My Debut as a 'Featured Poet'

Yesterday, I made my debut as a "featured poet" at the invitation of Paterson, NJ, poet laureate Talena Lachelle Queen.

The event was tied to an exhibit for local photographer Fred Levine, at a coffee shop in Little Falls. Proceeds from photo sales benefited Word Seed, a Paterson-based nonprofit whose mission is to give voice and support to writers of every age and skill level across diverse communities.

I shared 10 poems.

To start -- inspired by Andrea Bocelli singing "Nessun Dorma" to open the Winter Olympics in Milan -- I read "Roman Holiday." Milan is my paternal grandmother's hometown. Well, in truth, her hometown was a suburb of Milan named Ferno, which is the Italian word for "Hell."

Roman Holiday

 

When I was a teen,

my uncle, the priest, led me up stone steps of a forbidden tower

to a parapet, with a panoramic view of St. Peter’s Square.

We were trespassing, and I was afraid of heights.

 

I told him I preferred to see the world with my feet on the ground:

looking up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling,

watching my grandmother feed pigeons in the piazza,

seeing the cool smooth marble of the Pieta inches from my eyes.

 

When I was a boy, I had seen this Virgin Mary’s face from afar,

behind bullet-proof, ceiling-to-floor plexiglass

on a dimly lit moving sidewalk,

jostled by tourists at the World’s Fair.

 

But then, as a teen, free from my Roman chaperones,

I was Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.

I was the only person in the world viewing, in a stolen moment,

what Michelangelo had carved from a single stone.

 

In such dizzying proximity to perfection,

I understood the desire to destroy it.

 

And yet I have lived my life as an innocent man,

never seeking to avenge my younger self.

I am Zacchaeus, and this page is where I hide.

This piece of paper.

This poem.

---------

I love photography as much as I love poetry. On my Instagram page -- @bvarphotos -- I post an original image and haiku every Monday. Haikus are fun, three-line poems -- 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. For example, here's one of Fred's black-and-white photos:

Here's my haiku for that:  

The sincerest prayers

Come from the back of the church,

Not from the altar.

 

---------

Recently, I read a man say about his wife: "If I had met her sooner, I would have loved her longer. That's certainly a beautiful sentiment. But I have to confess, my first thought about these lines was, "Those clauses have seven syllables each!" Which meant I could use them in a tanka -- a poetic form that's simply a haiku followed by two lines of seven syllables.

Here's another of Fred's images:

Here's my tanka for that:

 

I drove aimlessly,

With color draining from the sky

Until I found you.

If I had met you sooner,

I would have loved you longer.

 

---------

My wife and I have two daughters. when they were little, I used to recite favorite poems to them as lullabies. They especially liked Edgar Allan Poe and, surprisingly, "Sailing to Byzantium" by Yeats. My next poem takes the opening lines from Yeats and continues with lines of my own in the same meter and rhyme scheme... to honor my grandfather, in line with the theme of Fred's photography.

My grandparents, Budd Lake, NJ, 1969

Byzantium in Jersey

 

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect…

         (—W.B. Yeats)

 

This, my grandfather, in his Sunday best:

a cigarette dangling from its holder,

a tattered suit, a worn Italian vest.

Watch me at his side, decades less older.

He does not hold my hand. There is no rest.

He lectures as we walk, points my shoulders

to Monarch butterflies in flight toward me

along the shores of Budd Lake, New Jersey.

 

This, a back country road, is my classroom:

milkweed, honeysuckle, red columbine,

hummingbirds, spotted touch-me-nots in bloom,

blue robins’ eggs, goldenrod, dandelions.

My grandfather names them for me, assumes

I will remember that sparrow, that vine,

the chicory, those edible lilies,

the mew of mimicking catbirds we see.

 

All these now dead, except in memory.

 

I live in the suburbs, reminisce now

about ancestors. In autumn, I walk

the Hackensack riverbank in a drought.

I watch a murder of crows chase a hawk,

then pause to roost on sun-kissed golden boughs.

Beneath their echoing caws, I feel stalked.

This, I know, is my father’s father’s song

of what is past, or passing, or to come.

---------

I enjoy writing poems based on prompts. One New Jersey poet I admire, Dimitri Reyes, once gave me this prompt: "Think about being a grandparent one day, and what this idea manifests." This short poem is called...

A Grandparent’s Lullaby

 

I am close to death,

while you are new.

 

So I clutch you to my heart,

imprint on you the rhythm of its beat,

keeping me alive.

 

Then I whisper in your ear

about the cruelty of time:

“Cherish every moment.”

 

No one will remember

the last one who survives.

---------

I'm feeling nostalgic lately, like a Super Bowl ad. But I also feel very blessed and realized I am very privileged. From that point of view, it's difficult to authentically compose the type of activist, or "artivist," poetry that I admire. So, in this set of poems, I'm focusing on my immigrant grandparents to celebrate their memory. I hope to inspire love and respect for all immigrants. As a writer, I at least aspire to be an insurrectionist of the heart.

This is a photo of my maternal, Polish grandmother in a wheelchair outside her home in Garfield, NJ. She didn't speak English.

Babci, Garfield, NJ, circa 1972

My haiku for her is this:

 

I know no Polish

except for “Ja cei kocham.”

It means “I love you.”

 

---------

A recent poem is about standing in my paternal grandmother's long-unattended garden. Yes, I'm referring again to Nonna, the "grandmother from Hell." I real life, she was a saint, and she died just before her 100th birthday.

Vanishing Garden 

I stand in this garden

where everything vanishes.

 

Dad in his Navy blues,

an arm around his first and only love:

Mom, under a canopy of vines plump with grapes,

with her Ava-Gardner-red lips.

 

Lips... redder than the nesting cardinals,

or the roses woven into the chain-link fence

where my daughter posed with a bouquet

in her First Communion dress.

 

A dress... whiter than the worn milking stool

where Nonna shucked corn

and split pea pods with her penknife,

while humming Rogers and Hammerstein.

 

I stand in this garden

where everything vanishes.

Crows descend. Bees disappear, then roses.

Rust erodes the fence. The well runs dry.

 

Only the music never dies.

The night wind offers

an echoing counter-melody

to the ghostly hum that comforts me,

 

posing “Carousel”’s fatalistic question:

What's the use of wond’rin’?

Although everything has vanished,

I am not alone.

 

I stand in this garden

surrounded by angels.

---------

Fred's photography captures the beauty of nature, like the photo he autographed of fallen leaves in a stream. This image, on Valentine's Day weekend, reminded me of this traditional sonnet I wrote years ago, with regret:

Adam was a madman; and paradise,

a fraud. In only this do I believe:

the rhythm of your constancy. Oh Christ,

your eyes alone could prove infinity.

 

It is our love that has unraveled all.

You haunt my sleep. One moment, I balance,

with stars beneath my feet. The next, I fall

from you toward earth -- my dream, a graceless dance.

 

Before I land, my senses gain control.

Alone in bed, I fear the rustling sound

of insubstantial leaves, like wind-swept souls.

My heart (alive or dead?) seems strangely bound.

 

This is the slow, uneven beat of Hell:

I have loved you always, but never well.

---------

My next-to-last poem is a combination of art and photography, about my favorite artist, Van Gogh. These are...

My Last Words to Vincent

 

In a wheat field in my mind,

I recognize the flowerless countryside.

This must be Arles.

 

I’ve never been to France in real life,

but I know what I know.

Cue the murder of crows.

 

Through a lens darkly, I see Vincent

reimagining the scene on canvas,

ensuring his sadness will last forever.

 

He works as if possessed.

I try to warn him,

he will indeed commit suicide.

 

But in the descending darkness,

the thunder of hundreds of wings

muffles my cry.

 

"It's not too late!" I scream.

The artist turns his head,

curiously lifting his eyes to mine.

 

In just that moment,

I take a photo,

that doesn't exist,

 

forever capturing

the long view of both of us:

imaginary proof of all our useless dreams.

---------

Yes, I mentioned crows in three of my poems last night. As my grandfather would remind me, crows are harbingers of death. But this is what a word nerd I am: I chose three poems to deliberately mention crows three times because I wanted to magically negate any curse. I wasn't taking any chances.

Except maybe for this, my final poem. I certainly thank Word Seed for inviting me to read. I admire what the organization does, with Fred Levine's support, for writers young and old throughout northern New Jersey. This final poem is set in my hometown in Bergen County.

Things to Do When You’re Invisible

I nurse a shaved ice in a booth at Kailani’s,

Which is, according to its website,

“Nestled in the heart of New Milford, NJ.”

Bill Nash used to run

A store called Big Variety here.

I look for his ghost.

 

Bill is long gone… shrouded, like me,

Behind a cloak of invisibility. Meanwhile…

At Kailani’s, a Korean girl in her summer clothes has stolen

The attention of the high school boy behind the counter

After he dutifully took my order, shaped it, imbued it in red,

Preparing the first shaved ice I will ever try.

 

The boy doesn’t care

I grow old, while the world around me spawns anime and new.

I am an NPC in this game of boy meets girl.

When I was a newbie, like the boss behind the counter,

I thought invisibility, the ability to be willful without consequence,

Was the greatest superpower.

 

I know better now.

I tip my iPhone toward my bowl of unfreezing, bleeding ice.

I capture its image, ensuring a focus

On the melting of memory, the mining of the sublime.

This is the superpower I have come to possess:

Ensnaring evanescence.

 

When I take a photo...

Or write a poem...

I activate God Mode.

Not only invisible;

I am invincible.

I can stop time.

Artivists Unite!

Jacquair performing, Talena in the foreground

At a recent event in New Jersey celebrating the release of Jacquair Gillette's new poetry book, "Freedom Letters" (13 letters inspired by St. Paul's 13 New Testament letters), he was introduced by Paterson poet laureate Talena Lachelle Queen as an "artivist." That is, an artist who uses their creative voice to highlight social and political issues to inspire change.

I've been thinking a lot about that lately, as many friends are posting about events in Minneapolis. And how my favorite musician, Bruce Springsteen, almost immediately released a protest song... reminding me of when I was very young and first heard Neil Young's "Ohio" and began to think about issues beyond my own bubble.

As a writer, however, I've never been able to express or explore these feelings. It seems so pointless and clumsy -- and, from my vantaged point-of-view -- irrelevant. Compared to real life. Compared to seeing a man shot point-blank with bullets to the back of his head.

I try to expand my writing, but I fail when trying to address social issues. I admire those who do this effectively. At one poetry workshop offered by Dimitri Reyes, I was introduced to a poem about Eric Garner, "A Small Needful Fact," by Ross Gay, that particularly moved me. It is a perfect poetic expression of the type of artivism I would like to achieve. Understated, not preachy, yet powerful.

I imitated his poem the other day, shamelessly. I've posted it below. I'm still learning -- and, hopefully, still growing as a writer.

A Small Needful Fact

         (after Ross Gay)

Is that Alex Pretti used to

walk his dog, Joule,

with his neighbor, Annette,

on the banks of Lake Harriet,

perhaps waving at an acquaintance,

passing on a mountain bike,

and, in all likelihood,

passing a sun-filled day

after his night shift,

where perhaps he monitored

a woman under attack

by her own immune system,

and took her head in his hands

and gently shifted the pillow

against the back of her head.

Trite Words (in the form of a sonnet)

This is my late father, 26 years ago today, on the birthday he shared with his mother, an immigrant born in Italy, who died before her 100th birthday.

My friend, who lives in Minneapolis,

Wrote, “I feel empty,” in a text today. 

She feels angry, and I feel powerless.

Has this become our fate? This police state?

My father served proudly in the Navy,

And today he would have turned 94. 

I have never questioned his legacy. 

Today I ask, “What was he fighting for?”

Father, I lack the words to protect

The freedom of your immigrant parents,

And my children’s future under attack. 

Poetry is useless against tyrants. 

I curse the bullies with blood on their vests. 

I bid you, Father, to avenge these deaths. 

One Year, 52 Haikus (With Photos)

I've posted an original haiku with an original photo every Monday for the past 52 weeks. I post these on my Instagram account - and you can view the past year below:

Two Prompts, Two Poems

Like a parlor trick, I can produce poetry on demand. Not good poetry, mind you -- but something approaching poetic structure.

This weekend, I attended a workshop by a real poet, Dante Di Stefano, sponsored by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College (that's a lot of Ps and Cs!).

The first prompt: write a "cover version" of a well-known song, movie, TV show, poem... etc. Something that imitates, references or pays homage to the original. I thought of the times I read my daughters to sleep reciting poetry, and wrote this:

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

When I used to read you to sleep

You never understood

The meaning of the words

But the words had meaning to me

The words had meaning to me

As I watched you drift into sleep

And I dreamed of your dreams

And our time seemed to flee,

Seemed to flee

As I read you to sleep

Now years seem to flee

As I think of you here,

Near this empty bed,

Where you no longer sleep

So far from me now,

So far from our dreams,

Entombed by the memories I keep.

---------

The second prompt: Write something titled "Self Portrait As a XXX"

I considered my trusty "Starry Night" notebook and lucky St. Patrick's Cathedral pen, and decided to write something inspired by Van Gogh's famous self-portrait, with his left ear bandaged. I symbolically cut off the left portion of my keyboard and wrote something that didn't use the letters q, w, a, s, z, x or the number s 1 or 2:

Self Portrait as a Poet

Help me!

Help my poem!

Help it live!

Yet…

I found your letter.

I found hope in my reply.

Think of me.

I think of you too.

I love your poetry.

You found me differently.

Published Poem: 'Vanishing Garden'

T'Monde performing in Madison NJ in September

Cajun Haiku

A world full of woe.

When the band begins to play,

We dance anyway.

 

Yesterday I read one of my poems published in "And Still We Dance," a journal representing the work of the Writing LAB Ekphrastic Residency, sponsored by ARTS By The People and the Santiago Abut Foundation.

We had originally gathered in September at the Madison (NJ) Community Arts Center to hear Cajun music performed by a talented trio from Louisiana: T'Monde.

Their music inspired the published poetry, which was edited by the event's organizer, the poet Michelle Ortega. In the book, each poem was accompanied by a sketch by artist Anna Hershinow, with a bar code linking to the T-Monde song that inspired the poem.

I wrote my poem, "Vanishing Garden," after spending time in October with T'Monde's a cappella rendition of "La Belle S'en Va." In addition, Michelle kindly published a poem, "A Bouquet From Louisiana in 12 Couplets," that I wrote while hearing the trio perform in September.

Vanishing Garden

 

I stand in this garden

where everything vanishes.

 

Dad in his Navy blues,

an arm around his first and only love:

Mom, with Ava-Gardner-red lips,

under a canopy of vines plump with grapes.

 

Lips... redder than the nesting cardinals,

or the roses woven into the chain-link fence

where my daughter posed with a bouquet

in her First Communion dress.

 

A dress... whiter than the worn milking stool

where Nonna shucked corn

and split pea pods with her penknife,

while humming Rogers and Hammerstein.

 

I stand in this garden

where everything vanishes.

 

Crows descend.

Bees disappear, then roses.

Rust erodes the fence.

The well runs dry.

 

Only the music never dies.

The night wind echoes in an a cappella

of haunting ancient words

whose meaning I don't understand.

 

What's the use of wondering?

This ghostly ballad comforts me.

Although everything has vanished,

I am not alone.

 

I stand in this garden

surrounded by angels.

---------

 

A Bouquet From Louisiana in 12 Couplets

 

This is the music of misery.

Sad songs, made for dancing.

 

I recognize the urgency of longing,

Although I can’t dance.

 

This ceaseless steady beat,

So unlike my arrhythmic heart.

 

This dead language,

Preserved in melody and harmony.

 

These words, made for heart-break,

In a language I can’t translate.

 

This is the music of

One-sided stories of obsessive love.

 

I know those stories.

I feel like I can play along.

 

This is the music of 

The abandoned father and husband:

 

“One would hope

They thought he was dead.”

 

An accordion missing five notes,

A fiddle, a full-bodied guitar in autumn brown.

 

A chill fills the room

As the trio begins to play.

 

This is a harsh waltz.

How hard it is to live.

---------

PS - I post an original haiku every Monday paired with one of my photos at @bvarphotos on Instagram. 

Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini...

Cardinal Dolan, seated next to Rev. Dr. Gilford T. Monrose of the NYC
Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships

You CAN go home again. This week I attended a convening of healthcare leaders sponsored by my former employer, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. Sony Hall in the NYC Theater District was packed, and I was blessed to see so many friends / former colleagues there… and inspired by the program.

“Unprecedented times” was a theme of the day, and MCHF’s Channon Lucas issued a call for “radical empathy” and later introduced CEO Msgr. Greg Mustaciuolo, who closed the day citing the importance of persistence and perseverance. (See https://lnkd.in/eecU88Wz for his recent City & State interview.)

A highlight for me among the speakers was Cardinal Dolan, who talked about the inherent dignity and worth of every person, and the importance of faith in providing people with hope.

The cardinal also talked about Mother Cabrini’s life of service, and he couldn’t resist citing the New York folklore of invoking her name when trying to find a parking space in the city: “Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, please find a spot for my little machiney!”

Press enter or click to view image in full siz

Greetings From the Paterson Poetry Festival

Last year at the festival. Great Falls Park was closed this year, due to the government shutdown, so yesterday's "Words Around the World" event was held indoors.

Yesterday, I checked off a literary bucket list item: I read at the Paterson Poetry Festival. The event was "Words Around the World," hosted by Yves-Mary Fontin, a board member of Wordseed, the local organization that organizes the festival.

Yves-Mary Fontin setting up the event's livestream.
Thank you, Radio Tele Xfm, for the screen cap below.

Normally, Words Around the World is held on stage in front of the Paterson Great Falls, a site I love to visit. But, with the shutdown of the federal government, the national historic park was closed, and the event was moved indoors to another site I love to visit, the nearby Paterson Museum.

Yesterday's event -- there's an entire month of October festival activities posted online -- celebrated diverse voices in several languages. This included, among many others, incredibly talented Wordseed poets. You can find them in the bio section of the organization's site, including Paterson's poet laureate, Talena Lachelle Queen.

I gave it my best shot with three poems set in New Jersey, where I've lived my whole life except for a few years in Manhattan and South Bend, Ind. I wore a rugby shirt from McGovern's Tavern in Newark (another favorite site!). The front features the immortal words of humorist Jean Shepherd, "In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash," and the back features the Notre Dame Fighting Irish leprechaun.

The poems I read yesterday are set in Paterson, my hometown of New Milford, and the Pine Barrens. Two are updated from previous posts here because I always seem to tinker with my poems to try to keep them alive:

Scenic Overlook at Garret Mountain

This is a dangerous place to stand:

Cliffside in Paterson,

In the descending dusk.

 

In the view past the highway at my feet,

In the horizon of the New York skyline,

I behold a dizzying sight:

 

I see a housefly alight on your thigh.

It's 40 years ago, yet I can clearly see you

Languidly napping in our old bedroom

 

In a high-rise apartment miles away,

Through a window of space and time,

So many years since you left my side.

 

The housefly rubs its hands, obsessed,

Plotting its next move,

Until shooed in a flash

 

By a dismissive twitch of your flesh.

Decades disappear, just as fast,

As cars on Route 80 flee to the west.

 

Like a Dutch sailor, I face to the east.

Blinding, orgastic city lights hide ghosts

That whisper among the vanished trees.

 

I catch my breath on this precipice,

Its wounds, like mine,

Dark and deep.

 

40 years later,

Cliffside in Paterson,

I still watch you while you sleep.

 

---------

 

Things to Do When You’re Invisible

I nurse a shaved ice in a booth at Kailani’s

Behind a cloak of invisibility.

The Korean girl in her summer clothes

Stole the attention of the high school boy behind the counter

After he dutifully took my order, shaped it, imbued it in red,

Preparing the first shaved ice I will ever try.

 

Nobody cares.

I am old, while everything around me is anime and new.

I am an NPC in this game of boy meets girl.

When I was a newbie,

I thought invisibility, the ability to be willful without consequence,

Was the greatest superpower.

 

I know better now.

I tip my iPhone toward my bowl of unfreezing, bleeding ice.

I take its photo, ensuring a focus

On the melting of memory, the mining of the sublime.

This is the superpower I have come to possess:

Ensnaring evanescence.

 

When I take a photo...

Or write a poem...

I activate God Mode.

Not only invisible;

I am invincible.

I can stop time.

---------

Burlington County, 1984 

Driving up the Jersey Turnpike,

Skirting a million acres of acidic, sandy soil.

It’s almost dawn.

 

In the passenger’s seat next to me

Hester closes her eyes, adjusts the halo

Embroidered atop her California Angels cap,

And burrows under my letter jacket with a breathless sigh.

 

Bright Venus and the rising sun combine to accent

The needles of the pines lining the highway,

Casting shadows that flicker and tremble.

Like my desire.

 

I wish I may, I wish I might, now,

Make the sun stand still

Below that distant horizon.

 

Af if my car were a Mason jar.

As if I could punch air holes in the top

And examine this curiosity named Hester

Lazily stretching her butterfly limbs.

 

I would take my car in my hand

And hold the both of us up

To that faint and heavenly light.

 

This tiny version of myself I am trying to preserve

Is me at my best, oblivious in young love…

Blissfully teased by the Hand of Fate:

Tentative knuckles, resting lightly on my thigh.

 

As if, in Hester's lifeline,

I could divine our future together...

As if I weren’t the Jersey Devil in disguise.