Two Little Devils
December 15, 2020 § Leave a comment
For several years my wife and I released a Christmas video for family and friends who are scattered all over the globe. I wrote the music for each and recorded the music in my home studio. We also filmed and produced the videos in our tiny apartment or on location in the wild streets of Queens.
“Two Little Devils at Christmas” is an exception. Way back in 2014 we wanted to do something slick so we hired a professional band, went into an actual recording studio and called in a film crew.
A lot of folks were disappointed that we didn’t have puppets but I was happy with the results. For the first time I didn’t have to worry about production, creating a blackout or being arrested for not having a permit.
We will return to the DYI format in 2021 if Christmas doesn’t get canceled but for now please enjoy living in the past with me for Auld Lang Syne. I’m the cute one playing the bass.
Lucky 2020
November 13, 2020 § 1 Comment
Most everyone who reads this post had a terrible 2020. We couldn’t travel and lost those vacation deposits. We were isolated at home like political prisoners under house arrest. Visits to family and friends were highly curtailed. Worse, maybe you knew someone who passed because of all this. I can’t speak to your neck of the woods but New York city is not much without its bars, restaurants, museums, movie theaters, concerts and impulse clothing purchases.
Frankly, it doesn’t do any good to contribute to the babel of of discontent. So, in an effort to be affirmative, hopefully without coming across as sappy, I offer you a post that focuses on the positive things that happened to me in this dreadful year.
I survived skin cancer and a brain tumor all during a pandemic while the city of New York deteriorated into crime, chaos and sorrow. I endured three surgeries, four MRIs, daily radiation therapy and countless lab and doctor visits. If I did not have good insurance I would be buried in debt for the rest of my natural life, no matter how long I live on. My odds for a successful recovery were greatly increased just by my zip code and the access I have to the best health care in the whole world.
2020 is the Year of the Rat in the Chinese horoscope. Specifically, 2020 is the year of the Metal Rat. (No, not that one). Most of us in the West would consider a rat to be a fitting representative for a nasty 365 days but The Rat has a different meaning in Chinese culture. According to what I have gleaned from the interwebs, The Rat is “resourceful” and the Metal Rat, moreover, is “strong, determined, and resolute.”
The article above goes on to describe how the other signs will fair in 2020. Sheep like me will “be able to sail through 2020 with minimal problems.” I wouldn’t go that far (I kinda got sheared, ha! ha!) but I did lucky, like lotto winner lucky.
Even if you weren’t as fortunate as me, I hope you are alright and I urge you to be like a Metal Rat and get through the rest of the next month and half in one piece. See you in 2021 or, if you prefer, the Year of the Ox.
Zandvoort Storm
February 12, 2020 § Leave a comment
Nature paints a violent portrait
In a thick impasto of worried gray, bruised maroon, frigid blue
Gulls get stuck in the oil
Invisible wind punishes the sea grass
And blows sand onto the canvas
Blending with the palette’s tortured colors
Half a tube of titanium is squeezed
To frost the curling surf
Endless coils of leaden thunder break
In silence behind rain distorted glass
The stormy world melts with a Van Gogh eye
Psittacine Standup
December 4, 2019 § Leave a comment
I bought myself a parrot
A kaleidoscope of tropical hues
Bleeding from jungle flowers
I tried to teach her to talk:
“Pretty bird”
“Pieces of Eight”
“I love you”
“Scotch and soda”
She just squawks
She flaps her clipped wings
She makes a mess
Yet each time I try,
Each time I try returning her to the pet store,
She talks me out of it
Sleepless
November 12, 2019 § Leave a comment
Whenever I have a bout of insomnia I try to make the best use of my time. I usually try and sort things out that I have been ruminating on during the day. But I never accomplish much. Moreover, it is very dangerous. Although I am conscious of being awake, I think my subconscious is more active than I realize and I can’t form coherent thoughts. You can’t trust what your mind tells you in this state. It must be what a schizophrenic experiences when a shadowy character in his head tells him that nothing good will ever happen and he should go jump off a building. If you make it through the night things always look better in the morning. Even still, insomnia is a miserable way to spend the evening.
Sleepless
Seven shards of moonlight
Shimmer on the sill
Brittle as silver ice
Shaved from a frozen block of midnight
Ghosts pace their cells
Behind glowing bars
Sliced from brutal street lamps
By Venetian blades
Never welcome 3 A.M.
Or shake her sable hand
She tricks you into talking
In dark, spinning circles while she snores to mock you
Four turns five in nine chimes
Wood grain drinks the melting ice, ghosts go free
The Angel of Dawn descends
And slowly stretches out on the carpet
Prayer for Rain
October 31, 2019 § Leave a comment
I compose a humble prayer for rain
The paper drinks my ballpoint dry
Below a sheet of baking tin
In the steaming thicket locusts drone
Like monks they murmur
Invocations for a cool shower?
Maybe.
Who knows what locusts want.
Food, obviously
Locusts are always hungry
“They will cry out with shouts of victory”
A plague of drought descended earlier
It’s too too late for supper
Our crops wither
Down the highway rolls the swarm
Gnawing tires whine and hum
Off to McDonald’s or the markets?
Perhaps.
God knows what humans do.
I check my empty refrigerator again
The air is cool like a cloudless sky
Above a sheet of baking tin
My prayer for rain remains unanswered
Bottle Rocket Requiem
September 6, 2019 § Leave a comment
You were
Born with
Flames in your eyes
Showers
Of sparks
Firecracker surprise
Black gunpowder, short fuse
Built for beauty, for speed
Waiting to go up in smoke
One spark is all
You needed
A glass
Bottle to be strong
Countdown
Lift off
Into oblivion
Wake up you lazy Guardians
Will you sleep too through this blast?
Prepare a room in Father’s house
Here comes another bottle rocket
Faster
Than life
Exploding into night
Ashen Cross
March 6, 2019 § Leave a comment
When I first met Bernard I thought, judging from the dark smudge on his forehead, that I had missed Ash Wednesday. And for an instant I found myself in that terrifying world of dementia, an ugly, swirling world of lost moments and strangers with strange voices, a world where my mother had been spending more and more her time. The strong grip of Bernard’s handshake quickly restored my senses and transformed the dark, liturgical blemish into some sort of birthmark with irregular edges.
Bernard dealt in antiquities not antiques, my sister had joked, but antiquities; he worked in the admissions office of Oak Grove Retirement Community helping elderly clients in their transition from independence to assisted living.
He arrived on the front porch of the house in which I grew up and was preparing to sell with a briefcase full of brochures and paperwork. I invited him in and led the way to the sun room in back of the house through a maze of packed boxes and furniture wrapped in stretch film and moving blankets. I made him comfortable and went to the kitchen to pour coffee.
I returned to find Bernard sitting in front of documents neatly spread out on mother’s prized glass-topped table presumably in the order in which they were to be presented. It was a beautiful day and the sun streaming in through the windows reflected brightly off the gloss of an Oak Grove pamphlet.
Bernard tapped lightly on the table’s surface, “In my home country, it is popular with tourists to go for an excursion in a glass-bottomed boat to see the coral reefs and colorful fish without the need for diving.”
I stared through the table and tried to imagine the beauty of Neptune’s aquatic kingdom but could only see a tile floor in desperate need of sweeping. I looked back up at Bernard’s beaming smile as if he was pleased to share a wonder with me.
“This process I know is very difficult but I will help you and your family through it,” he assured me while unfolding some of the community’s literature and sliding it under my nose like a menu.
For many years after my father had died mother continued on with the diurnal routines of the retired: gardening, church, choir, volunteering for charity work. If during this time she had experienced episodes brought about by diminished cognizance it is not certain.
However, one afternoon she drove her Lincoln through the Buchanan’s boxwood hedge and onto the front lawn because she claimed it was the parking lot of her podiatrist’s office. This embarrassing event culminated with a visit to a neurologist who gave us a grim diagnosis.
Once dependent on others for transportation her activities dropped off. My sister and I took turns getting her to church, although a few mornings I would arrive at the house to find her still in bed. And once, on a Friday evening during a routine check-in, I found her waiting by the door dressed in her Sunday best and fuming that we would be late for the processional hymn.
Dick Dillon, organist and choir director, called me at work to say mother was no longer able to read the music on the page and insisted on singing an old show tune.
The worst of it came one night when a frantic message from my sister summonsed me over to mother’s. When I let myself in she called to me from the darkened sun room where she had taken refuge on a chaise lounge. The windows around her were like slabs of slick onyx. She had pulled her sweater around knees like a teenager curled into a ball of insecurity and her eyes were puffy and red. She had raided my stash of beer that I kept in a mini-fridge in the garage and two empty cans were on the floor beside her.
Before I sat down I asked if I needed to get a beer for myself before she told what had happened.
That night, while preparing for bed, mother had spoken to a woman in the bathroom mirror. That woman had told her she was going to die and be judged for terrible sins.
“That’s what mom said,” my sister told me in a quavering voice, ‘she pointed into the mirror and said it just like that.”
She apologized for drinking my beer but that she desperately needed something to soothe her nerves and that the first one tasted so good she had another.
“This is all very natural,” Bernard reassured me while we went over the benefits and amenities of Oak Grove before moving on to the legal documents. “Your mother will have the best of care and be with people of her generation. That will be fun for her. And don’t worry, with the house sold there will be plenty of funds to cover expenses.”
While Bernard spoke and shuffled papers I gazed at his birthmark. I wanted to see it once again as an ashen cross.
Red
January 3, 2019 § Leave a comment
We know how Red feels
Warm
The more it is touched
Hot even
Inflamed
But how does Red taste?
Like blood? The blood of Christ?
Wine then.
Ruby Bordeaux with a ribeye
Seared blue
Red and blue coalesce into luxurious purple
The palatine shade of sovereign indulgence
Red meat on the bone and exclusive vintages
The color of a pulsing vein
Engorged with warm, hot, inflamed
Red