Pumpkin Pie

Making a pumpkin pie is something I have always wanted to do but, for some reason, never got around to doing.  Like a lot of things… So I finally got myself cranked and just did it and am I glad I did.  Now I know what a pumpkin pie is really like when it doesn’t come out of a can.  It is a multiphase project but each of the steps is simple when taken one at a time.  This is how I did it. 

First, steal a pumpkin (or two if they are small).  If you live someplace where people don’t decorate their houses with pumpkins for Halloween or Thanksgiving you might have to steal it from a grocery store and that could lead to jail time so I’d suggest you 1) take a trip out to the country and find one of those houses or 2) pay for it.  In my case I found three small pumpkins dumped in the woods across the street from one of my neighbor’s houses.  They were nestled in a bed of dry leaves just blown off the guys lawn so were protected from the recent frost and free of bruises or damage of any sort.  There are many fine pumpkins still sitting on porches all over the neighborhood and now that I know how good the pies turn out I might just go “stock up”.

Secondly, cut the pumpkins into big chunks and scrape out the seeds and stringy muck with a big ol’ spoon.  The seeds can be saved for toasting-yum!  Use the big ol’ spoon to gently push out and separate the seeds from the muck-- kinda like tiddly winks when they fly all over the kitchen.  Throw out the muck that looks like the red head’s hair on Desperate Housewives.   I put the seeds, unwashed, in an aluminum pie pan, and sprinkle a drop or three of olive oil and some Morton’s kosher salt.  Pop ‘em in the toaster oven and stir them every 3 or 4 minutes while they dry out and toast.  Keep a close eye on them and when the first one burns they are done!  Start eating them right away or you will have to fight for some when everyone else finds out you made them.

Thirdly, take the chunked pumpkin and put it in a caulender in a pot with some water and steam the chunks for about 25 or 30 minutes.  You’ll know they are done when a fork goes in really easy.  Let them cool while you drink coffee and eat the seeds and when coolish scrape the soft flesh out with the big ol’ spoon.  Mash up the flesh with a big ol’ spoon or a potato masher and 1) put in a container and save in the refrigerator (last a week plus or minus) 2)put in a container and save in the freezer for the middle of the winter when you are wasting away and starving for something good, 3) start making pies right away, which is what I did.

Beat 3 eggs, add ½ cup of whole milk or cream (if you are not scared of dying from thick blood or obesity), ½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, ginger, salt (unless you are scared of dying from apoplexy in which case stop eating the seeds!).  I used fresh ginger which I shredded up with a zester and I threw in a little lemon zest as well.  Glad I did.  It doesn’t come through very strong in the final product but it really does spark up the recipe!  Mix the mess all together with the mashed pumpkin and pour it into a pie shell.  I cheated and used store-bought frozen shells ‘cause I suck at pastery.   Bake at 375 until the crust looks like it’s gonna burn if you don’t get it out of there.  (similar to the timing of the seeds.  Do you note a pattern in my technique?)  Let cool.  Start eating right away before the household finds out you made it and you have to fight for a piece!  (Note a pattern in my eating habits?)  Enjoy. 

You might want to share some with the neighbor--the one you stole the pumpkin from.  Maybe next year he will be bringing you some pie!

Bear Mountain/China Pier

The air was so fine and thin
up on Bear Mountain
I felt I could just walk off into the sky.
The day was so clear and cool
the breeze flowed like a stream
and the moss on the flat rocks
lay like a carpet
beneath my feet.

The stratocasters silky plumes
waved like Arabian fans
over a dozing baby
asleep in a hammock.
I brushed the dry lichen
from my hair
when I got up from the lawn
and climbed up
flights of concrete stairs
to the top of the overlook tower.
A map lay blooming
seventy five miles in all directions
I twirled
and became dizzy.
I have no right to want more from life
Today was a definition.
_______________________________

On the other hand

The China Pier rots.
Thick, lime water licks at the piles
bits of steel--integral bits
snagging the whole
clutching at the whole--
disintegrate.
The waving mass
undulates in the Hudson
like a jellified dead animal
it’s soul
anticipating burrial.

The China Pier cringes
in the white background sound
of the onslaught of the twentieth century.
It waits in a manicured frame
of lawn and brick
and wrought iron
beneath the power
of Indian Point--
Hogging up the sun
the huge utility lays a shaddow
over the water
flowing under China Pier.

Stars through the Blinds

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Lying in bed this morning I watched a star through the slats of the Venetian blinds. This is the same star (I assume it is a star but know nothing about the night sky-could be a planet or an alien space probe, I suppose!) I have watched on a couple of mornings recently. As I am not sleepy and lying in the same position, in the same bed, every morning about this time, I watch it “move upwards” past slat #4, then #5, then behind the leaves of a tree in the distance. The perspective of “stars” is such that it only takes a branch or a leaf down here on Earth to obliterate the “star” from view, even though the “star” itself is a scajillion times bigger than the leaf. It is so far away it can hide behind the leaf. And then it moves up towards slat #6. I know it is not the star that is moving. Again it is perspective that allows me to feel like it is the star that is moving, not the rotation of the Earth, which is actually what is happening. By the time it reaches slat #7 and has hidden behind several other leaves it is beginning to get light and I know, from other mornings observations, that I will loose the “star” entirely in a few minutes. The sun will obliterate it as it climbs out of its red bed and the sky becomes winter white.

In the last few minutes in bed I find myself mentally writing poems about the day and the light and the winter and the morning but, curiously, in a story within a story, I find I am writing a poem within a poem too. It is a haiku about the “star” It is about the Venetian blinds. Now that I am awake and I have had my coffee and toasted Sunday Bialy, the haiku eludes me. I can’t remember it now. I feel badly. Like I did something good but there is no record of it.

That is one of the nice things about photographs. When you see something that is worth recording you can capture it (hopefully with skill) right then and there. Perhaps I should put a camera on the bed stand and shoot from my pillow through the Venetian blinds? There is something that separates the photographer from the painter or the writer. The writer and the painter both have to capture the image in their brain and then transfer it to something concrete. The photographer (especially digital) has the luxury of capturing the moment directly-with no ‘middle man’ or memorization to delay the creation. No excuse though. If it is worth recording (film, canvas or keyboard) one must still get out from under the warm blankets and work for it.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow morning the poem will come back to me and I will get up and write it down.

Reunion-2010 (for Kathie)

We were all smiles

For a short little while

We were all about

A long time ago.

So old times-

Thinking old times-

Lightens a dark, dark heart

Brings a warm smile

For a little while.

For a little while.

We traveled further west

Than we ever would have gone

When we were babies

And the world was young.

Penetrating the dark, dark land

Between ninth and broad

The street lights were bright

And we all felt good.

Abraham’s son

Had a Tasty Cake smile

We spread out in his tent

For a little while

For a little while.

His own child shared

His exotic clothes

And I thought I got a glimpse

Of where the future goes.

But I was mistaken

I was looking behind

In the rear view mirror

Of my dark, dark mind.

Abraham’s tent

Tinkled in the night

With walls of glass

And it’s ceiling of sky

And it’s steps to nowhere

And it’s bars on the street

And we promised that some day

We would all meet

Even further west

On the bad side of town

Maybe in the river-

Wash up in the river-

Where the bad times drown.

We were all smiles

For a short little while

We were all about

A long time ago.

So old times-

Thinking old times-

Lightens a dark, dark heart

Brings a warm smile

For a little while.

For a little while.

Document Control

Up in the bed room, behind the mirrored closet door was a bag. The bag was filled (it was one of the standard-size, grocery brown bags, with advertising on it) with twenty-five pounds of paper. In there were old bank statements and oil delivery tickets with the number of gallons of oil put in the tank and the price per gallon for the stuff. There were books of checks for accounts that no longer exist, mostly in the name of number 1 son. IRA Investment statements. Receipts for bills paid and bills due-- that one must presume were eventually paid and the receipt thereto was probably in the bag somewhere as well. Ten years or more of the financial documents deemed too sensitive to be discarded via the trash or the recyclables.

When the mail comes into our house it must come up the driveway, inside to the kitchen where it is deposited on the work surface of the kitchen counter. It might sit there for a minute or overnight, but it is eventually opened and half digested and left to sit a while longer. Again, eventually, it either finds it’s way to the dining room table to linger some more, to the computer to be paid electronically or upstairs to be paid by check or to the mysterious bag. I did not know (or really, I did not fully understand) the substance of that bag until a few nights ago when Elisabeth brought down a big, handful of papers which she threw into the fire. We had built a fire for entertainment and to roast marshmallows. On the way into the house at the end of the evening Elisabeth commented cryptically --It didn’t even make a dent!

What didn’t make a dent? I asked. She said a dent in the bag. What bag? The bag full of papers up in the bedroom. The checkbooks and the financial stuff. Oh! I said and later I looked at “the bag”, seeing it really for the first time. Big. Brown. Brimming over the top. I didn’t have the desire or inclination to peek at the contents. I was fairly sure that much of it was not so sensitive that it required a military shredding or a funeral in the bon fire. I know Elisabeth’s much more concerned about paperwork and how it will affect our security than I, but I was certain that there was much in the collection that was benign. No matter. I promised myself that I would get rid of it-sooner or later.

Today it is cloudy and I fully expect (read: hope) it will rain. The eggplant and tomatoes need it. Everything in the garden or out could use a little bit of a washing. I also considered that to be a prime time to make a fire. On second examination that makes very little sense as a raging, out of control campfire or hot embers landing on the roof will not wait to do damage until the rain starts (duh!). So that means either waiting to build the fire until it rains or waiting until after. Naw! I just lit the thing. Some loose paper. Some twigs and some branches. I waited a few minutes and began to burn the papers. Slowly at first a few pages at a time and crumbling each one. Then six or seven pages at a time. Then entire sheaths of papers and half a dozen checkbooks and deposit ledgers. All went well until there was so much paper piled on that I had to take a long stick and flip through the piles like pages of a book, exposing the leaves to the oxygen in the air. One by one the flipping sheets caught flame and again there was a roaring fire. I threw on more wood and kept feeding the documents into the inferno.

It took about and hour from start to finish to burn the whole mess. I was careful not to throw in any plastic or items clearly not of a sensitive nature. There were a few advertising pamphlets and some shipping envelopes that had nothing on them or in them. These I put back into the empty bag. Now that the fire has cooled it looks like a pit with a thousand gray leaves fluttering in the wind. (it still has not rained). In the fall I will shovel out the pit and put the ashes into the garden. It is supposedly good for the soil and inhibits slugs and cutworms. We’ll see.

Back to the mail for a moment. I have a habit of tearing unwanted mail up into strips. Each evening when I read the mail. And then I tear the strips into squares. We have a shredder but I can’t make myself set it up and leave it conveniently out for daily use. I can’t. I am pissed off enough at phone chargers, computer power supplies, power strips and wall warts, batteries, modems, cordless phones, VCRs (yes I still have one) CD and DVD players... one more appliance will tip the scale. I don’t think the most accomplished Nigerian con artist will have the time or energy to bother to try to reconstruct one of my hand shredded phone bills especially once it has been soaked in olive oil or stale cat food in the kitchen garbage. And in the case of twenty plus pounds of ten year old cable bills and cooking gas delivery tickets, it is the low tech fire for them. Good riddance.

Coffee Ballet

An arm over here reaching for the pot

A hand on the spoon, over there

We cross paths on the way

To a perfect cup

Of java to start our day

Our minds on "Hold"

Not a word is said

In this morning routine

Too early for words

Anyway

Our bodies

Doing the coffee ballet

Last night we worked together making “shells” and cooking up a batch of sauce. The tomatoes seem to multiplying on the counter top. It reminds me of the scene in Disney’s Soccer’s Apprentice where Mickey is chopping the brooms trying to eliminate them but they multiply with each hatchet whack. Same with the tomatoes. Every time I go out to the garden there are three or four more ripe ones. And that is not counting the tiny cherry tomatoes that come in daily waves of a hundred or even two hundred. It doesn’t matter if I go out to the garden once or twice or three times, there are always more ripe ones and I bring them in and put them in the bag along with ten pounds of others or on the counter-which is now (even though we cooked as many as we could last night) covered in red.

We were both exhausted yesterday after work. Elisabeth had a mildly rejected look that sent me hiding on the front porch. I was in my own world of shit so it was best we went our separate ways for a little while, at least until the question of dinner came up. When we are like that-tired and lost in the outside world-we work! It is just what we do. Some people go bowling. Some might write stupid journals and drink whiskey-we work! We both stood in the kitchen and simultaneously began chopping and clanging utensils and pots until our old selves returned. It only took about five minutes of labor to begin to make us whole again and by then all of the anxiety and exhaustion fell away like Batman’s cape and we swung for an hour on our web of activity and the smells and feel of the tomatoes and the popping oil and crunch of garlic on the cutting board.

At one point She asked me to put the cubes of fresh mozzarella into the finished shells. She was in the process of filling them with the stuffing and there were many stuffed and sitting on a plate. I reached over her arms and picked up a shell and pushed a dice-sized cube of cheese into the stuffing and set it down in an aluminum pan that had a small amount of fresh sauce on the bottom. She continued spooning the ricotta and egg and spinach mixture into the al Dente shells and putting them on the plate. I was on the wrong side of her and our arms cris-crossed as we worked on our separate tasks, but it was somehow orchestrated. Our arms wove a web of work that was funny but awkward. At some point we both recognized the disjointed organization and Elisabeth told me to exchange places with her. I did. It was as if a knot came undone. We worked then with a physical independence that was soothing but, somehow, less intimate.

In a half an hour the pan of bubbling shells came out of the oven and we sat to eat. The air coming through the back door screen had turned autumnal and I felt somber but comforted by the smells of the cooking and the company of my wife. By then we were both very, very tired but it was good tired. The day had passed.

The Recipe

Shells cooked just shy of al Dente.

A mixture of ricotta,

salt,

pepper,

egg-beaten,

and spinach-cooked and squeezed dry of all water (I like to use the water in the sauce but Elisabeth won’t hear of it!)

mozzarella-cubed to ¾” x ¾”

grated Romano or parmesan of ?? your favorite hard cheese

fresh gravy-

put a large tea-spoonful of the ricotta mixture into each of the shells and push a cube of the mozzarella into each stuffed shell. Place the shells into a pan with a little of the gravy and when the pan is all full spoon the gravy over all of the shells. Coat the whole pan with some of the grated cheese and pop into the oven for a while until everything sort of melts and melds. Serve with more sauce on top and some wine. Eat Up!

Cherry Tomatoes

Sunday, September 05, 2010


This year I had one bush of cherry tomatoes that produced more fruit than I have ever seen on any other plant. Every day I go out there with a bag and pick a hundred mature, sweet (but tiny) tomatoes. Now at the end of the season the actual ‘crop’ has come in and this morning I picked about six or seven hundred. There are three times that many still on the plant. It is unbelievable.
So I decided to try something new. I am roasting a big batch on the barbeque right now and I think they are going to be wonderful. I prep’d them by putting a couple of tablespoons of olive oil on an aluminum lined cookie sheet and then covered the sheet with a solid field of the little, ripe tomatoes. I rolled them around to get them coated and then sprinkled a little Morton’s Kosher Salt on them. I set the barbeque at low (one burner only) and put the cookie sheet on the top warming rack. I actually started on high on the bottom but things progressed so fast that I didn’t want to end up with stewed/burned tomatoes so I changed the settings as described above. I think they will turn out nicely and I hope they will keep for a week in the fridge. I imagine them on pasta and maybe cooking other things with them in the recipes. We’ll see.

Well, they turned out great. Lizzy says we’ll have them tonight on some pasta. The whole cookie sheet made one nice plate (picture) so will serve about three for dinner. The oil that was left in the pan looked beautiful so I threw on another batch and added one of my ‘devil’ peppers. Hot damn! I like it too much!

Pushing the Ton

I don’t know where it came from.
Just a bowel deep growl
that took me
as I tapped it into first.
And knowing I hadn’t seen
a cop
or commuter
or a minivan
in a few minutes
I felt compelled
to twist the grip
until the back side slid
and caught
with a high-sided snap
and the rear wheel gripped.

I watched the pointer
of the tach jump.

The needle
of the speedo
gyp’d passed all the lower numbers
and the cuffs on my pants
danced on my shins
and the cool wind
flapped up my jeans
like water
under pressure.

The road took on
an amplified quality
each tiny motion
building on itself
each small bump
rippling into a panic attack
each twist a thought less effort
each thought
an immediate order
to be obeyed--
consequential.

And when I hit the Ton
the smallest touch on the grip
swore to the road
and explained itself
like a spy
who shit in his pants
when the gallows floor
dropped.
I was affraid to look down.
To confirm.
I could only see
where I was going
and had not one care
for where I had been.

End of the Garden

It is near the end of August. I have not made an entry in about a month. I suppose a rainy, Sunday morning (7:45am) is the perfect time to “catch up”, though sitting here I am not sure exactly what it is I have to say.

Ben and Liz are both upstairs sleeping away. I came down as quietly as I could and fed Sylvester and made a pot of coffee.

The week-long drought has broken with a gentle gray morning rain and the raggedy looking garden is getting what it needs to complete its mission. The fruit was waiting for this boost to push it into final plumpness and color. This year the garden has been amazing in its bounty. All I had to do was the usual weeding and tidying up with stick and string to keep it tied…Oh, and labor like a coolie to keep it watered in the face of Nature’s stingy rationing of rain. But it has paid off. The tomatoes are bursting and red. The eggplant (purple and white) and summer squash big enough to bust the limbs of the plants and plentiful enough that I wish I had another freezer to hold them. There was broccoli and three kinds of peppers (green bell, pale green banana, and the brightest, red-est, devil’s peppers, who’s taste and heat delight me) as well as a crop of butternut squash yet to come. The butternuts are my favorite and they are lying all over the floor and in the fence of the garden waiting for the umbilicus of their vines to brown and wither while they tan in the sun and bath (today, anyway) in the rain. I can’t wait to taste them.

For future reference I allow the following as the reasons for the success of this year’s garden:

1) Hot, dry weather. Without a doubt the single most important factor. Of course if I had not hosed and bucketed amazing amounts of rescue water the whole thing would have withered, but that is not important. There was no blight. The rot that affected almost everyone last year was kept away by the sun and the drying breezes. Last year I got a few middling fruit on each of my tomato plants and the rot took the rest. This year I got pounds and pounds of the plumpest, red-est tomatoes that I have ever grown. The same for the rest of the veggies. The only plants that did not thrive were the peas and the beans, and I blame myself for that. When they needed help I was not in the mind to lend a hand. I was too busy with the other plants and I suppose I am not all that fond of peas and beans. I hope there is no place in hell for people who don’t care about beans.

2) Unusually good placement of the plants and good varieties as well. It was luck, mostly, and the barest bit of intuition on my part that the plants found enough sun and enough room and support to prosper. No, actually it was all luck.

3) The butternut squash found it’s own way to grow up into the space between the fence and the netting around the fence. There it hung like sailors in hammocks and they grew plumb and healthy. The deer fed on the fat squash leaves that grew out through the fence but they had no way to get to the fruit. It looks like a “squash hotel” out there now and next year I am going to try to plan a long fence like that on the inside of the garden and see if the butternuts will do it for me the same way.

4) Fertilizer. Not much-just a spoonful per plant when I put them in the ground-but what a difference. This fall I plan to get a small load of manure and turn it into the soil instead, but I am not ashamed of the fertilizer I used this year. Nor am I ashamed of the newspaper or the shredded Microsoft Word documents, or the chopped leaf mulch I experimented with for ground cover. I have learned that newspaper is my friend while Bill Gates is not.

5) Minute use of insecticide. Last year I had two eggplant. This year I had over a dozen and more are coming on the tree-like plants. The reason-insecticide. Just the tiniest amount at the right time. Last year the flea beetles ate the leaves of the young plants (turning them into lace doilies) while I struggled to defeat them. I tried all the internet/hippie/organic methods to control the pests but nothing worked. I struggled with the tree-hugging instincts of my 1960’s philosophy and returned the unopened box of “Sevin” to Walmart and, as a result, the plants punked out. This year I re-bought the poison and lightly dusted the affected leaves when the beetles struck. One application and the bugs marched down the driveway and ate my neighbor’s dog instead. I ate eggplant!!! I am now a “Goldwater Republican” in the garden. Nuke ‘em!!!

6) God helps them that helps themselves. Especially when it comes to cut-worms. These little buggers chop through the tender trunks of newly planted peppers like chainsaws. Again, thanks to the use of newspaper, they were defeated. A cylinder of newspaper around the base of the new plant stops the cut-worms cold. It seems they are a lazy species and a mere two inches of barrier is enough to send them off to find easier pray. By the way, I do not like to buy newspapers so I steal one of my neighbor’s instead. That seems very ecological to me (toilet paper roll works as well! But again, nothing from Microsoft seems to stop cut-worms).

Well, that is pretty much it for another year of gardening. The fall will be here early this year. The leaves in the trees are already tired of hanging on and are dropping for lack of water. A prelude to the real thing…and then the snow. I am looking for a suitable substitute for my gardening-something that will give me the same sort of occupied feeling during the cold weather. I am open to suggestions.

Words Don't Count

Words are not nails or pearls or drinking glasses full of milk

Words are not sails or the wind that fills them

Words are not eatable or bankable or capable

Of cooking dinner or putting a sandwich on the table.

Words are hot air, hisses, and lisps

Pushed by our lungs over our lips

Our tongues and our teeth get in the way

Turning the air into something we say

Words disappear as fast as we say them

And depend upon ears to validate them

And the printed page to illustrate them

And memory loss to eradicate them

Still, sometime, words are all we have

And they flow over doorways we build in our brain

Like cool breezes flowing

Over a transom

Like the sound of the moan of a far away train

The chill that raises the short hairs on my head

And the sounds of the night

As I lie in my bed.

Hot One

Coffee is not good for Spaz,
but I share mine anyway.
his tongue long and blue
laps down into the cardboard cup
down on the concrete,
and he drains it,
spilling not one drop.
He waits for me to pour him more.
I do,
and when he is through
a spot of the sun
breaks past
the baggy buttonwood trees
between us and the projects
and he begins to pant.
It's going to be a hot one
again today.

We are right in the flight path.
White, red and blue tail-sections
of the prop planes
and the commuter jets
on their diagonal way
to cities within five hundred miles
of LaGuardia,
fly right over the projects-
right over where I sit-
on the curb,
in the last of the morning shade,
retreating from
the gravel
and broken asphalt drive,
behind Randall and Castle Hill...
it promises to be a hot one
again today.

Spaz and I retreat
from the expanding
seven a.m. sun.
Into the office
painted
not white or gray or green
but some disturbing color
in between.
Strangely agitating
and morbidly routine.
Piles of papers
garbage pails of dog food
computer screens
and dust bunny's
bits of hardware
and sheets of glass
a coffee maker
and an adopted family of dish-ware,
in the pantry
unwashed
and waiting...
but the portable A/C
is running
and the ancient stereo
is humming.
It is cooler here
than anywhere
else
on this block
in the Bronx.
it promises to be
another hot one today.

The phone rings
and the other end
unswervingly demands.
try and try,
as best I can,
there is no purchase
no a-mens
sufficient.
and I find myself believing
it is me.
it is my fault
I have gotten too old
for this grind-
If not for Spaz
and a laugh
now and then
I would never come to
the Bronx again.
Certainly not
for the weekly pay.
Certainly not
during a finite summer's day,
and it appears
it's going to be
another hot one today.

Penny in the Crapper

In the crapper there is
a penny on the floor
it sits in a dust ball
below the hinges on the door.
it has been there
a couple of years
(or more)
and I see it
every morning.
Dozens of people
must have seen it too
but sits there still
as if it is glued
to the asphalt tile
strangely unmoved
by human hand,
bucket and mop,
or broom.
Along with
the K-mart towel
(a new one
each year)
a florescent bulb
an immobile fan
the penny lives on
on the floor of the can-
as a point of focus,
an example
of inflationary trends,
as a testament to
those tiny pleasures
shared by man-
a cup of coffee
a toilet
a private moment
contemplating
a single cent
on the floor of the can.

Snippets

All these snippets of “news”

From the great Northwest

From the heartland

From the campgrounds

Are like smells coming from the kitchen

When your mom is cooking

My favorite meal.

I have looked at the photos

Of our trip down south

Four or five times in the last month.

Postal cards from the past

When the future was the next gas station

And the only span of time

Of any import

Was the duration between

Oil changes

And greasy spoons.

Getting into the Golf

In the mornings now

At 5:30 only to drive

To the job in the Bronx…

Is torture so sublime

It could only have been

Devised by someone who knows me

As well as I do.

Running through the gears

On the Taconic Parkway

Recalling the snippets,

And thinking about you.

The Robins

The robins started trying to build nests in the empty space above the porch girder about a week ago. Everyday Elisabeth or I will sweep away the previous days collection of twigs, string, bits of paper or tin foil, interwoven leaves of grass. It falls down to the driveway below or onto the deck of the porch. It is one thing to push a small pile of twigs, it is another to push what is obviously a nearly completed nest off into oblivion. It is upsetting but necessary, as the completed nest will fill with eggs. When the eggs hatch they will grow and the mother come and go feeding them and in the process she will shit all over the deck. The chicks will make a mess. They will call out to the mother and talk to each other incessantly. I am sure the cat will find a way to get to them and if not he will probably kill himself, falling off the deck trying.

The robins are so swift in their construction. And persistent. If we miss a day of ‘pushing off the construction material’ we are likely to have to push an almost-completed-nest off the three and a half inch shelf of the girder. When the nest is near completion and must be demolished it makes me think of a near-term abortion. The nest comes down intact (the robins are master constructors and their product is solid) and lays ten feet below along with the other bits of straw and material like a fetus in the afterbirth. One can be sure the mother bird is somewhere very close by, perhaps watching with a bit of grass in its beak.

When we were first together, Elisabeth and I, we moved to Florida and lived in a rented garden apartment in Cutler Ridge. When a pigeon set up housekeeping on the balcony outside our patio door we gave it no thought. Pigeons are not clean animals- at least not as clean as the robins nests described above. Their nests are messy affairs of mud and thick-bladed Florida grass-but we didn't care, at first, and watched the process of the building. Soon it became populated with two eggs and we were entertained with the birthing drama. When they hatched the mother came and fed the pink, featherless, mice like beings and they began to move around in the nest. As time past, the mother bird's excrement mortar’d solid the fluff that grew and was shed by the chicks. Bits of food and, eventually, the chick’s poop larded onto and around the nest as well. Though still fascinated by the process we became less amused with the mess and jokingly named the chicks “Ugly” and “Dirty”.

If I had known how long and putrid was the process of raising pigeon chicks I surely would have erased the nest before they were laid. But we were ignorant and, as I said, fascinated with the process and could not bring ourselves to destroy the family established on the sunny balcony. I don’t remember how the pigeon family story finally ended, whether they flew away or what. On that my memory is vague but I swore to myself I would never let another bird build a nest so close to me again. That is why we are so diligent in keeping the robin’s nests from taking hold.

Dogwood

All the show-off cast of the landscape have rushed onto the Spring.
Forsythia, Lilacs and magnolia,
Ornamental pear and the bright blue petites gushing under the neon green ground-cover.

And when they are done bragging,
The dogwood comes.

The one outside the kitchen window is my favorite.
Having been tortured by the grapevines
(nearly pulled to the earth in the vines mad climb)
Like a Bonsai on my hill,
I cut it free and keep it clear now.
Even though it is permanently crippled and bent
It rewards me with its Geisha bow
And silken bloom.

Good Friday

Good Friday

April 2, 2010

Sylvester is growing gracefully deaf

And I progressively weaker.

He sits with me

On the back porch stair,

In first strong sun of the Spring

We have been talking about the Seder.

Soon my friends and I

Will be seated at the table.

I don’t want to get profound, but,

Sylvester told me to talk about Jesus.

Jesus was a good Jew

Who spoke the truth that he knew

And feared no man but his father.

The time will come,

Sylvester said,

When your son will know

That this was the best of times

But he was busy sleeping,

That he was the best of fathers and sons,

His mother was the best cook,

And his brothers shared

All his best intentions.

When Sylvester dies

There will be

a small void

When his tiny life passes.

I have outlived cats before-

But he is different.

Who else will remind me

To talk about Jesus

At the Seder?

The Last Straw

“Go on and take it…

Take a little piece of my heart”

Janis Joplin

“No one knows exactly what goes on in there, in the mind or body of someone else. Organs often take over for one another when one is a little weak and another is a little stronger. One might think one is experiencing a pain in the stomach when it is really the heart muscle rending under the powerful weight of defeat and disappointment. A tired body? A tired soul? Who knows?”

Herbert Roth

The Last Straw

This is the story of the last straw. The one that broke the camel’s back.

I was going to the Royal Castle with a pocket full of change. I had carefully counted it out and knew to the penny how much was there. Exactly enough for a breakfast special and a birch beer. It was early on Saturday morning and I had just collected my paper route. I had paid for my papers for the week. I had already put my savings away in my bedroom—snuck in quietly and put eight dollars into a cigar box under my bed and snuck back out to my bike. I had just enough left over for breakfast. I pedaled over to the Royal Castle.

A couple of blocks away, by the side of the canal Jake Eperson and his brother leaned on their Vespas. They knew it was collection day. Other days of the week they might just steal one of my bundles of papers or pick up my wire cutters while I wasn’t looking. But on collection day they were waiting for me and they were after money. I guess they figured I would have all my collections still in my pocket. I tried to ride right by them but it was no use. They jumped on the motor scooters and caught up to me in a few seconds. I jumped off my bike and put down the kickstand and just waited while they propped their machines up on the center stands. Jake with his sandy colored hair down over his eyes said nothing but reached out and grabbed me by the shirt. His brother got behind me and pushed his hands down into my front pant pocket. He came up with loose change some of which fell into the dirt where we stood. After checking all the other pockets he pushed me into Jake. Jake just shoved me to the ground.

“Fifty cents? That’s it? That’s all you got is fifty stinkin’ cents?” There was another few pennies and a nickel in the dirt. I knew it was fifty-nine cents exactly. That’s what breakfast would have cost. It was pointless trying to explain to them. “You must have collected over thirty dollars today. Where is it?” “None of your business!” I told him. “I already paid for my papers and that’s all I got left.” “No way,” said Eperson, “You gotta have seven or eight dollars left even after you paid for the papers. Where is it?” I just stood there silently, slightly off balance while Jake’s brother tugged on my shirt and pulled me from side to side.

“Next week we’re going to be here again. Next week you bring all your money. Got it?”

I nodded. Jake’s brother shoved me down into the dirt. He held fast to the collar of my shirt so that as I fell the buttons popped off the front. Laying there in the sand in the coral rock and the stickers I watched them swing their legs over their Vespas and jump on the kickstarters. Jake turned to me while he pushed the aqua green machine off the stand and with a smile he tossed the change straight at me. “Go get some breakfast” he said. As they disappeared I got up and searched through the weeds and dirt and found forty-nine cents. I brushed myself off and got on my bike. I struggled to get the big bike with the huge basket and canvas saddle bags out of the sand and back up onto the blacktop and finished the ride to the Royal Castle.

After parking the bike I went into the air conditioned restaurant and sat on one of the spinning stools at the white and silver counter. The cook was flipping minced onions on the grille next to dozens of small square burgers. The sizzling, steaming smoke was sucked up by the hood over the grille but lots of the smell still reached the spinning seat and me. The saliva was running and I licked my lips. I could taste the eggs and grits and bacon. The mugs for the birch beer were frozen with a crust of ice on them so that when he pulled the sweet root beer out of the tap into the glass it was like ice itself. I put my change on the counter.

“What’ll it be?” said the counter man, though he knew I came in every Saturday and ordered the same thing. “Breakfast. Over easy with grits and bacon. And a mug of birch beer, please.” Then I had to add “but I only got forty-nine cents. Could I owe you the dime?”

I could see his mind working like a mill stone. He absently wiped the same spot on the counter with his greasy white rag. Finally he said, “Naw. Can’t do that. Boss’d be really pissed if I started that kinda stuff.” He just stopped wiping and turned back to the grill. I just sat there no longer salivating. I was starting to shake like I had the chills. Uncontrollable shaking. The smell of the cooking meat became sickening to me. My stomach twisted like a knot. I jumped off of the stool and began for the door. Halfway there I turned and looked back at the cook. I’d worked delivering seventy papers starting at three a.m. and then collected the week’s money at seventy houses. I was hungry. I’d been beaten and robbed and threatened. All this and standing there in the Royal Castle the only thing I could think about was the dime—one stinking dime—that this guy wouldn’t trust me for. I started back towards the counter but before I got there I was seized by a gut-wrenching urge to scream—but it didn’t come out as a scream. It came out as vomit. Empty stomach vomit. The kind that is sour and liquid with nothing much in it but stomach juices. It formed a little puddle on the floor while the last few drops trickled out of my mouth on little spindly strings of saliva. My stomach was cramped. My skin was clammy and cold.

“Hey!” the guy behind the counter was yelling at me. The other people in the place looked at me with hate in their eyes. I just turned and walked out the door to my bike.

I pushed it off the sidewalk onto the black parking lot, jumped on and rode away.

Ducati Love

This guy, Joel, died, I am told in a phone call from Faith this afternoon. He had been sick and now she tells me he is dead. I only remember him from one occasion…no two, and if those two short meetings are any indication of his total character, I would have to conclude that he was a really nice guy.

The first time I met him was at a “Brotherhood” meeting that we had in Barry Sanel’s garage. “Barry Shows Us His Toys”, would have been a great title of the theme of the evening, because that is just what he did. The tour included his motorcycles and his riding mower that was covered with a sheetmetal cabin that made it look like a steam locomotive, and the old muscle car he has owned since he was 17. He showed us a slideshow of pictures of his motorcycle racing and Team —the yellow and brown, "Smokin’ Sanel Brothers YOO-HOO Motorbike Racers. He handed out YOO-HOOs and other soft drinks and we sat in his garage and shot the shit.

It was fun.

Joel was there. He was not a member of the brotherhood or, for that matter, the Temple. He came because Jerry (I think) knew he liked motorcycles and invited Joel to come to the ‘party’. Joel seemed to have a good time and I liked him immediately. We talked about riding and our bikes and when He told me about the Ducati he rode, I admitted that I had never ridden a Ducati. Without a bit of hesitation he invited me to go for a ride. We met a week or two later and when I got to his house He showed me his two, red, Ducati motor bikes, one of which he insisted I ride. I left my black F-650 and rode this sleek, fire-engine red, performance bike instead. What a thrill. When I got back from tearing up the back roads of Bear Mountain state park with this scalpel of a motorcycle and I got on my single cylinder Swiss Army Bike I felt as if I were riding on Barry’s riding mower made to look like a choo-choo train. It was all fun for both Joel and I. I admit that I don’t think I ever saw him again. I think of that ride all the time.

So here is to a Nice Guy! In my mind he’s riding a hot bike some great place now. The weather is grand and the roads are clean and curvy. Oh! And I hope it’s a red bike. He liked red.

I repent!
I give up my wicked ways.
I will illustrate everything I write
without benefit of wealth.
Just to show I've really changed,
I took this photograph myself!
(all rights reserved,
not to be used without permission.
Copyright
Patented
Cursed
A pox on all who use this
artistic representation
without paying me first
a million scadzillion dollars.)

Steal From Me

(for Joel-who wanted to know where the picture came from.)

Steal from me
The ideas are not mine
They are in my head
And gone
Quickly if I don’t use them,
Wisely,
And fast,
Than they are gone and past.
Or stuck in clay
Through heat
And under paint
In either case
Away.

Steal them from me
There are a million more out there.
Like fruit
In the air
To be picked
Or to fall through time
To other fertile soil.

I have food
And I am not worried
That it will run out
On the road.
I am never lost
It is only at the edge of sleep
Once each day
That I confront my weaknesses
And blink before it becomes light.
Steal from me—
It is alright.

A See-Thru Floor in Manahattan

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The white man

Stands in front of the crowd

His voice it is weak-

He used to be loud.

He used to be nervous-

but now he is proud.

He wasn’t welcome before

But now he’s allowed

Because the times they are a changing.

If he can sing

The same song again

And we can ovate him

With a great big amen

I shouldn’t be bashful

To post an old poem

So here comes a memory

Here comes a thought

From the past

From the heart

From a moody morning

Before the job

Did start.

_________________________________

A See-Thru Floor in Manhattan

White clouds of steam wave from the tops of the buildings

Dark crowds of people stream from Grand Central below.

Without looking up they march to the light and the cross walk

through the maze of puddles and piles of snow.

The sine wave of cycles of boom and recession

have altered the buildings and painted their faces

and girdled their intentions

with marble and glass

and cast iron corners

protecting the brickwork

are scared and twisted

from a million containers of trash

pushed out their ass.

Things fall off of the tops of the buildings

tumble to the sidewalk and kill people below.

Playing the odds on the concrete roulette wheel

the future is getting where you’ve got to go.

The tourists look up while God looks down

He has set gargoyles and fairies

eggs and darts

arrows and railings

lions and stars

in the heads of young men

wearing seersucker suits

and tortoise shell glasses

with ‘T’ square and compass

and HB pencils

sketching thoughtless angles of perspective

narrow, lip-sync, tracing paper reflection

for the most part ingenuous imitation

occasional grand theft

thrown in--

Look up past the third story

of most of these buildings

that is where today ends

and history begins.

In a pasture muck deep

throw in garbage and stones

to dry up the creek

wall in the space where the trees did bend

and the deer trails wound

and the burghers discarded

the slaves’

flesh and bones.

Before the winter angels blow

and the garden is brown

a stone foundation must be laid down

and a corn crib fashioned from

the corpse of the trees.

Mortar and brick

limestone and marble

neon and glass

paint and mirror.

Cover the clapboard with mortar and brick

and the brick with limestone from Indiana

and the limestone with marble from Tennessee

and the marble

with glass and mirror and neon tube

from Italy and Japan

the hard edge of history

dressing itself

before the unblinking eyes

of the man on the street.