Autobiography

Mack the Knife – NaPo 2025 Day Thirty

For the final day of April and to close out the 2025 version of how I do National Poetry Month, I was to pen a poem that describes various times in my life when I have heard the same band or music.

Congrats to all participants. This may have been my best NaPoWriMo year because the prompts seemed to be in my poetry writing lane. One a day for 30 days, on prompt.

Thanks to Maureen for another fantastic April.

Composed

Melody and lyrics done separately
twenty years before my birth
in a language I did not speak
never intended for my ears
for the Threepenny I’ve never been

Thirteen-ish me,
a maligned Catholic school kid
discovering hormones;
Friday night dances (nun-chaperoned),
and un-churchly music we loved;
songs like The Battle of New Orleans,
Mack the Knife, Personality, Venus,
Lonely Boy, and a hundred more.

The year another paper boy
and fellow music lover, Don M. said
was when the music died.
But it had not. Not yet. Not ever.
My music may die with me. But not today.

Not until Bobby Darin — did Mack the Knife
find me with five up-key modulations
bring marvelous darkness to musical light
to make us feel a special song
in a special time. Then and since.

Wonderful covers, pre and post, but
back then I didn’t know about
someone and something I liked so much,
music that would change with me,
year after year, never the same old song.

Look both ways
“Now on the sidewalk…lies a body just oozing life, eek!”
Mind the gaps cuz,
“someone’s sneakin’ ‘round the corner—could that someone be Mack the Knife?”

Interested in more? Check THIS out—especially the video of Bobby Darin’s version, if you’re not familiar with the song.

EXTRA – EXTRA – EXTRA —- A friend and classmate of mine just let me know about this new, hot, Broadway production honoring Bobbie Daren.

 

 

 

Justice Struck Me – NaPo 2025 Day Twenty-Seven

And so, today I was challenged to write a poem that describes a detail in a painting. My poem was to begin with a grand, declarative statement.

Who Was She?

It is never just the painting and the world, I know.
Each painting unites with each eye, each mind,
to make the art meaningful. Neither stands without the other.

I recall the overall picture vaguely, but it’s the setting
I remember well. An empty courtroom
except for a little girl standing with her back to me,

and a judge looking down from his bench. Authority!
I cannot see her face, but I know it is the face
of every child confronted with

the reality of the state, power, autocratic justice.
Fear. Helplessness. Hopelessness.
I felt all of that. Overpowering feelings.

A Miami artist opened emotions
hidden so deep that I denied them.
I almost cried. I moved on, hiding the real me.

Look both ways as you play the great pretender who will live forever.
Mind the gaps because somewhere out there,
an artist knows your truth and may tell you.

 

Concert Bands – NaPo 2025 Day Twenty-Five

With five days remaining, today I was to write a poem about my experience hearing live music, such as in a professional or amateur concert, and to tell how it moved me.

Unforgettables

Growing up, there was often live music at the bars frequented by my family. I recall some talks I had with musicians when I was too young, but I never learned to play. Not even garages only. Concerts were free at college, and we went. Cool late sixties vibes.

Might have been at the Cash crash when drunk Johnny may have shown or not. Me too.

Mom visited us in Cowtown, downtown, to see Mom’s fav, Marty Robbins, open for Merle (Robbins called him Murial) Haggard, who my wife preferred, I think. Don’t recall if we saw Elvis there before or after, but we did.

Good lawdy, Stella, all these folks ‘er dead. But not Willie. 91. Don’t recall seein’ Willie live, but that don’t mean I didn’t. We been to Abbott. Carl’s Corner, too. We looked. Where’s Willie? I remember. Hell yeah! I was there because it won’t ever happen again.

Willie was in a suit with short hair, performing at The Louisiana Hayride in the late 60s, now that I wear my 55+ memory beanie. It was his pre-outlaw time.

I’m so damn old that all the concerts I wanna go to will be in the cemetery. Ghost concerts? Kinda goth, but what a hoot?

Look both ways and if you can afford five hundred for an old fart’s live concert,
good on ya. Mind the gaps because live music has a time limit.

This is long, but it’s an interesting story when you have the time.

Austin-Healey Ride – NaPo 2025 Day Eighteen

Today my task was to craft a poem that recounts my experience of driving, and/or riding, and singing. I was to incorporate “a song lyric” into said poem. Just one?

Hit the Road, Jack!

No time for musical analysis
or explanations
for the songs that set my soul on fire.
Didn’t need to know writer inspirations,
didn’t care a dot about lyrical attire,
this meaning or that hard chord.
In desperation on the way there,
melding with music and singing my feelings
for going I didn’t care where. Just riding.

We didn’t start the fire
within the illusion
of what freedom was then.
I’ve been everywhere, man,
sung fast and furious.
Riding like the wind in my hair, I was there.
I was then.
We refused to take it easy.
Look, here comes the sun; on the road, again.
We were runnin’ on empty but full of life.
I was there with the wind in my hair,
without a care. Without one care.

We sang without a cappella—
blasting radio’s tune-after-tune,
not wanting to arrive
any too soon.
We belted songs, unrecorded;
out loud, on the road,
again and again, never stopping,
never knowing when.
Now those tunes
bring memories back,
songs and lyrics
to fire up familiar feelings of our reckless youth.

Look both ways to see back in the days when road trips meant music and friends.
Mind the gaps because we still do it, alone now, with the music turned way up.

 

Rhyme Time – NaPo 2025 Day Nine

Today’s challenge is to write a poem that uses rhymes, but unlike yesterday, without adhering to specific line lengths. That’s it.

The Pedagogue Bullfrog

Biology class.
Dissection Day.

The stink in the classroom would make ya cry. Remember?
When we were there to slay already dead frogs, not toads.

I think.
Step by disgusting step we cut the carcass open to expose wads and globs
of all the things I learned in high school: heart, lung, stomach.

But the smell is what I remember best.
Formaldehyde, Baby.

Like in the beer in the Nam,
A key component in dead humans when used to embalm.

But gizzards do not abound in and around Bullfrogs. Just chickens and turkeys
dissected at home by Mom for celebrations of life.

Of “all the crap I learned in high school it’s a wonder
I can think at all—but I can read the writing on the wall,”
and a good witch can read the petri dish entrails.

Look both ways and hear the moan of the bull
because those frogs are not an endangered species.
Mind the gaps and touch your face before licking your lips. Embrace the stink.

Musical Notation – NaPo 2025 Day Five

A Saturday NaPo table prompted me to compose a poem given inspiration from a musical notation of my choosing from a list of 21. Then, I was supposed to select a musical genre from another list of 21. Finally, I was to use in said poem one or more words I picked from a third column of 21. You can see the entire table which was Bogarted from an old Twitter account by clicking here.

My selections were: “lord have mercy;” folk song; and bones, butterflies, + banquet.

Pay to Play

I am not a musician.
No instrument can I play.
My singing’s not worth the price of admission.
Not even in church while
surrounded by singing Baptists on the Lord’s Day.

I love music. I wanna be
all those things. Just good enough
will satisfy me.

When I hear it, the many from way back then,
when, lord have mercy, a folk song
written and sung during the genre revival,

gets into my bones
I can get butterflies. I become
the man-boy I was with hair and zits,
now my playlist becomes
a veritable banquet. Then I sigh,
and I wonder why
they don’t get it.
Like rain they hear it but they get no feel.
Frankly, they just get wet.

Look both ways but remember; your song is yours, your music is born into your soul.
It matters not what others think, this is your thing.
Mind the gaps but you’ll never explain not knowing what was for lunch,
yet you still know the words to songs from fifty years ago.

 

Rock Poem Metaphor NaPo 2025 Day Three

Day three of NaPo prompts me to follow the easy style of Frank O’Hara and to write a poem that obliquely explains why I am a poet and not some other kind of artist.

I looked. Oblique means not straightforward: indirect, obscure, devious, or underhanded. Perhaps metaphorically?

Poemhenge

Like most,
as a child I found rocks and stones interesting
to see, to hold, to gather, and to throw.
There were cool ones for holding
and some for skipping on water.
Some were hot rocks. Jocks protected stones.

I didn’t know any of the names.
Fools gold wasn’t gold or diamonds
but was filled with glittery sparkles.

Rocks had formations.
Many were famous.
Rocks and stones were even in songs.
And in idioms like rock solid
or your stone-cold heart,
or the millstone around your neck.

Eventually, old stone makers interested me
and new stone makers challenged me.
And the colors and cutters of gemstones
like emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds.

As I grew, my view of stones got more solid.
Famous rock formations attracted me,
I wanted to imitate the creators.
In the gym I used soft rock like talc
as I listened to the rock music and dreamed
of the rock candy mountain.

Rich people wore and collected rocks.
They called them jewels and gems
but I could not always tell you why.

Later, maturity took ahold of me
and I found my fit, even as a fossil,
to make rock and stone creations of my own.
Polishing stones. Stepping stones.
Stumbling blocks are rocks.
My mind one stone quarry among many quarries.
I walked the limestone line on cordoba cream—
noticing colors, styles, and finishes.

One day I collected some of my stones.
I trimmed and polished them. I included
abrasive stones, message stones, smooth stones,
and made them ready for display to the world.
And I named them all poems.

Look both ways and if you see Frank O’Hara, tell him I want to be a painter too.
Mind the gaps, especially as you traverse the rocks, then stop, sit, have a “J.”
Mind what the poets have to say.

Note: “J” is from the Paul Simon song “Late in the Evening.”

Poem to a person – NaPo 2025 day two

NaPo 2025’s second day challenging prompt invited us to write a poem that directly addresses someone, has a made-up word, includes an odd or unusual simile, makes a statement of “fact,” and that includes something that seems out of place in time.

More Than Love

My dearest philologloth,
Are there worse places?
Is your prison like a happy place?

Your soul is good.
Unlike the dark life fiction
of your self-inflicted addiction.

Like a blade runner
missing for thirty years,
a gauntlet falls upon deaf earth.

Hearts grind to needless halts
when minds forget to remember
when my me died that September.

Come, my son
rise above it all
but not the love.

That tote we carry
full of all the good
and all the bad losses we’ve both had.

Love you, Dad.

Look both ways to discover the dark side of pleasure.
Mind the gaps for forgiveness and step carefully into whatever future you have left.

Sammi’s Weekender #362 (classic)

Click the graphic for Sammi’s page and more classic writing.

Classical Folk

Telling me about herself,
her childhood, family struggles
made her who and what she is today:
a wonderful classic of musical charm.

The point is telling
the story only she can.

She remembers.
She wants me to know.
It’s all important.

Another girl on my mind
made me wonder.
What was it like
to have been her?

Look both ways when looking into the lives of others.
Mind the gaps and do the research.

NaPoWriMo 2024, Day 16, My Bufferina

Today’s prompt is a revenant from 2016. I was to describe an object or place in a poem that ends with an abstract line.

My Bufferina

In the lower-deck belly
of the B-fifty-two-dee bomber,
two downward shooting ejection seats,
held two-thousand hours
of my youthful ass.

Whatever was bad outside—was worse inside,
oven hot in summers;
meat-locker,
freezing-cold in winters.
All jets, or airplanes, had the same putrid odor:
burned wire insulation, fried electronics, old dry puke,
and piss. Add oil and JP-4 jet fuel.
No shit!

Navigation and bombing, our job, done there.
Twelve-to-twenty-four-hour missions
(mixed with moments of stark terror);
we worked, wrote, drew, set-and-checked,
and double-checked;
we ate our meals sitting there,
sometimes
one napped during deadhead times,
a home where liquid oxygen was life,
and the noise—
literally deafening.

Service ceiling nine miles up,
nuclear
low-level missions
dodging hills, towers, cows,
and Nebraska farmers’ turkeys;
sweat and stink;
then, after debriefing,
it was beer-thirty time.

Happy Days was a great TV show.

Look both ways because perspective is everything.
Mind the gaps on the maps from when GPS was a dream
called, “what do you need me for, now?”