Earlier today I visited my two Phone Poem books, got caught up in what I had written over ten to twenty years ago, spent almost three hours with them. I was surprised that most of the verses held up really well and still accomplished what I had in mind, so to speak, pun intended: humor, delight in life, love of the creatures in my life, especially Simon and Pookie. We’ve had Simon in our lives since 2009. Goodness. At the moment he’s asleep on our bed in the back bedroom; he usually wakes up in the late afternoon; I have a picture of the little guy from 2013 which I will include, though it tends to break my heart—better times health wise. Better times.
I loved writing the 4-line verses and getting them just right; though I certainly didn’t always get them “just right.” My favorite verse of all that I‘ve written is “Nightmare,” which is in the second volume. It’s “goodness,” for me, is that the verses capture that night so well. My parents had put me to bed that summer night, and they were outside, sitting our front porch, as people did in the 1940’s. I, meanwhile, had a terrible dream, though not with the images detailed in the poem. In my dream my father was lost, 2000 miles from home, gone forever it seemed, like the City in the verses, perhaps. In any case, I apparently screamed and my parents came to wake me, especially my father. I asked him to sleep with me for a while, and on that soft summer’s night he did. I think I must have been no more than four or five years old. “But my father came to wake me/And I would not let him go.” (“Love, stronger than death.” The Song of Solomon, perhaps). I can still see my father looking down at me, loving and concerned, and then crawling into bed beside me.
Simon—2013, better times, health wise; That sofa is gone but Simon is still with me, mostly. See the verses about healthy Simon in “The Phone Poem Book: Occasional Verse,” and the second volume, “Simple Things.” There’s no grey on his head here either.