Hi friends! I want to report that my new book, Further Collected Poems, is already out from Xlibris. It is available from Amazon and B&N. I will be going to an international book fair in Miami in November to promote the book, and my website should open on November 1. I am also in the process of learning to drive for the first time ever. Very exciting!

I want to share a few poems I wrote this year so far.

ON THE OTHER SIDE

On the other side of death

She still plots the ruin

Of the hated one, whose crimes

She rehearses now without sleep.

The beauty, the confounding luck,

The mellow tone of voice

That persuades any male –

And worst of all, the failure

To notice the other crouching

Nearby, longing for a few crumbs

Of attention and sympathy.

And when she finally comes,

Limping, wrinkled, unable to speak

At all, will it really matter?

Something will urge her forward,

And she will embrace her warmly,

Gazing into her face, and laughing.

THE FINAL SOLUTION

No one liked me where I came from

And then I found a friend called gun

I bought it and carried it out in the woods

I practiced until I could shoot big birds

Then little birds and then just a dot

On a target I placed in a distant spot

And there the faces of sneering kids

And teachers who flunked me no longer hid.

I went to a fair and found me the kind

Of weapon that really blew my mind

And saved up my money and bought a few

With all the bullets I wanted to do.

And just where achievement’s flags unfurl

I’m going to go in and blow up my world,

Then turn the gun on myself so they never

Can touch me before my miseries sever.

And after that for years and years

People will speak of me with tears

For the infamous day when I was a star,

As none of those genius nerds ever are.

All the nice children to heaven are sent,

And I’m more important than the President.

MAN DOWSING FOR GOLD

A man walks slowly on grass

With a heavy rod in hand,

Awaiting the tug on his wrist,

The moment his blood will thrill.

He is sad, for the day is sunny,

The thrush tweedles in the bush,

And children squeal with excitement

By the seesaw and the side,

But he goes on, devoted

To his quest – it is all he does,

Now that he is retired,

The wife and children gone.

Occasionally he stops

To rest on a bench and drink

The soda he brought in a bag;

Then he resumes, dreaming

That one discovery.

And if he were to find

The gold he searches for,

More troubles would ensue

Than he can now imagine,

As he makes his harmless way

On grass along the curb

In the City, where every inch

Was claimed so long ago.

+

Hi, friends. I have some great news. My second collection of poetry is being published by Xlibris next year. In fact, it will come out on my 70th birthday. Meanwhile, I am continuing to generate new things. Here's a story from Bay Ridge Tales. Hope you enjoy it.

DONNA BELLEVILLE

She rounded the corner with her black, colorful cane, saw Jennifer, and smiled. “Well, I haven’t seen you for a while. Where are you going this fine day?”

“It really is. I’m meeting someone to go rowing in Central Park.”

“That sounds like fun. I’m visiting my friend in Crown Heights, we’ll take in a furniture and jewelry show at the Brooklyn Museum. Will you be taking the express bus?”

“No, the B16. They’re messing up the east side with some a-thon, so we have to go in from the west. And since there’s no elevator around here, I’m getting the train at Prospect Park.”

A jay called out, then flew across the street and into an evergreen tree by the coops where the bus stop was. His blue feathers contrasted with the green of the needles. They were silent a while, looking across the street to where the river sparkled in spring sunlight, which turned it a baby blue color. Trees were budding, and sparrows kept up a constant chatter in the bushes by the coops.

A bald man went by with a little white dog on a leash, a suit in a plastic bag over his shoulder, and a cell phone in his other cheek.

“Hi Eddie,” the lady said, waving to get his attention.

“Hi Donna,” he responded, “you’re looking fabulous as always.”

“So are you, may I say. How’s Buster?”

“Roof!” said the dog, coming up to snuffle her shoes.

Jen moved away; she didn’t like dogs.

Donna petted Buster and cooed over him while Eddie chatted on the phone. Then Eddie said he had to get home, and he and Buster passed on.

“It’s funny, I shudder when I see dry cleaning. I grew up in an apartment over a dry cleaner. It had the strangest smell. The vent could be very noisy. And it created water conditions. The tenants sued, and got a break in the rent, but we had to sign a health waiver.”

After a few more minutes, Jen went to look at the schedule. “The bus is ten minutes late,” she announced.

A young woman with a stroller arrived and stood next to her and began using her phone to find out where the bus was. She didn’t leave, so Jen figured it was coming soon.

When the B16 arrived, the air conditioning had been activated. “Hi Joe,” said Donna brightly. “Are we going to the North Pole today?”

The bus driver groaned. “They set it at Cropsey. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

The back of the bus was already half full of teens in team uniforms; several elderly Oriental people got on at the nursing home in what looked like church clothes. More teens came in at 86^th Street near the high school. There were also shoppers, two of them with aides. On other trips, Jen and Donna had single seats on the right, but now they sat together in a two seat.

“Eddie is such a dear,” Donna said. “He’s from the old days – introduced himself the day I moved in, runs over to hold the door, helps with my bags. The new owners aren’t like that. They’re like shadows in the night.”

“I know what you mean,” said Jen. “We’ve been here 20 years and still don’t know any of the long time residents. As for the others, we just about say hello and they move out again.”

The bus crawled to McKinley Park, through Chinatown and into Borough Park, with an almost complete change of passengers. It turned a corner and jerked to a halt; the doors opened, and the access ramp lifted and went down. In came a fragile, white haired, pale woman, clutching her bulky walker. The front seats were now full of young adults, as were the single disabled priority seats. No one moved.

“Can someone please let this lady sit down?” Joe called out wearily. Finally he stopped the bus.

Then a white haired man in a two seat moved over to the window, and the frail lady sat on the outside, awkwardly holding onto her walker. The first time the bus jerked to a stop, the walker got out of her hands and bumped the knee of the young man across the aisle, who told her it was all right, and held the walker for her until she was ready to leave.

“Well, I never,” said Donna.

That was the start of it.

“In the old days, this would never have happened,” said Donna. She nodded vigorously several times, and her dangling earrings bobbed up and down. Her curly gray hair was cut short all over her long head, and her ears seemed almost as long as her head. “Why, I remember once I gave a smart answer to my grandpa, and my mother called out, “Donna Belleville!” Then she slapped me so hard it knocked me to the ground. I got up crying, and my brain was spinning, but nobody paid me any attention. I learned my lesson that day.”

For a minute, Donna was silent, and everyone was relieved. Then she started again. “My mother always told me to respect my elders. In those days, everyone was polite. It was yes sir, yes mam. You obeyed the teacher, the police, the boss. There’s no respect today. The idea that an elderly person would be standing while I was sitting – it wouldn’t enter my head. We’re less civilized than the savages now. They respect their elders.”

Again she stopped, but a dangerous flush had spread over her made up cheeks; her lips trembled. “And how can they learn anything in school?” she demanded in a higher key. “Worried that another student will assault them or do something to the teacher? Worried that they’ll be attacked in the bathroom? How can anyone teach? Worried about a riot in class or being shot or beaten up? Worried about being sued because a child went out in the hall and was raped? There’s no discipline today.”

Joe glanced at Donna in his mirror. The kid in front of them turned up the music on his phone. A woman in the back of the bus made a call. “I’m getting by the cemetery now,” she said loudly. Several people commented on the weather. Jen watched a hawk circle in the sky over the southern tip of Green-wood; she took out a bus schedule and began to calculate when she might be getting the B16 home. Her heart throbbed because she thought Donna might turn on her. Instead, Donna looked straight ahead and continued her dissertation.

At Crooke Avenue, Donna rang, got up a little unsteadily, and made her way to the back door. She touched the yellow tape, and the door opened for her. The voice of the bus told everyone the door was opening and closing. Briefly, all was quiet. The white haired man, whose disabled partner had departed long ago, took a hankie out of his trouser pocket and mopped his forehead. The phone lady hung up and gave a loud sigh. Two teenage girls in plaid skirts giggled.

Jen soon had a new seat mate, who put on make-up, smelled of coconut, and snapped her chewing gum at regular intervals. But Donna, at least, was in the hands of her friend, and the Brooklyn Museum.

Love, Barbara

Hi Friends.
Schools are the main industry in my neighborhood of Bay Ridge, and there are all sorts of wonderful opportunities for children and youth to take part in sports, arts, charity and so on. There's ballet for kids, art for kids, poetry for kids. However, there is not much for adults. Apparently we grow up and then we make money and that's it. Obviously, I do not agree. However, when you go to the few poetry readings there are, it seems they have a lot of smut, hostility, self-pity, money and drunkenness. Is that what "adult" means - as in pornography? I think not. I may try to work out some problems in verse and stories, but always have in mind the desire to enhance, to seek beauty and inspiration. "Without vision, the people perish." This does not mean there is no struggle or pain, obviously.

I want to share a few poems from my manuscript for Further Collected Poems, which I hope to publish soon.

CUPPING WATER

Having no cup, I used

My hands, holding the palms

Even, the fingers bent

A little, tightly joined,

Squeezing out all the air.

Water from the spigot

Beaded with cold held fast,

As four times I bent down

To suck it like a bird.

My eyes reflected there;

Even the sun glanced in.

Now, the old saying false,

What else is possible?

THE MIRACLE WORKER

First I heard the unearthly screech and growl

Of an animal whose name I did not know,

And ran into the living room alarmed,

To hear my husband say it was the film.

It was Helen Keller, beautiful in a white dress,

Terrifying in her rage and despair, the face

Distorted out of human recognition.

There was the famous bull fight at dinner

With the teacher who would not give up, though the father

Wanted to stay and have an adult conversation.

Half blind, seeing something no one

Could imagine, driven by nightmare memories

And a hope that was almost insane, Anne Sullivan

Had landed. The family resisted her in vain.

Her language of hands brought light to the child.

Walls of order and peace were built around her.

In the end, the memory of water broke the shell;

The deaf and blind found language, and could speak

And therefore love, and Anne had found a home.

And so it continued, everyone still deaf,

Blind, angry, groping in radiant dark,

Falling and misunderstanding each other,

As people do in three dimensional color.

And where is the Sullivan to train my hands?

BODY

Sacred conveyance in which I travel, heedless

Of your miraculous design and delicacy

(World of balance and cooperation, impulses and slow

Unseen processes, world of tiny battles that maintain

My precarious well-being, object of love and solicitude

To the One who alone made you, spinning water and clay

And fusing bits of molecules without touching anything,

Infusing the spark of life, the nuance of intelligence, into

The coils of the brain, connecting the neurons

In the spine, forming the cones behind the eyes,

The winding ways of the cochlea, the tongue’s muscle

And taste buds, the innards with their acids and cilia,

Shaping the feet with their nails and heels),

How am I so angry when I must deal with you,

Feel pain, and be at times preoccupied with some aspect

Of you that is imperfect, when I must go for help

And submit your holy precincts to the search

Of strangers at a tremendous loss of time?

There is not an atom of you that is not also myself.

And when we are parted it will be a tremendous rending,

An unbearable blast that tears trees out of the earth

And brings darkness at midday, and sends this poor little soul

Naked and screaming into the universe, to be enfolded

In the Original Hands and straightened and expanded

And connected, made ready for you, who will then be rid

Of all we have done to you from before the beginning.

Until then, speak to this terrified tyrant inside you.

I will try to listen.

Love, Barbara