The Cemetery Cries

Greetings once again from the Quality Inn, Holland, Ohio, a place (and experience) I see as a composite of America in the nearing end of the first one/fifth of this our American 21st century.  The din of the freeway dominates my right ear and the electrical vibration emanating from the room refrigerator irritates my left.  Is inner peace possible when pervasive noise is our modern 24 hour soundtrack, our brains not for a second allowed uninterrupted silence?  With our brains now in a desensitized and mechanized generated fog, is it no wonder we all accept the unacceptable, somehow not noticing all the disposable Styrofoam plates and plastic knives, forks, spoons and cups tossed in to the motel trash bins, bound up in plastic bags and taken away to a ten thousand year slumber in a local landfill.

Passing the usual array of breakfast diners to fill my teacup I note 7 out of 10 are overweight, some grossly, their Styrofoam plates piled with fried eggs and sausages.  When complimentary breakfasts are not compatible to what we truly require we become misshapen creatures, fattened for our impending cultural slaughter called our daily lives zooming down expressways to no important destination ever.

Bleak is the moment and depressing is the day, taking us to sleep after eight hours of ever so entertaining television.  If this is what we have gained after 242 years of independence from the British, I say blood was shed for nothing, and would it be any worse bowing allegiance to an unworthy Queen?  Why everyone instead could have their own barking Pembroke corgi guiding them around the manicured suburban landscape to the Baskin-Robbins and a hot fudge sundae, how tasteful a treat it would be, and ending in a half-rhyme, Lewis Carroll finding it ever so funny.  But perhaps not.

Four Poems


                                                         The Cemetery Cries


                                     Previously not noticing that Plot 33, my mother's section,

                                              is one large teardrop drawn upon the

                                       cemetery map, I  imagine moisture and sorrow pooling

                                         over a rough, yellowed lawn mourning my mother

                                                      and also her mother

                                               but not their husbands, no,

                                                                       undeserving of tears,

                                                        unworthy

                                            of a feminine hand
                                                                   
                                                                            or  caressing touch.


                                                      Years of Looking (and Reading)


                                     In 1959 I understood my parents were poor observers,
                                     realizing it was up to me to comprehend and watch;

                                    and wandering through the museum today I came upon a
                                    prominently placed portrait and thought "by Gainsborough,"

                                    and it was.   A few galleries down a pastel, horizontally barred
                                    painting suggested "Agnes Martin, and indeed it was she,

                                    her muted vision distinctive.   And exiting through the east door
                                    three trees in a short row hinted plane trees, and amazingly they

                                    cheered "Yes we are!"  excited someone finally taking time to
                                    notice. 


                                                                     Repetition 

                                   
                                                   Too often when I am ready to write

                                                   I am not, fatigued to the point

                                                   I feel anything and all to be gibberish,

                                                   a theoretical and incomplete me

                                                   guessing each word and sentence

                                                   instead of accurate confirmation

                                                   and style gracing the page.


                                              Life (and awake when I'd rather be asleep)


                                            Unless I said, as I am saying, that I remain awake
                                            in a motel room wishing I wasn't, no one would ever
                                            know nor care that instead of sleep I am finishing

                                           a not very good Joseph Conrad short story,
                                           and between reading local tidbits from the Toledo
                                           Blade, I start Virginia Woolf's second novel,

                                           the opening paragraphs describing a London tea party,
                                           which explains why I am awake, no, not a party but too
                                           much tea, five cups of tea the source, the cause to why

                                           I am sitting in bed writing during these early hours.



A New York Times online invitation to comment

In today's May 1st, 2018 edition, there is an extensive article entitled:

"A Taxi Driver Took His Own Life.  His Family Blames Uber's Influence"

written by Emma Fitzsimmons.  I recommend that every cabbie upon the face of our taxi earth read it.  And contained in the online version is an invitation (and section) where you the cabbie can tell the world what your experience is.  I believe this is unprecedented so I encourage all of you to take up the NY Times on their offer and tell the world your very personal and particular taxi reality.  It is your opportunity to educate, to be the taxi teacher.  By doing this, you will be assisting all of us in our daily struggle to survive in this the Age of Uber.