Me, with my daughter.
My wife, behind the camera.
Time is relentless.
Finding myself through my family, my work (PR), and words... thousands and thousands of words.
I read -- well, did my best to "perform" -- one of my poems at the Hamilton Arts Festival showcase at the Great Falls Center, sponsored by the Paterson Performing Arts Development Council.
The short trilogy is mashup of two revised older works with a new poem in between, and I tried out a draft in front of a warm and encouraging group of poets earlier at The Platform, an open mic hosted by Arts by the People on the first Wednesday of every month at the Madison Community Arts Center.
The Arts Center posted about the event, and that's where I picked up the photo of me posted here.
Below is the "finished" piece. One of the get-to-know-you prompts at The Platform was "describe your writing routine," to which I responded: "I write, then I rewrite."
"My New Jersey Trilogy" is not as random as it seems, given my obsessive style. It is exactly 500 words; Annabel is mentioned three times in each of the three sections; I invoke an incantation to raise the dead; and "Thunder Road Revisited" is structured in six verses and a bridge, like the song itself. Perhaps most importantly, it's not factually "The Confessions of a White Widowed Male." My wife of 38 years was there to support me in Paterson.
Scenic overlook at Garret Mountain |
My New Jersey Trilogy
(For your consideration…)
Three related scenes with references to three favorite writers:
Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Bruce Springsteen.
It all begins with Annabel, my wife of 38 years, scanning
People magazine after sunset in our suburban living room.
Scene 1. Thunder Road Revisited
Under the spotlight
of a table lamp,
Annabel sprawls across her favorite chair.
Her right leg hangs over the armrest,
like Hyman Roth in “The Godfather: Part 2,”
a movie we saw long ago when we lived across the river.
On this night, my wife is reading
that Julia Roberts’ favorite lyrics
are from a Springsteen song.
Show a little faith; there’s magic in the night.
You ain’t a beauty but, hey, you’re alright.
“He could only have written that song
when he was young,” says Annabel.
“It’s filled with so much passion.”
So I look her in the eye,
cross the room to her side, and turn out the light,
revealing an ordinary night.
I bow to steal a kiss
and take Annabel by the hand.
“Baby,” I say, “let’s go for a drive.”
Scene 2. Gatsby in Paramus
It’s been one year since Annabel died...
I wait alone for my eye exam in the showroom
of Cohen’s Fashion Optical at the mall.
Surrounded by 100 sets of spectacles,
I begin to write a poem
about my life and my bride.
When a man with a blood-stained hole in his back
appears from nowhere,
sits right beside me, and peers over my shoulder.
“It’s about my darling Annabel,” I explain.
“I know,” the man replies, his breath stinking of death,
“But I wouldn’t ask too much of her…”
He gestures toward a flickering spectral shade
under the fluorescent green Ray-Ban display.
“I’ve learned, Old Sport, that you can’t repeat the past.”
“Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can,”
I cry, incredulous and defiant,
in the face of 200 vacant billboard eyes.
Why, I possess the power to conjure
when I write.
When I write,
when I write,
Annabel’s ghost can be revived.
Scene 3. Scenic Overlook at Garret Mountain
This is a dangerous place to stand:
Cliffside in Paterson, in the descending dusk.
Past the highway at my feet, across the Hudson,
a dizzying view materializes in the Emerald City skyline:
I see… a housefly… alight…
on my Annabel’s thigh.
It’s 40 years ago, yet I clearly see my bride languidly napping
in the bedroom of our old apartment in New York.
The fly rubs its hands, obsessed, plotting its next move,
until shooed in a flash by a dismissive twitch of Annabel’s flesh.
Decades disappear, just as fast,
as cars on Route 80 flee to the west.
I show a little faith.
I face to the east.
Blinding orgastic lights cast shadows
on that fresh green breast of the new world.
I catch my breath on this precipice,
these wounds dark and deep.
40 years later,
across the sounding sea…
With so much passion for Annabel,
I still watch her while she sleeps.
---------
Today would have been Anne Bunce's 96th birthday, and the 69th anniversary of Msgr. Julian B. Varettoni's ordination.
Anne was married to Thomas Patrick Cullinane, who would have been 100 last month. His name is memorialized twice on this monument to firefighters in Newark, NJ.
May their memory be eternal.
The Lustron Home in Closter |
1. Tour a Porcelain-Enameled Steel Lustron Home in Closter, June 2
"Why did the NY Times call Haworth a "concrete town" in 1907? Learn the answer on a historical house tour sponsored by the Friends of the Haworth Library, Sunday, June 2, 1-5 PM...featuring 6 of Haworth's early "concrete houses, PLUS the all-metal Lustron house in Closter."
"To ease post WWII housing shortages, the Lustron Corp. of Ohio made a unique house of all pre-fabricated steel parts on an assembly line basis and shipped them directly to owners' lots. Harold Hess purchased a Westchester Deluxe model with attached garage from an NJ dealer and assembled it on this site in 1950. All walls, roof and chimney are porcelain-enameled steel panels. Between 1948 and 1950, Lustron made 2,498 homes."
2. Honoring Jack Antonoff and Ruth Beiner in New Milford, June 7
This Facebook post from the New Milford Historic Preservation Commission is promoting its June 7 Hall of Fame dinner at the local/historic/nostalgic Athletic Club.
Of particular interest, the post references an eclectic mix of famous people who at one time or another lived in New Milford (aka, "The Birthplace of Bergen County").
This local Hall of Fame includes The Fontane Sisters (who often sang with Perry Como); Joe Regalbuto (the actor who portrayed Frank Fontana on "Murphy Brown"); two-time Tony Award nominee Rob McClure; football star and actor Ed Marinaro; and Jack Antonoff, the Grammy winning producer who has worked with Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde, and Bruce Springsteen.
While Jack can't attend the June 7 dinner because he's on tour, this event is an opportunity to honor some current great (and locally famous) contributors to the community, such as Ruth Beiner, a teacher at New Milford High School who has produced its spring musical for two decades.
The deadline for reserving tickets is end-of-day tomorrow, Friday, May 31. One interesting give-away will be "New Jersey Go Fish!" -- a card game designed by Alex Flannery in partnership with Jersey Collective. To find out more about the imagery chosen for the cards, visit https://www.jerseycollective.org/gofish
Meanwhile, I hear there's a bowling alley and wood-paneled bar at the unassuming-on-the-outside Athletic Club on Boulevard, so you know where I'll be on the 7th!
A Dozen Haikus for Poetry Month in April 2024
1. Dedication
Hi, Toney Jackson.
Thank you, I feel welcome here.
I feel inspired.
2. NYC Subway Haiku
My hands slip inside
Her orange bomber jacket.
Ghosts on the A Train.
3. Attending a Poetry Festival
Lost in Dobbs Ferry,
where Westchester poets hide.
I seek to destroy.
4. Eclipse Haiku
Please remember us
in 2079.
We were once like you
5. I’d Trip at the End of the Universe
Fall into the void,
Bounce from the edge of a star,
Break eternal love.
6. Haiku to My Wife
I drink beer alone.
I only drink wine with you.
I like wine better.
7. Along the New Jersey Turnpike
Wood trellis crosses
Fill barren raspberry fields.
Golgotha in Spring.
8. Haiku Written at Citi Field
The Mets in April,
warming my heart in the cold.
Unlike October.
9-11. Love Is, A Haiku Trilogy
Love is a zombie.
A zombie with a warm heart.
Pulsing. Cheating death.
Love is regretful.
Sorrow that ages like wine.
Full of scorpions.
Love is not jealous.
Love is patient. Love is kind.
Claims Corinthians.
12. Goodbye
Writer’s block is real.
My ordinariness, revealed.
This is not a poem.