Poems for class…

During my fifth semester at UConn (Fall 2003), I took a poetry class taught by Joseph Raffa, a man who preferred using his George Washington University email address. My most vivid memory of the guy, who wore suits to every class yet looked slovenly nonethemess [sic], is when I was speaking with him at his desk and he suddenly took his ballpoint pen, stabbed the middle of a bag of Ruffles, and began eating them out of the opening he created while talking to me. He was a fine professor though, teaching a wide variety of poems from an anthology along with work by his thesis subject, Michael S. Harper. “Who cares?” is a fine question at this point. Okay, settle down, Asshole I Just Created (fka You, maybe).

While searching through the wicker basket containing stories I wrote along with journals I filled throughout my elementary and grammar school years, I found a printout of five poems I emailed to the chip stabber, whose gently critical and thoughtful notes fill the margins of each page, and read them for the first time in ages. (Oddly, I’ve long detested unnecessary ellipses, but there one resides in my painful subject line.) Why else would I be writing about it here unless I was about to reveal this quintet of masterpieces to a salivating public clamoring for cliché-ridden quatrains? I regret this dig already.

Date Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003  1:09 PM
From: AdamFriday@aol.com
To: jraff@gwu.edu
Subject: Poems for class…

Sensation
With five outs left
New England sensed
the end of George’s
dominance.

Then it happened,
hit upon hit,
Grady didn’t make
Pedro sit. 

Now the fans
sensed the worst.
Such is the nature
of the curse. 

For a couple innings
the game was a tie.
Till in the eleventh
all hope did die. 

Like Bucky before,
up stepped Boone.
A knuckler hung,
then Sinatra crooned. 

“This is the year,”
was put on halt,
somewhere in heaven
The Babe at fault.

History will
have its way.
Second guesses
rule the day. 

Who hurts more?
Players or fans?
Almost a century
for some in the stands. 

Until April
they will wait.
Until death
they’ll speculate. 

But for those who say
it’s just a game,
they’ve never felt
Red Sox pain.

Water
Pulled alongside the yellow brownstone,
Where Josh came out to shake hands in the cold.
So glad to spend a weekend in Boston
Even if it meant resting on a hardwood floor.
Dishwater ran while we had a conversation,
Cheap cheese pizza then went into the night. 

A lunar eclipse lit up the night,
Illuminating three stories of the brownstone.
While walking a cellphone controlled conversation,
So I watched my breath swim in the cold.
We met some friends on the second floor,
Dorms all seem like hotels in Boston. 

I wore my Yankees cap, a faux pas in Boston,
But beer allowed everyone to forgive me that night.
They roared playing cards sitting on the floor.
Drowned in wearinness we returned to the brownstone.
With a sleeping bag and blanked I didn’t get cold,
The comfort causing early sleep, ending conversation. 

The phone rang, waking me to conversation.
Going to see the Mountaineers play Boston College,
Wore a sweater to fight off the cold.
The Eagles lost but we didn’t care by night.
Had Chinese with company at the brownstone,
Bottles and cartons floated among us on the floor.

After a while we all looked blank at the floor,
The day’s wind having swallowed much conversation.
Drank Jack and lemonade for a while in the brownstone,
Aware that my time was nearly empty in Boston.
Watched David Cross on TV until we’d outlasted the night.
Sad songs dripping from the speakers felt so cold. 

Decided to eat leftover lo mein cold,
And packed up my dirty laundry on the floor.
Wouldn’t be leaving until later in the night,
Washed ourselves in desperate but optimistic conversation.
I said in what high esteem I held Boston,
And complimented the Truffaut nature of the brownstone. 

I swam into the night, radio offering conversation.
The steering wheel was cold so I fished my gloves off the floor,
Smiling, warm thoughts of a brownstone bound forever to Boston. 

Snapshot
It is the little things,
Fresh coffee and car rides,
While singing along to
The Band’s “Whispering Pines.” 

Except images like
these never do take place.
They exist only to give
life a picturesque face.

I’m lying about
living these moments.
But upon occurring
they belong to past tense. 

Thankfully reflection’s
nature is eternal,
If only memory’s
snapshots were a journal.

When encountering times
not unfit for a frame,
Savor every second,
never again the same. 

I turn down the volume,
and take my final sip,
pull into the driveway
and catalog my trip.

Now
Weeks spent with septuagenarians,
Followed by weekends spent alone,
College football on Saturdays
Only reminds me that I’m home.

Work takes my mind from boredom,
Six hours later the feeling’s back.
Always about to change my fate,
Then worried about rejection’s smack. 

Savor the time when friends abound,
Vacations, summer, even phone calls,
But they serve to remind me that
After, like Willie, it’s hello walls. 

Interaction keeps us happy,
Or is that something “they” have said?
Best to forget about your regrets,
From a Truman book I once read. 

Woody Allen reminiscing,
Need to enjoy things as they come,
Never again will I live these
Army games and conversations. 

Before this becomes teary-eyed,
Let it be known, this is my vow,
Work devoted to something I love,
A wife? Yes! Kids? No…anyhow. 

Even when down, still keep my smile,
Too much passion to get depressed,
Looking to next fall in London,
It’s come the time to leave past stress. 

Focus: mainly my own matters,
Heidegger would understand me,
It’s the prescription for present,
Leave mixed feelings: in time I’ll see.

But should I fail to follow through,
This poem can be my epitaph.
A self-aggrandizing text
Of a life lost in some paragraphs.

An Ode to Keith
With his Indian warrior look he
Percolates rhythmically up on the stage.
Some say he will outlive the cockroaches
While he croaks lyrics to “Slipping Away.” 

His legend is well established, a man
of heroin, transfusions, many riffs.
But tonight I smile and sing with Mick as
He, Ronnie, and Charlie play the hits. 

65,000 are in the crowd,
In love though some met the sound recently,
Focused on the man who is rock and roll,
So assured in his presence I yell “Keef.” 

For two hours life is euphoric. My friend says,
“This is the greatest night, ever.” “Agreed.”
It’s a bit of a sad throught, but quite true.
So in the Taurus we blast Stones CDs. 

I do hope life’s not a letdown after this,
It’s only music, my recurring thought.
Over a year past, nothing comes close,
It goes, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” 

Admire Keith, live by similar ideals:
Don’t conform, do what makes you happiest.
Which is really this process, it includes
Articulating music’s deep bliss.