The Beautiful and Magnificent Theory of Everything

I was watching TV
The other night
When I came across
A program on NOVA
Marvelously entitled
The Theory of Everything
That purported to explain
The mystery of
String Theory
In layman's terms
Of course
I was intrigued

String Theory
In case you do not know
Just happens to be
The underlying theory
Of Quantum physics
That purports to explain
How the laws of Nature
Operate on the sub-atomic level

This is the theory that
So eluded Albert Einstein
As he pursued his great dream
Of finding a unified theory of everything
One set of beautiful and elegant
Mathematical equations that would
Ultimately explain the natural world as
We all perceive it to be

Unfortunately
Albert Einstein
Passed away
Before he could
Figure it all out
But fortunately
For the rest of us
Two dedicated scientists
Named John Schwarz and Joel Scherk
(Standing,to be sure
On the giant shoulders of
Scores of other forerunner scholars
Too numerous to mention here)
Came to Einstein’s rescue
By proving the validity of
String Theory as the ultimate
Explanation for how matter
Behaves at the sub-atomic level

As if this achievement wasn’t enough
Messieurs Schwarz and Scherk
Were able to solve
The mathematical equations
To prove that String Theory
Really did have legs

I do not pretend to understand it all
But I sure can appreciate
The underlying beauty and logic
Of it all
One beautiful and elegant
Theory of Everything

Some skeptics continue to say
So what?
What earthly good does it do
For humans to understand
How to marry
Relativity with Quantum physics
Even if the grand theory
Proposed by Schwarz and Scherk
Can ultimately be proven
To be true?
And what about
God’s role in all of this?
Does the Theory of Everything
Prove once and for all
That God is dead?
Wasn’t it Stephen Hawkins
Himself who said that
All that was needed to replace God
Was the Theory of Gravity?

I do not see it that way
Rather than replacing God
I believe that
The Theory of Everything
Restores God to his rightful role as
The grand conductor
Of the great cosmic symphony
That is the underlying basis for the
Very existence of String Theory itself

I remember also
Two other great scientists
By the names of Dr. Carl Sagan
(Author of the book and
TV series Cosmos)
And Dr. Jacob Bronowski
(HBO’s host of the popular TV Series
Called The Ascent of Man)
Two wonderful public interpreters
Of the wonders of scientific discovery
Both of whom sadly died before
The Grand Theory of Everything
Could be considered to be
Proven scientifically
But how they would have loved it!

If there is any justice
Left in creation
Albert Einstein
Carl Sagan
And Jacob Bronowski
Must all have front row seats
To the greatest
Cosmic concert of all time
So as to enable them
And all of the rest of us
To finally be able to hear
With crystal clear clarity
What the great
Greek philosopher
Pythagoras
Once called
The Magical Music of the Spheres

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011

And Down Goes Frazier!

And Down Goes Frazier!
(RIP- Joe Frazier
1/12/1944 – 11/08/2011)

Smokin Joe Frazier
Beat Muhammad Ali
In the year 1975
In what was billed as
The Fight of the Century
In the fight they called
The Thrilla in Manila
It was a fight
That will long be seared
Into the memory
Of boxing history

For 15 rounds
Frazier and Ali
Battled each other
Nearly to the death
Trading punches
In a fever of fervor
That seemed unimaginable
Among heavyweights
Up until that time

At one time during the fight
Ali told Frazier
“They told me that Joe Frazier was through”
“They lied”, said Frazier,
Before hitting Ali with a
Devastating left hook

That night
Smokin Joe became
The Heavyweight Champion of the World
And a great one at that
Ali would say as much
After Frazier knocked him down
In the 15th round to become
The first man to beat Muhammad Ali

Smokin Joe’s reign
As heavyweight champion
Lasted only four fights
Before he ran into an
Even more fearsome slugger
Than himself
George Foreman

George Foreman
Responded to Frazier’s
Constant attack
By dropping him
To the canvas
Three times
In the first round
And three more times
In the second
Before their 1973
Fight in Jamaica
Was waved to a close

And then
Smokin Joe spent
The rest of his life
Trying to fight his way
Out of Ali’s shadow

Smokin Joe Frazier
Should always
Be remembered
As one of the
Greatest fighters
Of all time because
He never compromised
His good name
And he always gave
100 percent in the ring

Rest assured
Smokin Joe
That you will always
Be missed
Whether we ever
Get around to building you
Your well deserved statue
Or not

And Joe
If you ever get around
To reading this poem
Up there
In boxer’s Heaven
I sincerely hope
That it makes you smile

Jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011

Yetta's Poem

You can’t really
Blame my sister Yetta
For wanting to make
Her life better

Like the rest of us
She was born
Into the same poverty
Stricken family
That literally did
Not have a pot
To piss in

Our family was always so poor
That Yetta could not afford
Any of the little luxuries of life
That a young girl needs and desires

The small things in life
Were denied to her
Things like new clothes
And a new pair of shoes or
A proper haircut
She had no jewelry box full of
Shining baubles or
Bits of costume jewelry
To offset her
Feminine side

So Yetta rebelled
Against the petty restrictions
And constrictions
That her sickly father
And old world mother
Could still impose

Her rebellion took the form
Of dating gentiles
During her teen years
Over the objections of her parents
And siblings
Not me
I was still in diapers
Being totally ignored
By my parents
Who would leave me
In my crib for hours
Until I started screaming
And banging my head
Against the wall
In a pitiful effort
To get a little attention

Yetta was desperate
To get away from the family
And from the family’s
Dour financial condition

One day
Yetta met the man of her dreams
While sunning herself
On the beach
He was Italian American
His name was Raymond
He was a Korean War veteran
From New York’s
Lower East side

Ray was a few years her senior
And he was smitten
With the young lady
Whose good looks
Reminded some of a young
Elizabeth Taylor
Good for Yetta
Good for Ray

When Yetta announced
That she and Raymond
Were to be married
The whole family
Went into a tizzy

So serious was the situation
That my older brother Irwin
Had to fly down to Miami
To see what he could do
To talk some sense into
His younger sister

Me and my older niece Carol
Were busy playing
In the motel court yard
When Carol looked up
And noticed
That her uncle Irwin
(Who was my older brother as well)
Had come for a surprise visit

Great I thought
Maybe he was also coming
To rescue me
From my motel court yard hell
I was glad to see him and
I rushed to greet him
But he just breezed on by
Not stopping to say so much
As hello

I have no idea
What happened after
That brief encounter
Except that Yetta and Raymond
Eloped and got married
And Irwin flew back to NYC
And I was still stuck in
Motel court yard hell
For the foreseeable future

Some time prior
To Yetta’s kismet
Encounter with her
Knight in shining armor
She and my mother
Were having another one
Of their classic arguments
Over who knows what

Tell momma to go to hell
Said Yetta trying to
Win me over to her side
Tell momma to drop dead

Well I was not about
To take part in any of that
So I tried to amuse myself
By playing with a razor
That Yetta had carelessly
Left in the sink
After shaving her legs

Not thinking
I took hold of the razor
With my open hand
And two seconds later
My thumb was gushing
Buckets of blood

My mother tried to stem
The flow of blood
By applying pressure
To the open wound
But the blood
Continued to flow

I don’t want to die momma
I screamed hysterically
Petrified at the sight
Of my own blood
Filling the porcelain
Sink basin
Momma I don’t want to die

Finally the blood flow eased
And the situation was under control
And I was relieved to know
That I was not going to die after all
Or else I would not have lived
Long enough
To have been able
To have written this poem

And I have to say
That was a great relief to me

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011

In The Barrels

When I was in my junior year at
Hamilton College
I had already begun
To regard myself as
Some sort of literary genius
So that when the chance
Presented itself to show case
My writing talents
By way of a college talent show contest
That involved the writing, directing and
Full scale production
Of an original play
Whether it was in one act or three
I immediately sat down at my typewriter
To take advantage of the sound
Of opportunity
Knocking at my door

I considered the challenge to be
Right up my alley
Never doubting for a minute
That my play would be among the
Top tier that would
Ultimately make the
Final selection

I had an idea for a three act play
That I would call
In The Barrels
Which was a reference
To an oft repeated phrase
That my deceased mother
Would often say in response
To my constant queries
As to why we were so poor

All of our good stuff
She would wistfully
And sadly explain
(Our good furniture
Our good clothes
Our good silverware)
Were in the barrels
A phrase that meant
That all of our more valuable
Belongings
Had been placed in
Supposedly temporary storage
In some far out of the way
Godforsaken warehouse
Where all such family valuables
From people who had been previously
Dispossessed of their homes and property
Were shipped
Usually as a last resort
For one reason or another
But mostly because
It was during the so-called
Great Depression
And people were being
Evicted from their homes
On a regular basis
And my family
Was one of them
We too were
Evicted from our home
With all of our belongings
And worldly possessions
Tossed out onto the street
For non-payment of the rent
Our possessions ultimately
Ended up in warehouse storage
I.e. In the barrels


That is how the phrase
“In the barrels”
Came to represent the depository
For all of my family’s hopes and dreams

My play was simplicity itself
Based more or less on true events
That happened
When we had been living
In a typical Brooklyn slum neighborhood
In a Neptune avenue postage stamp
Of an apartment
In a run down apartment building
With a slum landlord
And a basement full of
Rats and rodents of all kinds

At night the rats and rodents
Would come out in force
Looking for whatever food
That they could find

These rats were the size of cats
And small dogs and
All of the cats in the neighborhood
Were afraid of these king sized rodents
So the rats had the run of the hallways
And the street alleys
And they ate their way
Through the walls
To gain access
To our apartments
And they even learned to
Thrive and grow fat eating the
Standard rat poisons of the day

Me and my mother
Were still living at
333 Neptune Avenue
When some of these filthy rats
Gained access to a baby
Who had been left unattended
In an adjoining apartment
By her alcoholic and boozing parents

The night that this horrible event
Happened
This innocent child
Was out cold
Sleeping peacefully
In her crib
(There was some speculation
Afterwards by the police
That the child may have been
Given a large amount of
Codeine cough medicine
By her alcoholic parents
In order to keep her quiet)

The story goes that the rats
Crawled into the girl’s crib
Attracted by the smell of
The child’s spilled milk
To eat the cookie crumbs that
Covered the child’s face and hands

And the rats began to eat
The poor baby’s flesh

By the time the child’s
Neglectful parents
Returned home
To find their baby
Covered in blood with
Half of her face chewed off
It was too late to save her

This story tragically
Was not an uncommon occurrence
In typical NYC slum neighborhoods
In the early to late fifties
Where rodent control was deemed to be
A low priority

I wrote this story up
Pretty much as it had
Actually occurred
As the central plot
Of my play
And I gave the play the title of
In The Barrels

The college community
Was suitably impressed
With my skills as a budding
Young playwright

In The Barrels
Received favorable reviews
In the college newspapers
And I received an honorable mention
For my play writing abilities

Naturally I was convinced that
I was destined to be
The next Edward Albee

The play had a short but successful run
In the college playhouse
And I went back to my studies
Basking in the new found respect
That I had received from
Faculty and students alike
Maybe I actually did have
A writing future ahead of me

To make a long poem
Even shorter
After graduation
The original manuscript of
In The Barrels
Became misplaced
much to my embarrassment
and chagrin
And sadly
I did not have
A second copy

Today the play is gone
Vanished into the ether
Lost for all time
To posterity

However
In The Barrels
Does continue to live on
If only in
In the memory
Of its author and
In the memories
Of the those
Privileged few
Who may have attended
The live performances

In The Barrels
Is now lost
In the barrels of space time
Where all such
Lost master pieces
Ultimately
Go to die

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, 2011

Morning On The Serengeti

So come ona my house
My house
My house
So come ona my house
And I’m a gonna give you candy
(Rosemary Clooney)

I am so close
To the finish line now
That I can almost
Taste it
I am not the same person
That I was when
I began this marathon run
To the finish line
In my memory
It seems that
I have been running
All of my life
For the past 64 years
Since birth
Run Forrest! Run!

Running the marathon
Has been all that I can ever
Remember doing
There is an African Proverb
That says that
Whether you are the lion
The jackal
Or the hare
Once the sun comes up
On the Serengeti
You had better be off and running
Running from danger
Running to avoid becoming
Someone else’s dinner
Running to put some food
On your family’s dinner table

After all
Everyone alive
Every living thing
Has a right to eat
A right to having a decent meal
To ward off starvation
Sickness and disease

The universal law of the universe
Is that all must eat or die
All must either kill
Or be killed
In order to eat

If we are too squeamish
To do the needed killing ourselves
We hire surrogates, others
To do the killing for us
In the name of the father
The son
And the Holy Ghost
Either that
Or we all end up as
French toast

So we all have to get up
And out
And we all have to run
Life’s little marathon
And we all have to put up
With the many ironies and obstacles
That block our way

Or not

There are always some
Who may fall by the wayside
Through no fault of their own
Some who are
Either too tired or too weak
Or too sick
Or too physically handicapped
To continue to make the
Enormous effort that is required
To survive this epidemic called
Life
Where the universal law
Seems to be
That all who are born
Must also eventually die

This is a law from which
There is no reprieve
No commutation
No postponement

One may protest
One may attempt to
File an appeal
Asking for
Begging for
An extension or
A continuation

But such an outcome
Is not to be
So it is better to begin life
Without
Delusions
Run Forrest! Run!

Of course
It goes without saying that
Many of the marathoners
Do drop out of the race
For as many reasons
As there are runners

Some drop out because
They just quit
Or because they are simply
Too tired to go on any farther
Or because
They have lost heart!
Some drop out because
They no longer have the strength
Of body or spirit to continue

They are the ones
That society calls
The dropouts
The losers
The expendable ones
The poor
The sick
The halt
The lame
The blind
The ill
The homeless
The mentally ill
The mentally incompetent
The undesirables
The quitters
The hopeless
The addicted
The conflicted

Now it is Midnight on the Serengeti
For many the protective darkness
Provides a much needed chance to rest
For others the cover of night
provides yet another opportunity
To hunt and kill their prey
For others the darkness offers
One last chance to dream

But soon enough
The early morning light returns
And the long night at last
Begins to fade

And already the multitudinous
Flocks of every specie of bird
Of geese
Of duck
Along with scores of flocks of
Long necked pink flamingoes
Numbering in their tens of thousands
Have broken and taken flight

At the first stirrings
Of newly renewed life
The lioness
Hiding in the tall grass
Calls in low bellows
To the bevy of sister cats
And their new born cubs
That make up her pride

She is not yet ready to run
She pants and licks her paws
While her royal mate
Regally lifts his magnificent head
To half yawn
Half roar
To acknowledge
That it is once again morning
On the plains of the Serengeti
Reminding one and all
That the chase for survival
Must begin again

The lionesse watches keenly
As a flock of game hens
Break from cover
And head straight
For the water
Where the hippos and
Water buffalo
And crocodiles
Are waiting to greet them

Some of the wilderbeast
And spotted gazelle
Have already gathered to drink

It is morning on the Serengeti once again
And all of the great marathoners
Of every species
Must again
Get ready
To run
Whether they want to
or not

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011

Pals

When me and Stevie were kids
In Junior High School
We were the best of friends
Buddies
Pals
No matter that one of us
Was richer than the other
Or that one of us
Was so much poorer
Than the other
No matter that one of us
Lived in a private
Gated community
Called Sea Gate
And no matter
That one of us
Lived in a
Public housing project
Called Gravesend houses
We were the best of friends
Buddies
Pals
Even though I envied him
For having both a mother and a father
Me and my mom lived alone
And even though my dad
Came home alive
From being a soldier
In the First World War
He was given a disability discharge
Due to his service connected
War wounds
So to make a long story
Shorter
I always told people
Who wanted to know
That my father
Was killed
In the First World War
I was a little going away present
That dad gave to mom
Just before he died
When I was only ten months old

My mother never complained
At the hand that life had dealt her
She just played out her hand
And bet her chips
And kept her poker face on
As she stared down
Life’s many adversities

I’ll give her credit for this much
She knew when to hold em
And when to fold em
And I often watched her in awe
As she bluffed her way
Out of more than one
Sticky situation after another
Without having even so much
As a pair of deuces in her hand

One afternoon
After school
Stevie and I were goofing off
As usual
Not really sure
What we wanted to do
When out of the blue
Stevie asks me to tackle him
On the concrete pavement
In front of his house
You crazy or what I said
That’s concrete you’re standing on
We would both get skinned
Tackle me he repeated
In a way that was both
A challenge and a dare
Don’t be a pussy he said
Getting personal about the matter
I ain’t no pussy I said
Getting a little testy
About his tone and manner
So tackle me then
What are you afraid of
Nothing I said
Although I thought that
The whole idea was more than dumb
I understood that I was being challenged
But what was this challenge to be
A test of our friendship
A test of loyalty
A test of guts and courage
Over brains and good judgment
All of the above

I guess Stevie finally got tired of waiting
For me to make up my mind
He waved me off with a dismissive
Gesture
Forget you he said
I should have known better than to ask

And with that I laid into him
Going full tilt
Knocking us both to the pavement
Until I could feel the stones
And bits of cut glass
Stinging my now damaged and badly scrapped
Elbows and knees
I could feel trickles of blood
Beginning to ooze out of
Various new bruises

Stevie laughed like crazy
Sonofabitch he said
Pushing me off his hurting body
Not caring that he had been hurt
Or damaged
Or that his clothes got torn

Why should he care after all
He was a rich kid
And he could always buy new clothes
Any time he wanted

Despite the fact that
The palm of my right hand
Was now cut and bleeding
I helped Stevie up
As bits of glass and dirt
Pushed deeper into the skin
As we pulled at each other
Until we were both
Once more fully erect
And standing on our own two feet

Stevie brushed himself off
Still shaking his head
And then he looked at me
Straight in the eye

You know he said
You are one crazy
Sonofabitch he said
While shaking my now
Possibly broken hand

Yeah I said
Disregarding the pain
So what does that make you?

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011

At The Hop

Well, you can swing it you can groove it,
You can really start to move it, at the hop.
Where the jockey is the smoothest,
And the music is the coolest, at the hop.
All the cats and chicks can get their kicks at the hop.
Let's go!
(Eddie and the Dreamers)

I finally did get to go
To the fifth grade school dance
The closest thing to a “Hop”
Fifties style jamboree
That I ever did actually
Get to attend

By the time
The scheduled dance
Rolled around
I was able to scrape up
A borrowed suit
From my next door neighbor
Friend/enemy/nemesis
Melvin Zeldin

The suit was about
Two sizes too big for me
And the trousers had to be folded
And refolded at the cuffs
To make them short enough
For me to wear

I had a recent buzz cut haircut
That made me look like
A refugee from some
Concentration camp
All that was missing
To complete the picture
Was a set of tattooed numbers
On my forearm

My prom date was to be
Judy Frasier
A red haired
Freckle faced
Little bit of Long Island crumpet
Whose face was scrubbed so clean
That her skin actually shined
Like our kitchen linoleum tiled floor

She was all white lace
And starch
I had to buy her a corsage
For her wrist that
Looked exactly like the ones
That all the other girls were wearing

I remember the two of us
Sitting side by side
In the back seat
Of my older brother’s
Oldsmobile
Our feet not yet able
To touch the floor

We didn’t dare speak to each other
Let alone look at one another
My hands were sweating and clammy cold
I guessed that Judy’s hands were the same
It really didn’t matter
As the very idea of actually holding hands
Was entirely out of the question
I suppose Judy suspected me of having cooties
And I had my suspicions about her
Cootie status as well

I had been given a few
Rudimentary dance lessons
At a local dance school
Just so that I would not make
A complete ass of myself
On the dance floor

We were taught the rudiments of
The fox trot and the box step waltz
On my own I had picked up
The basics of the cha cha cha
By watching American Band Stand on TV
Hosted by the legendary Dick Clark
I had no idea how Judy had learned to dance
And I wasn’t about to ask her

I had no idea why it was so important
To go the fifth grade dance hop
In the first place
I suppose it was meant
To socialize us kids
So that we did not become
Juvenile delinquents

My chances of becoming a juvenile delinquent
Were zero to none
As closely watched and supervised
As we kids were by
Mr. and Mrs. Admiral Bull Halsey
As I had come to refer to my
Foster parents
Who were my brother and sister in law
In real life

Judy Frasier was the daughter
Of the man who was rewiring our house
I suppose he just wanted to be sure
That his daughter would have a date
To the fifth grade hop
So that she would not have to be
A wall flower as the unpopular girls
Were called back then
Back then there was nothing worse
Than to be called a wallflower by your peers
It usually meant that you were a loser
And so socially inept
That no one
Would ever want to dance with you
There was no equivalent epithet
For lonely and homely looking boys

So Judy and I did our duty
To God and country
And to the fifth grade hop
By valiantly dancing the fox trop
And the box step waltz
While I waited to perform
My version of the cha cha cha
But my big chance never came
As the adult chaperones
Were not big fans
Of the cha cha cha
Considering it to be too
Risqué for fifth graders
And maybe they were right

Seems like anything
That we kids could think of
That in any way smacked of fun
Was considered by the grown ups
To be too risqué
For us fifth graders
Or for anyone else for that matter
Smoking was frowned upon
As was drinking
As was cussing
As was not going to church
If you were born a Christian
Or not going to synagogue
If you were born a Jew
And married couples
Very often slept in separate beds
Just like the make believe
Married couples on TV
Like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore

All the school age boys had crew cuts
And all the school age girls had curls and long hair
That they brushed endlessly
For hours at a time as
Every one agreed that
Having well groomed hair
Was a social must


Both Judy and I were eternally grateful
When the fifth grade hop came to an end
And we could go back to our respective homes
And change into our pajamas
And have some chocolate milk and cookies
Before going to bed
Though I was very upset
That I had to miss
My favorite TV show Bonanza that night

I later heard that Judy
Was equally upset because she did not
Receive her expected good night kiss
That was entirely my fault
As I was so glad to be getting a reprieve from
Having to wear Melvin Zeldin’s borrowed
Itchy wool suit
That all thoughts
Of having to give Judy Frasier
Her good night kiss had
Completely skipped my mind

And I never did get another chance
To make it up to her

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2011