11 Goodbyes to Poetry Month 2021

As promised mid-month, here are the remaining 11 poems I've written during April (aka "National Poetry Month"), based on prompts from New Jersey poet Alicia Cook.

The first prompt was "those blue narrow streets." In the resulting poem, I declared myself Superman while walking to work.

I've listed the other prompts at the bottom of this post, and I've added a few notes for context.

Today's poem "Life Is Short" is, oddly, my favorite.

That, or yesterday's. The one with the penguins. 🐧

Working Class Hero

I follow my shadow

with the East River at my back

on a cloudless morning

after an evening rain.

I bound a skyscraper

in a reflection of still water

along these narrow blue streets.

I am Superman.

---------

I Married Bugs Bunny

Gossamer in cellophane.

I was so excited to win

the prize at the boardwalk arcade

that both feet left the ground.

I was a lucky duck,

brought back to earth

by the gravity of your forbearing smile.

Mine, mine, all mine!

---------

Eight Line Poem*

Is there life on Mars?

Life only exists where there's water,

in lakes hidden below the icy surface.

Here on earth,

it's a God-awful small affair.

Life only exists where we let it:

Take a look at the lawman

beating up the wrong guy.

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Mysteries of the Rosary**

Each decade of my life,

I have stood in admiration

of a single prayer bead,

cloistered at The Met:

a high school field trip,

a very New York City date,

a visit with my children,

a visit alone,

a visit with my wife when our children had grown.

The intricately carved boxwood bead,

six centuries old,

opens to a triptych of Christ’s early life,

and shuts with his crucifixion.

Each decade of my life,

the display-case reflection of my aging face

mixes with this immutable art.

Each detail demands more reverence,

and I take a slower look.

---------

Nonet***

Prepare for the stresses that will come.

I fear the lesson of Earth Day.

We have sacrificed our young.

The day, already late.

Prepare to be saved.

Youth will revolt. 

By God’s grace,

always,

hope.

---------

4/23

In honor of the birthday of the Bard,

I offer just this stanza and couplet.

From less than half a poet, my regards.

Less than half a sonnet to put up with.

So cheers to you! A writer's life is mad:

a cocktail of the good, and of the bad.

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In a Spring Still Not Written Of (revised)

  (In homage to "In a Spring Still Not Written Of" by Robert Wallace, who died April 1999)

I have been pushed into something new:

this poem.

This poem is a cool, deep lake,

and I can’t swim.

I see you on the shore:

Calm, indifferent, cross-legged,

on elbows half-lying in the grass.

While I drown. 

I am flailing with words,

dwindling in the distance, 

unable to move or summon

the carelessly beautiful and young. 

---------

Prelude to a Kiss****

Look straight in her eyes. 

Silent, head and heart aligned. 

Keep a neutral spine. 

Lips poised, Euclidian curves. 

Let parallel lines converge. 

---------

Our Song*****

I remember when we met:

your red hair,

the kindling flame,

and the smoke that rose. 

Lifting me like an olive branch.

I remember when we married:

the incense and cut flowers,

your mother's dress,

and our friends on the church steps.

You, my homeward dove.

I remember when we parted:

the ash in your hair,

the blended notes of burning violins,

and us, just us, suspended in time.

Dance me to the end of love.

---------

How I Imagine Santa’s Workshop******

I can drive there,

our old car warning of a baby on board.

The valets are penguins, of course.

And, once inside,

I am surrounded by pets

who have died:

the dogs, just as gullible;

all the ageless hamsters

I replaced on the sly.

The one and only Spy Cat,

hero of our made-up stories,

eyes me coldly, inscrutable to the last.

I tell them all,

“I have come to take you home.”

Ted, the talking bear, awaits our return.

In your bedroom, alone.

---------

Life Is Short

In the month of April,

I wrote all these poems

for you.

Promise me you'll come back.

---------

The other prompts

*- Inspired by David Bowie's song "Life on Mars" and written on the day of the Derek Chauvin verdict. On Bowie's album "Hunky Dory," the song "Eight Line Poem" leads into "Life on Mars." The image is a favorite mural in Jersey City.

**- When my wife and I recently visited The Cloisters museum in Manhattan, we realized we had the same favorite exhibit, which we've seen on display in the past. Read more about this extraordinary rosary bead.

***- Written on Earth Day, 4/22. A "nonet" is nine lines long. The first line is nine syllables, the next line eight, the next line seven, etc.

****- This is a "tanka," a haiku capped by two lines of seven syllables each at the end. This hyperrealistic sculpture is on display under a bridge at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ.

*****- This is another poem inspired by a song, Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love." Earlier this month, I also used lyrics from a Dylan song for another poem, so this completes my April 2021 music trilogy. 🙂

******- Inspired by a quote from Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown”: “There are a few years when you make almost all of your important memories. And then you spend the next few decades reliving them.”

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That's all, folks!

The images here -- except this one -- are mine, mine, all mine!

Images of Thota Vaikuntam's New York, via Prisma

New York City can be an optical prism.

Sometimes my Google Photos folder will reflect back images of New York in black and white; other times in vibrant color. Here's a folder of New York City images, auto-stylized by Google in recent years, through 2020.

In 2021, I'm beginning to appreciate New York as a blank canvas.

Recently, I've been experimenting with a favorite photo app called Prisma. Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post once wrote how Prisma "convincingly redraws your smartphone photos in the style of 33 famous artists."

She explained, "Prisma uses an AI technique called neural network processing to generate an entirely new image based on the one you give it. It detects patterns in your photo, and in the work of the selected artist, and uses the rules pulled from those patterns to make a third, combined image."

This month, I selected the Indian artist Thota Vaikuntam. Posted here are 9 of the resulting images, reimagining my favorite city in the early spring of 2021.

Midway Through Poetry Month, 2021

A front-porch American flag amid the snowflakes, see "Rispetto."

11 down, 11 to go.

On a lark, I decided to commit to a writing a poem a day on this, National Poetry Month, following prompts posted by New Jersey poet Alicia Cook.

As she explained on Instagram, her 22 prompts for April (one for each weekday; weekends off) are based on things top athlete @tommy_rivs has said. As Alicia notes, "Tommy is fighting for his life, and his wife... is writing about it in the most heartbreaking and captivating way."

The first two prompts were: 4/1- "Not Today"; 4/2 - "Don't Get Dead."

On the second week, I decided to mash up Alicia's prompts with a five-day challenge at the Shut Up & Write! site: 4/5 - "Grand Canyon in the Dark," using a SU&W Mad Lib-style structure; 4/6 - "Some Runners Are Jerks," in the form of a quatrain about "your grandmother's hands"; 4/7 - "Ever Since I was Little," as an acrostic on the topic of temptation; 4/8 - "Set up your Fortress," in the form of a villanelle; and 4/9: "Bob Dylan Lyrics," in the form of a tanka.

On this, the third week, I'm mercifully back to following only Alicia's prompts. The need to write something every day has also prompted me to explore different types of short-form poetry (the cinquain and rispetto): 4/12 - "Reverence"; 4/13 - "Be as Quiet as Possible"; 4/14 - "Until Next Time"; and 4/15 - "Whispers Before Screams."

Below is what I written so far, along with a few photos. I will try to write another 11 prompted poems this month. I'll see you on the other side.

---------

Not Today

Last night was hell.

In bed, reaching out to you,

I felt the fingers of my left hand

sliced with paper cuts,

one by one.

When I woke, you weren’t there.

Our bed was bloodless;

my hand, whole.

Ringless.

“Not today,”

I grasped in time.

“Not today.”

---------

Haiku, the Movie

Life lessons from "Speed."

A bomb is made to explode.

Your job? Don't get dead.

---------

(What's in a Name?)

Clueless Bob,

Who has never been to the Grand Canyon,

Loves Nancy,

Whose heart is the Grand Canyon in the dark

And whose skin crawls when I write poems about her.

I cheer when I finish a poem.

And cry when I start a poem.

There is nothing I want more than to write a poem Nancy loves.

But I cannot fathom her heart. Signed,

Clueless Bob

---------

(Doggerel at Short Notice Is My Specialty)

“Some runners are jerks,” my grandmother said.

Her hands still withered; while others are dead.

It’s useless to judge, I thought in reply.

Some flowers are weeds; some oceans are dry.

---------

Desire

Demons have tempted me

Ever since I was little

Silently shifting shape

Intangibly, by degree, year after year

Reimagining your face

Everywhere

---------

A Writer’s Villanelle

Set up your fortress.

Sing words that never die.

A poem can be your chorus.

Think of the angels and aurochs,

the refuge that art provides.

Set up your fortress.

Our only immortality is what we express.

Our silence, suicide.

A poem can be your chorus.

Defend what you profess.

Protect what you certify.

Set up your fortress.

Treasure the inviolableness

that durable pigments supply.

A poem can be your chorus.

We cannot keep what we possess,

but what we write can survive.

Set up your fortress.

A poem can be your chorus.

---------

Simple Twist of Fate

A bridal bouquet,

suspended midair, destined

to land in your arms.

You don’t need a weatherman

to know which way the wind blows.

---------

Reverence

With every graveyard

we pass in our car,

my young daughters hold their breath.

Behind me,

in the back seat,

I hear their exaggerated gulps of air.

In the consequential silence,

I hold my own breath,

out of respect

for both the dead and the living.

---------

A Good Boy

I was taught to be 

as quiet as possible.

And so I am.

With one exception:

I scream when I write.

---------

A parking lot in Teaneck, NJ

Cinquain

The earth,

"Until next time."

The moon, "Another Month."

Meanwhile, stars glimpse eternity,

then die.

---------

Rispetto

The whispers of snowflakes become screams at night.

It’s the sound of accumulated power.

They’ve obliterated every star in sight.

Their fury grows more intense by the hour.

Together, they herald a magical time:

Flattened landscapes, the grace of consonant rhyme.

Remnants of this storm will echo undeterred.

The whispers of snowflakes demand to be heard.

Attached here is a collection of other poems and images, "Greetings From 2020."

Scenes From New Bridge Landing

One thing about New Jersey: A little distance can make a big difference.

On short afternoon walks from my suburban hometown, I pass neat rows of houses and a busy county road, and then just yards away I seamlessly pass into the Revolutionary War era.

Sure, I can see a shopping mall beyond the trees in the distance, and I know there's an Applebee's and Home Depot just down the road, but here -- at Historic New Bridge Landing Park -- an abundance of trees creates the illusion of a time bubble.

From top: Steuben House,
Campbell-Christie House,
my favorite barn at sunset.

It's quiet here, and in recent COVID days I often have the place to myself and pretend I am haunting it.

You can read all about the park, download resources, hear podcasts and take virtual video tours at a Bergen County Historical Society website. It describes the site this way:

"Historic New Bridge Landing preserves a compelling and scenic fragment of the Jersey Dutch countryside, strategically situated at the narrows of the Hackensack River and famed for its compelling role in the Revolutionary War. Its distinctive antique dwellings, artifact collections and scenic landscapes are uniquely reminiscent of a vanished folk culture, dependent upon the tidal river as a commercial artery and a self-renewing source of nourishment and industrial power."

Here are some images to help you set the scene. The locally iconic red barn is my favorite.

Stop by for a visit some day. See hello, if you see me, or my ghost, wandering the grounds, taking photos.

 

Various views of "New Bridge," constructed in 1889
on the site of "the bridge that saved a nation." You can look it up 🙂

Pre-COVID old-time baseball games and dances.
Bottom right, a peak behind locked doors in March 2021.

Storytelling in 6 Words, with Images

A chance tweet caught my eye today: poet Ty Gardner was promoting his latest work, "A Thousand Little Things," which contains 1,000 monostich (or "one line") poems.

This is not unlike the popular "six word stories" that have always intrigued me.

As I post images on Instagram lately, I find that less is more when writing captions, and I have even been playing with using haikus as captions to accompany images of New York City.

But tonight, inspired by Mr. Gardner, I thought I would try something new: post seven images, with six word captions that tell their story.

Why seven? Because seven times six equals 42. And 42, according to the writer Douglas Adams, is "the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything."

Here goes.

Unfinished by Dad, before he died.

---

I stood alone, surrounded by history.

---

Returning March 2020, never to leave.

---

Remembering our town's 51 Covid deaths.

---

First Avenue promised infinite possibilities ahead.

---

We traveled in threes, for protection.

---

Art is shallow; love is whole.

---

9 Photos on a Saturday in New York

Captions in haiku

Running in circles,

imagining no heaven,

children laugh at us.

A cloud for a dress.

Pink carnations and a crown.

The world is your stage.

Two people apart.

Unmoved by the melody,

"Besame Mucho."

Ride available.

White chariot, lined in red.

Remember this day.

Bethesda Plaza.

The one thing I share with you.

Lost in the moment.

Document our love.

Compare it to the skyline.

Our smiles, brighter still.

Kazoo_365

plays music for us to dance,

in social distance.

We're all mad, Alice.

We were different people then.

Curiouser now.

We are not posing.

We are in a fairy tale.

You do not exist.

About My Job: A Foundation Serving New Yorkers

Mother Cabrini statue on our office windowsill (photo: me 🙂)

Reprinted with permission: a message from Msgr. Gregory Mustaciuolo, CEO of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation

Today, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation announced a new round of more than 400 grants totaling $115 million for programs serving vulnerable New Yorkers to help address health gaps across our state.

These funds will go to community-based organizations, food banks, healthcare providers, nursing homes, schools, federally qualified health centers, and others that are on the front lines providing crucial services to New Yorkers in need: groups such as low-income individuals and families; older adults; youth and young adults; persons with special needs; immigrants and migrant workers; veterans; formerly incarcerated individuals; and young children, pregnant women, and new moms.

So many organizations demonstrated resilience, creativity, and flexibility over the past year. Our grants reflect a commitment to these essential nonprofits and providers, which are the bedrock of a healthy and equitable future in New York.

Our grants support a wide range of urgent health needs and social determinants of health across New York State. These grantees include organizations such as the Food Bank of NYC, which promotes food security for the ever-increasing number of hungry New Yorkers; the Immigrant Justice Corps, which supports access to legal counsel for low-income immigrants; Le Moyne College, which provides nursing school scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and Veterans One-Stop Center of WNY, which bolsters veterans as they transition from military to civilian life.

Grantees will also address chronic racial healthcare disparities that have only been heightened since the onset of the pandemic in New York. These programs include a grant for the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health to conduct a New York City-wide community needs assessment of social determinants of health, as well as grants and scholarships to organizations such as Hunter College, Iroquois Healthcare Association, and Associated Medical Schools of New York to promote workforce development opportunities for underrepresented groups in the healthcare profession.

Alongside these grants, we are rolling out the Foundation’s first statewide strategic program, focused on improving dental health access and outcomes in some of New York’s most underserved communities. The $5 million in grants will purchase five new mobile dental vans statewide and subsidize the expansion of mobile van services in an additional program.

During this time of transition and recovery, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation must seize the moment not only to meet urgent needs but address longstanding inequities.

Now is the time to lay the foundation for a healthier and more resilient New York.

Though we have seen a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, especially with the introduction of vaccines, the pandemic has deepened longstanding disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. New York’s health and social services providers continue to need our unwavering support during this time of heightened community needs.

See a list of year-end 2020 Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Grantees.

See more details on our grantees here.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Don't it?

A month ago, I spent some time feeling inferior, standing in front of my mirror... A camera hung around the neck of my reflection. At least the lens cap was off.

I had met a few photography friends in Jersey City earlier that day, but I hadn't taken a single photo with my camera. It was only a prop. I just wanted to fit with the others. Also, I've found that conspicuously displaying a camera also gives me license to wander among strangers.

In the hastily captured image above, I was toying with my iPhone's "pano" setting an hour before a line of true photographers gathered along what is, in reality, a perfectly straight railing to wait patiently, cameras poised on tripods, for sunset.

Their photos were gorgeous. My image (auto-enhanced by Google Photos) is like a horror movie where an inanimate object reaches out into another dimension. At least it's my inspiration for another haiku:

Beckoning to me,

a desperate city skyline

knows we are alone.

---------

I've thought of Jersey City often this past week.

I read, for example, that an annual survey cited it as the most diverse U.S. city for the third time in the past four years.

Just a few steps back from the Manhattan skyline view, in the heart of Exchange Place, is the dramatic Katyn Memorial, a bronze statue of an impaled Polish soldier dedicated to the massacre of POWs by Soviet troops in 1940. A few years ago, a civic organization sought to move it to a more secluded area, calling the monument "gruesome."

Instead, recognizing its significance to the Polish community, the Jersey City Council voted unanimously in 2018 to keep the memorial in Exchange Place "in perpetuity."

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The city's street art also reflects its diversity.

I took the above iPhone photo of the mural "Native" by the artist Gaia, and captioned it this way on Instagram:

"Finding Shakespeare, framed by dramatic clouds, on the streets of Jersey City."

Almost immediately I received a comment from the street artist himself. "Hey," he wrote, "that's Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange!"

So I corrected the caption and researched the story of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Then I found the website for the Jersey City Mural Arts Program and got lost in the stories of dozens of other murals I had seen around town.

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On Friday, as I do every week, I posted a photo of a New Jersey pizzeria (this one, cleverly named "Rig A Tony's") on my "Found in NJ" Instagram account. I picked a photo from just blocks away from Prince Frederick and noticed a memorial plaque outside the front entrance.

Here's that story:

A small plaza in Jersey City, William Mercado Memorial Park, features a stone memorial, placed in 2019, and titled "El Piraguero #1."

This is in memory of William Mercado, who sold piraguas (flavored ices) on the site from the time he was 12 years old until his murder at age 25 in 1994.

According to newspaper reports, William was a popular figure in the neighborhood, and his snow cones were a favorite among children. To this day, his mother tends the flowers here. His brother, George, runs a flower shop nearby.

---------

And now it's Sunday. As I do every week, I'm posting a photo of a New Jersey church on Instagram.

This is Grace Church Van Vorst, an Episcopal church on Erie Street in Jersey City.

"Our church is not just a building," reads one of its outside banners. I've discovered that, built in 1853 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Grace Church has been a haven for artists, musicians, people experiencing hunger and homelessness, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone who might not fit in elsewhere. You can learn more here.

Better, you can enjoy the musical performances of its four-hour fundraiser, held yesterday on Facebook. The church surpassed its $8,000 goal, but the page has links if you wish to contribute even more.

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Every picture tells a story, don't it?

This is why I love photography. There's more to it than the craft or the aesthetic. It stops time.

An old Rod Stewart song is playing in the background as I write this. I remember the lyrics from high school.

"On the Peking ferry, I was feeling merry..."

It's a silly song, but it's full of life and energy.

Like the best photos by my favorite photographers, it focuses my thoughts on a moment I can savor, while everything else passes in a blur.