So Friday night, as they say, I did a thing.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 referencing three favorite writers:
Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bruce Springsteen.
It begins with Annabel, my muse and imaginary 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 has 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.
---------
As a postscript, since I'm posting this on Father's Day 2024... and just to remind my poetic self how common I am... I offer this New Yorker cartoon by Ali Solomon.
 |
| 🙂 |
