Little Miss Grace comes for a visit / Poem: At Chaplin's Feet

Look, she likes football already.

She has a thing for doors. Nicole said she really likes a rain-soaked screen door.

I was bouncing her on my knee and singing like my dad used to do but couldn't remember any songs. Then Donna said from across the room, Once in love with Amy.

She was squirming and wanted to be set free. Dan managed to two photos w/ me and

Here's Donna, whose Hebrew name is translated "Donna of the Shining Teeth." Her dentist daughter made her a new pair, saving her at least 20K I'd imagine.

We talked about her flooded condo in Hatboro, a true nightmare, covered by insurance.

We also talked about "Furhead."

A couple years ago Donna had a roommate known by all as "Furhead." He was addicted to Hawaiian Punch and had a huge belly and also to heroin. I think heroin makes you mellow, which he was. He never left his room, except when he had a driving job.

One morning he snapped. He came screaming downstairs and tried to strangle Donna. He used all his strength and she was being strangled to death.

Whatever you've read about dying, she told us, seeing your life flash before your eyes is not true. All I could think about was, I can't believe this is the way I'm gonna die.

Finally he came to his senses and let go. She kicked him out then and there, changed the lock, and was constantly on the watch for him.

He returned one time, begging forgiveness, and also saying, "I'm in withdrawal and need help. Will you help me?"

Donna was talking to him through the upstairs window.

No, she said.

Next time we heard from him he was in jail for trying to kill someone else.

Today Donna told us, while sitting on my couch, that Furhead was dead. Found under a bridge in Kensington with his face battered in. Murdered.

Live by the sword, die by.....

I'd imagine that 75 percent of people who die know in advance what they're gonna die of, the others are surprised, like being murdered, hit by a car, trying to catch a baseball and falling to death from the bleachers.

Donna was starving when she came over so I quick finished up my Fiesta Potato Salad made with red bliss, cooked carrots and green beans, onions, and a mayo-mustard sauce with crushed garlic. Hellmann's, always.

While my sisters Donna and Ellen were here I started talking about all the poetry readings I've gone to.

This is absolutely something they have no interest in. But Grace had taken down one of the poetry books I bot at a reading so I decided to discourse on it.

I began talking and after three seconds no one was listening.

But during that monolog, I was having the time of my life and really wanted an audience to talk to.

Whenever I go to a poetry reading and like the poet's book, I buy it and have em inscribe it to me. I have a dozen such books, most of em not very good. Hmmm, I wonder where Steven Riel's book is. Can't remember if it's good or not. Edwin Romand is still writing and is very good. A former priest whose best friend was convicted. He left the priesthood after that, married and had a son Liam.

Let's find him.

Hello Ed!
Tonite after dinner, I locked myself in my Poetry Room, set the timer for an hour, and sorted thru my hundreds of pages of poetry. It was good to see so many that I'd forgotten about, like a backyard full of hopping birds, each lovely in its own way.

Just as I found "Titanic," so did I find "At Chaplin's Feet," reviewed by none other than Chris Bursk, whose "Swervings of Atoms" I bot at a reading tho it's nowhere to be found.

I'll close with a reading of At Chaplin's Feet, but not before I say hello to my dear friend Roberto, who will write a couple of grafs for the next Compass about his therapist who he likes very much.

While we were on the phone, we thot of another topic for the Compass: How to save money in these trying times.

If YOU, dear reader, have any ideas, please lemme know.

Scott and I went to B&N thother nite. He bot a film noir called Street with No Name, while I sat in a captain's chair and read the newest book by Michael Moore. I saved money by not buying it but requesting it online at my library. Six other people are before me.

AT CHAPLIN'S FEET

A few months
before you dropped
with exhaustion, Dad,
and were diagnosed with
an oh-so-brief
terminal cancer,
we shopped together.

Shopping was nothing new
for us. You loved
beautiful things and
we would stroll through
the mall together:
you, Mom and I,
with baby Sarah in my arms.

One time, the others
had gone, and I found myself
unaccountably
alone with you.
It was daunting and,
at the same time, sacred.
I never could figure out
what kept us apart
all those years,
living in
distant kingdoms:
You roamed the seas,
a marlin with darting eyes,
while I flew overhead
like a gull.

On that day
we came through the
electronics department.
Giant television sets
beamed their game shows
and soap operas while
we thought we were
only passing through.

By chance, a Chaplin movie
flickered from a high screen.
I wanted to watch, but knew
you didn't like Chaplin.
I never understood why, but
decided
to ask if we could stay.

To my surprise,
you said Yes and we stood
side by side, father and daughter
once more, the space between us
rapidly vanishing. I caught your
blue shirt in my eye.

The fast-moving fellow in black
took over the electronics department.
By now, I had totally lost control,
laughly wildly,
gulping down hiccups,
tears of joy spilled down my cheeks.

After we left
I asked if you liked him,
the little man in black?
Could you possibly
have changed your mind?

To my everlasting surprise
you said, Yes, you hadn't
realized, all those years,
just how funny he was,
a comic for all time.
Dad, I said, watching the eyes
behind your glasses,
I always wanted you
to like Chaplin.
My face was lit up
like a hundred birthday candles,
my eyebrows still smiling.