Big day in Hatboro PA / Poem: The Visitor

The former home and beauty salon of the late Carroll Beame. He was a friend of mine who died at age 96 in his front room. He believed he would meet his beloved wife Florence in the Afterlife.

Carroll's splendid garden spilled over into the parking lot next door and the Hatboro post office out back. His twin sister Caroline lived just around the corner. She died a few weeks before he did. Both widowed, they visited each other daily.

See these beautiful pink snow peas growing thru the fence? Carroll gave me an envelope full of seeds and they're blooming right now in my backyard garden. My friend Marcy Belsh, formerly of Susan Road in Northeast Philadelphia, once transplanted wild sweetpeas from the field behind my house into her Philly garden, quite a feat, since wildflowers are notoriously difficult to transplant.

Carroll's house from PJ's bar across the street. Hiccup!

That morning I stopped in State Rep. Tom Murt's office with a bag of clothes and cosmetix I've been collecting for their quarterly shipment to Iraq. Tom had been in the army reserves & called up for active duty several years ago. He served in the war but never forgot the Iraqi people.

"We never should've been there in the first place," he told me at the retirement party of Lillian Burnley, former director of the Upper Moreland Public Library. (As you remember, Lillian is my muse in the kidney dialysis department, and is doing quite well.)

Only today, I had a Letter to the Editor published in the Bucks County Courier Times. It was about honest government. Be sure to read the comments on the bottom of the article. I sent an email notification of the Letter to both State Rep. Tom Murt and State Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, both of whom were kind enuf to acknowledge my email.

When I handed the bag of used clothes to Heather in Murt's office she said she sponsors a fundraising event for our soldiers in the ongoing foreign wars to supposedly keep our country free. A friend of hers was just deployed to Iraq as a helicopter pilot.

Ironic that last nite I ate at a Vietnamese restaurant after we destroyed their country...but not their spirit. I actually envisioned our darling waiter, a young man w/a spiked hairdo crouching down and running thru the fields throwing grenades.

Vat a vurld, she said in Yiddish. At least the grapes are sweet.

The zoup I ordered at Pho and Beyond was enough for 4 servings. I brought the extra over to my friend Walter's. We heated it up with a little mahi-mahi for extra nutrition. Walter had never tasted anything like this sweet zoup, which my son said tasted like dessert. Apparently it's the Vietnamese national dish and was replete with meat.

After our repast, Walt and I sat in his living room and talked for 2 hours.

Walter, I said, I'm gonna listen to what you say, but I'm gonna close my eyes.

Sure enuf, I fell asleep in the easy chair.

Walt and I were both celebrating our birthdays. Today I turned 64.5, and yesterday Walt became 91.5. He and I always wonder if I would've become his fourth wife if I were in my 80s.

Down the elevator we went to the scintillating pool. I was gonna remove my contact lenses in his apartment but decided I wanted the full view of the pool and accouterments. You DO know how I love a good pool.

When I saw this view I was ready to jump in and swim, but ran to get my camera. What colors! What movement! What promise of a swimmingly good time.

I swam laps for half an hour. Never have I had such a great swim. It was like swimming in a huge warm bathtub. Everytime I came up for air, a cool breeze brushed my bald pate. (I have very thin hair.)

Happy Half-Birthday Lil Ruthie! I'm in my Cleopatra headdress.

Ruthie and Walter. One time I wrote Walt a letter telling him he was one of the most remarkable people I've ever met. He read every word of the letter over the phone to his niece Sue, then residing in Bristol, PA, his hometown. Sue was a troubled woman who died like Anna Karenina. Walt was good to her, very good to her, and we grieved over her death.

After my swim, I went back upstairs to change.

Looky here, I said to Walter. I just happened to bring my latest poem. You wanna hear it?

Sure, he said, sitting on the couch while I pulled out two typewritten pages and adjusted my reading glasses.

After I read it, Walter laffed. You've got so much in there, he said. So much to think about.

Yeah, I said, but do you like it?

They put stuff like that in the New Yorker, he said. Send it to the New Yorker.

They don't accept unsolicited poetry, I said, remembering my first mania when I called up the New Yorker on the phone. I made dozens of phone calls that day, February 14, 1984, one of them to the Marion Locks Art Gallery where I said to the secretary, "Marion is expecting my call."

THE VISITOR
THE VISITOR

When I looked in the mirror
in our nation’s capital
I saw an american girl
with the same jewish eyes
as I wore back home
puffy now
from an unknown allergen
don’t tell me I’m allergic
to all the people mine eyes did see
mr bezwada on the amtrak going down
a ‘polymer chemist’ – what’s that? –
oh, you’re traveling to the patent office
- again – for an inner body contraption
to make us whole again
- do we really deserve it? -
your wife keeps the books
and cooks with curry
I lick your patchouli smell off my tongue

Have you seen the tall postal museum?
did you even know there was one?
security guards thick as pigeons
on the sidewalks of DC
hello, sir, where’s the ladies room?
make a u-turn, he says, doffing his cap,
go under the arches, you’ll see it then,
take care, he says, seeing me off from his podium
and I wave when I come back
drying my hands in the air

a confessional poem?
what’s to confess?
my intense love for Thee?
the sun knows all.
the moon enters my bedroom at night
through a single window
and makes my swollen legs
light up
now I remember
neighbor bill has emailed
there’s an orgy of lightning bugs
in the backyard





I slip on my robe and stand on the backporch
late for the show
but they don’t mind
I go out to meet them on the grass
cascades of them
passing like nations across the night sky
crisscrossing like the planes in the
air and space museum
missionaries of higher truths
I still aspire to
I hold out my arms like jesus
americans all of us
stung deep and hard
with the blood of life
blinking all thousands of us
nations unto ourselves
on and off
on and off