Insatiable

The crux of the matter
is that
each of us
still wants everything
that we can possibly get
from everyone else
and therein
lies the dilemma

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2013

Revolution Through Art

Revolution through Art
is still possible
but do not look
to anyone else
to be your leader
You are the leader
of your own sideshow
while riding in
your own side car

At the next fork
in the road
do you want to go
left or right?

You look up
to ask the driver
only to find
that there is
no one seated
in the driver's seat

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2013

Billy Walsh

His name was Billy Walsh
and he was
the incarnation of
terror
when I was growing up
as poor white trash
back in the old
South Brooklyn
slum neighborhood
that me and my mother
laughingly called home
(the rotting streets
and old delapidated houses
of  Neptune Avenue on the
wrong side of the tracks
just off the dividing line
known as Ocean Parkway)

Whenever I saw
Billy Walsh
sashaying down the street
in my direction
my stomach would knot up
and my breathing
would suddenly echo
in my ears
like the rushing
gushing sound of
Niagra Falls

Billy was just
a few years
older than me
a tough Irish kid
who mostly seemed to
live on the streets
a permanent fixture
of the neighborhood
where he held
reign and sway
over the rest of us
mere mortals
who were always
being told to
mind our own business and
to keep our noses clean
so that we could all
grow up to live the
so-called American Dream

Billy would shake us kids
down for our nickles and dimes
or for the grocery money
that we carried to
Edelman's to buy
household basics
(mostly on credit
with old man Edelman
keeping the ledger book
marking down the names
and amounts
of who owed him what
and exactly how much
so that all of our
welfare queen moms
could settle up with him
when the government checks
would finally arrive on the
first of every month
leaving just enough money
to pay the back rent and
not much else)

I could tell that
Billy had spotted me
as I stood
standing (cringing?)
idly on the
street corner

He made a beeline
straight for me
and I knew that
it was too late to
escape or to fade
into the landscape
like some urban cameleon
(a trick that all
of us street kids
had to quickly learn if
we wanted to be around
to see our next
birthdays)

Naturally
there was never a cop
around when you
desperately needed one
(unless they happened
to be in the area to
pick up the precinct
pad money that they
would shake down
from the local
shop keepers
dealers and
bookies)

Hello Billy
I said meekly
(hoping to catch him
in a forgiving mood
but no dice)
wam
bam
slam
a quick right punch
to my stomach
was enough
to double me over
and to knock the wind
out of my lungs

Billy didn't linger long
over my prostrated body
(my capitulation having been
so quick and easy
and total
that I was considered to be
small pickings
hardly worthy of his attention)

I knew that Billy Walsh
didn't even know my name
but all of us neighborhood kids
who happened to live
in the environs of
P.S. 100
sure as hell knew his

jhmarkowitz
philadelphia, pa. 2013

Last Night I Dreamed Of You

You've been gone
for so long
that I dreamed
that you were dead

You were gone for
so long
that I had to
have you buried
deep into a very
hard and frozen
place
(Though
no tombstone
yet stands
to mark your
resting space)

Not knowing how
to behave
what piece of us
was I srtill trying
to save?

In my dream
I once again heard
your voice unchanged
from the grave
How could that be
I wondered
(was I deranged?)

Are you a ghost
or some poor player
still strutting across my
mind's empty stage?

For I have
never truly learned
how to forgive and forget
or how to put out
the still burning embers
of my rage

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2013

Pleasant Dreams

I hail from
the mean streets of NYC
where many of my closest friends
are now RIP
their lives DOA
mostly just because
of where
they happened
to have been born
(the wrong side of the tracks)
more often than not
their funerals had
to be paid
C.O.D.
by passing around
a communal
collection plate

We were just kids
back in the early fifties
growing up under the
nuclear shadow of
MAD
(which is government
gobbledegook for the
USA's insane
cold war policy of
Mutually Assured Destruction)
vis a vis the USSR
Amerika's favorite preferred enemy
(at that time)
an enemy
who was supposedly
always aching for
a nuclear show down
with the so-called
decadent nations
of the so-called
Free World

If you did not happen to have
a Fallout Shelter handy
in your back yard
(assuming that you also
happened to have one -
a back yard that is)
if a nuclear war
were ever to break out
most of us knew
that we would all
soon be toast
if ever
a mushroom shaped cloud
should suddenly
appear on the horizon
despite our vigorous
duck and cover
school sponsored drills
that would have us all
dive under our
school desks with
our hands protecting
the back of our heads
(all the better for
kissing our asses good-bye)

Ever since
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
whole generations
have grown up and
matured under the
ever present threat
of the nuclear
mushroom cloud

This knowledge
has shaped us and
warped us and
fashioned us into
the nihilistic
phantoms that
we've become

One would think
that a rational race
of human beings
would have made
getting rid of such
horrible weapons of
mass destruction
our generation's
highest calling
our highest priority

On the contrary
now every rogue nation
on planet earth
wants to own
a nuclear arsenal
of it's own
a chicken in every pot
a nuke in every garage

We are all of us
falling asleep
every night
under the shadow
of the nuclear
hangman's noose
yet on that scaffold
swings the future existence
of all human kind

pleasant dreams

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia Pa., 2013

Dolphins

Ever notice
how a school of Dolphins
will sometimes
race along
with the bow of an
ocean liner
under full steam
leaping fifteen feet
straight into the air
at 21 knots
just for the
glorious fun of it?

Fun!
Yeah that's what
I'm talkin about!

Sometimes it
takes a dolphin
to know one!

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2013

When I Die Remember Me

When I die remember me
hang my balls
on a cherry tree
oh honey
oh baby mine-
(A bawdy parody 
of the song lyrics of
a pop tune of the late 50's)

It is a very strange feeling
standing over one's own
prospective grave site
after making final
pre-arrangements for
one's own prospective funeral

No
I am not terminal
at least not yet
and
G-d willing
not too soon

The bible promises
(or at least offers the possibility)
of three score years and ten
as the likely life span
of a human being

For some
three score and ten
is more than enough
for others
it is too short
not enough time
too brief a span of time to
accomplish all that
the human heart desires

I am sixty-six years old
four years to go
if the biblical injunction
holds true

Some might think of this
as a death sentence
without reprieve
others as an opportunity
to finally be able to
lay down the burdens of life
to enjoy eternal rest or
to participate in further
adventures yet to come

We do not know the answer
as no one has yet
returned from the grave
(not even Harry Houdini
though he promised to try)
to tell us (the still living)
what life (or after life) is like
once we have made
the final crossing

Some say that Jesus
returned from the dead
to speak to his disciples
(I think that the jury
is still out on this one)
others say that Jesus
was able to raise
Lazerus from the grave
only to see him
murdered for a second time
(Some say that Lazerus'
nick name was Lucky
but I think the were
just trying to be funny)

I have made provisions
to have my body cremated
(dust to dust)
and to have the urn
buried at a grave site
with a small plaque to
mark my final resting place

Now that all of the
pre-arrangements
have been made
I find myself in no
special hurry
to shuffle off this mortal coil
just yet

I have many more things
that I would like to do
more places to see and
more people to meet
before I finally go
to meet my Maker

And when that final
judgement day does come
I hope that I am able to make
a good impression
and a good accounting
of the life that I have lived
for better or worse
for good or for ill

For I agree with the bard
Robert Browning
who wrote that
a man's reach should
exceed his grasp or
what's a heaven for? 

jhmarkowitz
Philadelphia, Pa. 2013