Jersey, 2023

What to do early on a Saturday night in New Jersey?

How about some poetry during National Poetry Month?

This coming Saturday, April 29, the wonderful local Word Seed organization is hosting an event at one of the state's "hidden gem" locations -- the Paterson Museum (2 Market St., near the Great Falls). I've posted the flyer here; the free event starts at 5 p.m.

The program will pay tribute to poets no longer with us from the Silk City's past, including Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams.

Last weekend I visited to see the Poetry Month exhibit there and had the whole museum to myself for a few minutes.

I also stopped by the Museum of Modern Art during lunch hour earlier this week in New York and stumbled across the Dial-a-Poem exhibit there.

Of course, I had to dial 917-994-8949. (And you can too!)

I heard a poem by Frank O’Hara (who died in 1966), then John Cage (who died in 1992), then Bill Berkson (who died in 2016). I was afraid to call again and find out who would die next.

Actually, the MOMA exhibit dates back to 1968, when John Giorno began delivering instant poetry through a free telephone hotline in New York City. So everything on the hotline dates back 55 years or so.

As far as new poetry is concerned... from someone still alive... which would be me, for now... I've been following through on my resolution to write weekly prompted poems this year.

Here are three recent original poems. The first, writing about my hometown; and the second and third poems with the prompts in the titles.

I'm also excited about two upcoming prompted poems, but I'll wait until after Saturday to finish those. I'd like some input first from the ghosts of Allen and William.

---------

How to Write the Great New Milford NJ Poem

 

Before your start, you must accept

You are invisible.

 

You live in the suburbs.

People walk dogs past your house,

In front of your white picket fence.

Sometimes they stop and peer

Into your dining room window,

Pointing in your direction,

As if they’ve seen a ghost.

 

They don’t know you can see them.

You do not participate in Little League baseball,

Or Junior League football.

Your children left home long ago.

 

The town pool has closed without warning.

Its parking lot, empty; its grounds, overgrown.

Your family used to swim there.

The Burger King is still open.

Decades ago, the borough attorney

Protested the “Home of the Whopper” sign

Because he said it insulted Italian Americans.

Your children used to eat there.

 

Begin now by offering a prayer to Bertha Reetz

At her abandoned stone in the French Burial Ground.

Remain calm when you hear gunshots

From the range behind the Recycling Center.

The police are shooting blanks, scattering the deer

In your town’s only remaining sliver of woods

Along the Hackensack River.

 

Gather the scraps of your neighbors’ families:

Sticky, dirt-crusted Dairy Queen napkins and cups

Littering the curbside along River Road.

Cross the street to the garbage can

At the bus stop outside Canterbury Village.

Use extreme caution. You are invisible to traffic.

 

You return home alone.

You start to write a poem.

---------

Poetic Words Children Need to Learn

 

Salt-water taffy…

 

in cardboard boxes

Salt-water taffy, the color of swirling rainbows

Salt-water taffy that you can only buy on the boardwalk at the Shore

Salt-water taffy that sticks to your teeth and gums

Salt-water taffy that your mother loves

 

Years later, your mother will grow old,

And you will ask her for memories of when you were young.

She will tell you instead she doesn’t want to think of the past

Because it only makes her sad.

She doesn’t remember the salt-water taffy.

 

Salt-water taffy used to be her favorite.

You need to know that about my mother.

She didn’t always have sad memories.

She knew salt-water taffy wasn’t good for us,

but she loved the taste.

 

The improbable, magnificent sweetness,

now missing from our lives.

---------

 

Consider the Inequity in How Lives Were Impacted by the Pandemic

 

Prompt: Write a poem in 2023 contemplating what challenges persist in the aftermath…

 

I can’t write this poem

Because three years have passed

For all of us, equally,

 

Including you.

 

Mark my words:

The only constant in life

Is time’s erosion of inequity…

 

The numbering of our days.

The defenseless of our nights.

Alive or dead.

 

In 2020, I counted bathtub Marys

Adorning suburban lawns

During socially distant walks.

 

In 2023, I still dream of you,

As I might forever.

I have counted every hair on your head.