fools, and poets

 "April, come she will"...a month that starts with fools...then baseball blooms at Citi Field...college basketball shoots its final hoops...holy days...for Jews, a celebration of freedom...and the eternal hope that future annihilation passes over...for Christians...a chance for rededication and rebirth...and chocolate bunnies...Earth Day...time to clean up...the roadways and Congress...and all of this during National Poetry Month...30 days to celebrate small works of observation...twisted phrases...pictures painted with words...metaphorically speaking...we turn down the noise...turn up the heat...hopefully, let you see things in a different way...we celebrate the unique...embrace the commonality...so for this month...read a poem...write a poem...support a poet by attending a reading...or buying a book...encourage children to try their hand...I write today because of a third grade teacher who did just that...in a public school in Canarsie, Brooklyn...she read Shakespeare sonnets...told us to try writing a poem about them...I still have mine...in my little black composition book of my first poems...I'm still learning...still listening and reading...still writing...the arts are a gift your soul never knew it needed...Happy Poetry Month...

Stop and smell the roses...

recovering after a wedding weekend...in the other promised land...Boca...my beautiful niece, Ilyssa...the warmest woman with a loving heart...a poetry buddy...because, you know...Sondheim...children and art...it is a very special thing being an aunt...loving and rooting for this little person who, with no warning, blossoms into an adult...the relationship can shift...suddenly, you are friends...and hopefully as you age...that person can, with your children, carry your memory forward...so there I was watching her radiate with joy as she married her bashert, Michael...Mikey...although my Michael is also Mikey in his family...so that would make this groom Mikey #2...they took their vows under the most exquisite chuppah...white roses...white roses everywhere...the room was fragrant and sweet...they were wrapped in the tallit of my late father-in-law, Joel...wrapped in everyone who came before hoping this moment would come...in this world which can take your soul if you let it...in this life which can put a burden on your back that can break you...you must seize these moments with both hands...and for a few hours...not let go...you must dance no matter which body part roared in agony when you got out of bed...smile and hug...laugh...and love...embrace people you wish you could see more...meet new people...snap those selfies...post with pride...and to Ilyssa and Mikey #2...this aunt wishes you a lifetime of sweetness...don't rush your journey...always take time together...to stop and smell the roses... 

Love Train

Valentine's Day 2025...my neck hurts and I think it's from looking at my phone every time there's breaking news...The White House...and 45/47 are giving me whiplash...and the local news...there's always Mayor Adams...the dumb chameleon...but lo and behold...in the middle of all this mishegas...a woman had a baby on the W train...I really didn't blink about the baby...I was too focused on what the hell is the W train?...for the people on that car Wednesday morning...well, the W might have stood for Why...as in why the hell did I take this train today?...imagine being late for work saying...a woman had a baby on my train today...but, to prove all stereotypes wrong about New Yorkers...people helped this woman deliver her baby...someone even had a pocketknife to cut the cord...we won't discuss the actual carrying such pocketknife on the subway...and of course others whipped out phones and took video...it was discovered that the women was missing for months from her native Florida...Netflix is calling...but in all of this was a pause...a miracle underground...and I thought...did the MTA make her pay an extra fare?...but seriously...winters are cold and dark in NY...and the world is closing in these days...and a baby born on your commute beats a lunatic dangerously invading your personal space...I once heard someone say Valentine's Day is a Hallmark-made holiday...but I disagree...it's a time to spend with those we love...in person...on the phone...in our cherished memories...and let a little goodness into our hearts...even from a heartwarming news blip on the local evening news...step lively, watch the closing doors...

everything was beautiful at the ballet...

Mikhail Baryshnikov...Misha...is 77 today...in my mind, the greatest male dancer in my lifetime...in my teens I became interested in ballet...not to become a ballerina...although I did dance in local theater productions...and stretched at the barre in dance studios my freshman year of college...but to watch productions in all their glory...my Aunt Harriet and Uncle Godfrey took me to my first ballet...1975...Rudolf Nureyev...I was hooked...thank goodness for PBS...and their ballet broadcasts in the 70s...in 1977, like many others, I saw "The Turning Point"...11 Oscar noms...no wins...despite the glory of Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft...but the dancing...and Misha...to say I was a fan...understatement...I wrote a poem about his dancing...back when my poems rhymed...and sent it to him care of American Ballet Theater...and one day, as I dug my hand into our mailbox...face swollen after getting two wisdom teeth pulled...there it was...a letter thanking me for the poem...signed by him...I thought I was dreaming...that is was the painkillers...oh, it was real...and sadly, lost over the years of moving and packing and life...as well as the only copy of the poem!...(I do remember a lot of it, just don't ask what I had for dinner yesterday)...my college years...I tried to see one performance of every ballet company...Martha Graham...Joffrey...Twyla Tharp...and then for my twenty-first birthday...American Ballet Theater...a gift from my mom and dad...featured dancer - Misha...pure magic...a few years later I was meeting a friend in Times Square...we were going to see "Flashdance"...as I stood waiting, I saw Misha walk by me...I followed to see where he was going...ran back...found my friend...a dance fanatic as well...we raced into the restaurant where he had gone...we sat at the bar trying to figure out how to say hello...I came up with the idea to send a glass of wine to his table...the waiter screwed up and did it while my friend had gone to the restroom...I'm not sure she forgave me...but when the waiter put that glass down...and pointed to me...my knees turned to Jello...he stood up and raised the glass to toast me...the bartender whispered..."go over there"...but I couldn't...I just smiled...all eyes now on me...that was a lifetime ago...and what a career he has had...and continues to have...artists...and art...they save us...illuminate our life when it is dark...teach us the possibilities...so, thank you Misha...for what your art has given this, at times, broken world...what it's given me...and maybe tonight I'll pour a White Russian at dinner...

Defying brevity...

I wanted to love Wicked...the Broadway musical...and I liked it...but it was uneven...and suffered to a degree with the same problem of Les Miserables...what to do with Act II when the "11 o'clock number"...in this case, "Defying Gravity" (now, on repeat ad nauseum at a Target near you)...ends Act I???...which in the movie version comes after almost 2 hours and 40 minutes...the movie which is Part I...why?...what happened to less is more...is this what happens when the almighty dollar rules?...now, I will admit I was hesitant to see this Wicked...and by the way...this is not a kids movie...the musical never claimed to be for kids either...it left that to the Disney side of Times Square...but this movie is being marketed that way...for fuck's sake...this Wizard is like the Joseph Mengele of Oz...and this is unfair to the revelation of the darker side and sadness of Elphaba...and the evolving friendship of Elphaba and Galinda...which is the essence of the movie  and is quiet moving...kudos to Cynthia...and I will, begrudgingly admit, Ariana who is quite "grande" in this role...but director Jon Chu couldn't leave that subtlety alone...he had to insert over the top numbers and kitschiness..."One Short Day'' which introduces us to the Emerald City looks like it was lifted from Crazy Rich Asians...but I digress...I could not help but think about The Wizard of Oz...made in 1939...it was not the first color movie...but rather the first movie where color...and the use of black and white and sepia for contrast...carried the vision of the director...all that served to support Dorothy's search for more than she realized...it was the emotions this elicited that allowed its audience to feel...to cry ...which immortalized it...I wanted to cry during Wicked...it almost had me...but all that glitters is not always golden...(and everyone over the age of 5 who saw The Wizard of Oz knew that Glinda was the bitch)...

"the women gather"...

Nikki Giovanni died last week...one of my favorite poets...I happened to catch the last half hour of the 2023 documentary "Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project" the other night on HBO...it left me smiling for a while...there are words that dance on the page...but hearing them read aloud is other worldly...being a writer...a poet...reading other works...loving other poets...that's a tricky thing...there's always that fine line between admiration and subconscious regurgitation...because isn't all creativity new interpretation of basic tenets?...2024 is winding down...slipping, not so quietly, in early sunsets and winter winds...and there isn't just a weather-related drought here in New York...I have been feeling it acutely in my writing...or lack thereof...this year, the world and life stole my creative thunder...many times...we seem to feel those empty chairs at the table more acutely as the candles mount on our birthday cakes...makes me think of another favorite poet...Mary Oliver...who seamlessly wove the innate fear of mortality into exquisite thoughts on nature and earthly delights...and that is the real beauty in poetry...reading, and thinking - yes, I feel that too!...here's hoping that there are more poems inside me...that life gives me the grace to voice them...and for the end of this year I leave you with the closing line of my favorite Nikki poem, The Women Gather..."it is not unusual to sift through the ashes and find an unburnt picture"...

I'm only happy when it rains...

well...I actually don't love the rain...but after weeks of nothing more than a drizzle...and living less than two miles from Eisenhower Park...all 930 flammable acres of it...I find myself looking a few times a day at the long-range forecast...nada...blue skies and sun...good hair days...but if this keeps up will there be water to wash it?...no rain...I promised when I started this that I would talk about the drought...but really the only thing falling from the sky is the shitstorm from Mar-a-Lago...grab 'em young Gaetz for attorney general...Madam Defarge...oops Wiles for chief of staff...RFK Jr...worm for brain for health and human services...Hegseth...is it Hegseth and the Angry inch?...doesn't want women in the military...will he sit across from Tulsi in meetings...she, national intelligence...an oxymoron...she who did serve...how will that play...and Stefanik...she can get off her knees now...she apparently has another job to do...JD Vance wrote the forward for Kevin Roberts' new book...Roberts...Heritage Foundation president...you know that little Project 2025 which no one says they know anything about...I just can't anymore...I am not surprised...i knew Trump would win for a long time...the Democrats are due for a major overhaul...Biden's deal with us was one term...not quite...2024 election...he said he was running...uh, shuffling...until the debate debacle...but without a proper primary it all stank to the heavens...and to the public...the Democrats didn't get it in 2020 when Harris was elevated to the ticket over Klobuchar...they need to get their heads out of the sand...actually out of the coasts...and realize the vast space between and run a candidate accordingly...fixing things is not running a vice presidential candidate like Walz...who looks like he stepped out of an Alexander Payne movie...as an afterthought...because running the more qualified Jewish candidate would offend...omg please have the party grow a pair...after this clown car implodes...Kinzinger and Cheney might be waiting in the wings to mop up...who will be there to meet them...shake hands and debate...with substance and not faux fear...