Ineradicable cobwebs fill the corners of my life.
The ghosts of things that might have been haunt me though they haven't.
In my dream, we said some terrible things -
No, I take that back,
I said some awful things to you -
Hate-filled words, untake-backable words,
And left you in confusion
Wondering what you'd done.
Then I walked through fire -
Returning to a past which had not, could not happen.
I took the consolation you deserved for myself,
In the arms of someone who no longer was there.
After thinking how good it felt, I realized it could not last.
It was a chimera.
I saw clearly I'd given away the present for a past I could not reclaim
And thus, my future was obliterated.
When you woke me and you were still real,
For a brief moment there was relief,
But then I noticed cobwebs
Constructed of motes of sadness
And felt the heat of the coming fire.
Somewhere in this there's a formula for figuring probability.
Somewhere there's a path to get to the average mean.
There's the murk of the future and the bottleneck of the recent past
And glorious worlds at either end,
But I'm stuck in between.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Sally Graham
Five years ago I was intimidated by Sally Graham. Well, I respected her superior intellect. She was almost ready to retire then. I think she told me she was fifty-eight. She's a psychiatrist and a member of the American Philatelic Society and at that time I think her stamp collection numbered in the 60,000s.
The way I met her was I was talking to the doorman and I mentioned I was just renewing my interest in stamp collecting, something I had done when I was a kid. And he told me there was someone in the building who was also a collector and if I wanted he would give her my apartment number. I told him go ahead, why not, I wanted to meet other people who were into it. That evening, she rang my bell. I invited her in and we talked for an hour or so.
She sat on my dining room floor explaining things to me like how I could always tell stamps that belonged to republics of the Soviet Union because they had letters on them in the Cyrillic alphabet that looked like CCCP and NOYTA and how stamps from Taiwan differed from those from mainland China because those from the Peoples Republic had an ideogram resembling a wishbone, and it was the symbol that stood for man. It was pronounced ren, but I only had to concern myself with that on the earlier issues because the later stamps now said China in the English alphabet and the sets were numbered. She was a free spirit and her hair was unkempt and she reminded of nothing so much as a wilted flower child, but she sounded very intelligent.
She told me I should join the APS and I would get circuits on approval. It was a good way to fill up my collection cheaply and it was a very secure procedure.
The difference in our ages precluded becoming very friendly but every once in a while I would see her in the lobby on my way out to work or coming home and I remember when she told me she had officially retired. She was looking forward to more time at home and not having to see patients. They all had so many problems. She said at times she felt like she might bug out.
About a year ago I had a problem with the APS. Someone from the Society called me and told me the next person on the Peoples Republic of China circuit did not receive the booklets I had looked at and sent on. He was a Chinese with a post office box for an address and I had my suspicions. The stamps were valuable. I called Sally and asked her advice, because whenever I received a circuit from PRC she was always the prior recipient and this particular time I had foolishly forgotten to save the priority mail insurance receipt.
She told me in her soft-spoken solicitous way, "It's a test. To teach you to follow the instructions. Why don't you call the APS and tell them the number and maybe they can track it down without the actual receipt?"
"And if they can't?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "It couldn't cost you more than a hundred dollars. That's all it was insured for."
I felt like one of her patients. It was not what I wanted to hear.
I was able to clear my responsibility with the APS with a phone call, but after that I asked them not to send me anymore stamps from China. My collection was pretty full and I didn't want to be responsible for something that expensive again.
As I say, that was a year ago.
This afternoon, in the crisp December weather, I went downstairs to buy some lunch in the new Garden of Eden gourmet food shop that recently opened in our building's ground floor. It is filled with the delicious aromas of all kinds of exotic foods, fruits and baked items, meats and poultry, cooked and ready to go. I bought some three potato salad and some roast beef and when I entered the lobby I ran into Sally Graham. I was a little taken back by how she looked. Her teeth were all discolored and her hair was still unkempt but now it was completely gray. It looked dirty and she had put on quite a bit of weight. She was wearing an ill fitting down jacket with food stains on it.
"You cost me five dollars," she said, and it really sounded like an accusation.
"How's that?" I asked. I really didn't want to stand there and talk. I wanted to come upstairs and have my roast beef.
She went on to explain since I wasn't on the Chinese circuit anymore, she had to walk all the way over to Fourth Avenue to the Post Office to insure her package and send it on to the next person on the list instead of leaving it with the doorman for me.
I asked her how many stamps she had now and she told me she had stopped counting when she went over 100,000.
"How do you catalog them all?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't gotten around to doing that," she said. "They're all in shoeboxes. Some of my friends who are dealers tell me I should, especially if I want to sell them, and I may have to soon. I'm running out of money."
I was surprised and said, "Oh?"
"Yes," she said, "I just paid October's rent."
That really surprised me. It was not the kind of thing I expected from her.
The way I met her was I was talking to the doorman and I mentioned I was just renewing my interest in stamp collecting, something I had done when I was a kid. And he told me there was someone in the building who was also a collector and if I wanted he would give her my apartment number. I told him go ahead, why not, I wanted to meet other people who were into it. That evening, she rang my bell. I invited her in and we talked for an hour or so.
She sat on my dining room floor explaining things to me like how I could always tell stamps that belonged to republics of the Soviet Union because they had letters on them in the Cyrillic alphabet that looked like CCCP and NOYTA and how stamps from Taiwan differed from those from mainland China because those from the Peoples Republic had an ideogram resembling a wishbone, and it was the symbol that stood for man. It was pronounced ren, but I only had to concern myself with that on the earlier issues because the later stamps now said China in the English alphabet and the sets were numbered. She was a free spirit and her hair was unkempt and she reminded of nothing so much as a wilted flower child, but she sounded very intelligent.
She told me I should join the APS and I would get circuits on approval. It was a good way to fill up my collection cheaply and it was a very secure procedure.
The difference in our ages precluded becoming very friendly but every once in a while I would see her in the lobby on my way out to work or coming home and I remember when she told me she had officially retired. She was looking forward to more time at home and not having to see patients. They all had so many problems. She said at times she felt like she might bug out.
About a year ago I had a problem with the APS. Someone from the Society called me and told me the next person on the Peoples Republic of China circuit did not receive the booklets I had looked at and sent on. He was a Chinese with a post office box for an address and I had my suspicions. The stamps were valuable. I called Sally and asked her advice, because whenever I received a circuit from PRC she was always the prior recipient and this particular time I had foolishly forgotten to save the priority mail insurance receipt.
She told me in her soft-spoken solicitous way, "It's a test. To teach you to follow the instructions. Why don't you call the APS and tell them the number and maybe they can track it down without the actual receipt?"
"And if they can't?" I asked.
"Well," she said, "It couldn't cost you more than a hundred dollars. That's all it was insured for."
I felt like one of her patients. It was not what I wanted to hear.
I was able to clear my responsibility with the APS with a phone call, but after that I asked them not to send me anymore stamps from China. My collection was pretty full and I didn't want to be responsible for something that expensive again.
As I say, that was a year ago.
This afternoon, in the crisp December weather, I went downstairs to buy some lunch in the new Garden of Eden gourmet food shop that recently opened in our building's ground floor. It is filled with the delicious aromas of all kinds of exotic foods, fruits and baked items, meats and poultry, cooked and ready to go. I bought some three potato salad and some roast beef and when I entered the lobby I ran into Sally Graham. I was a little taken back by how she looked. Her teeth were all discolored and her hair was still unkempt but now it was completely gray. It looked dirty and she had put on quite a bit of weight. She was wearing an ill fitting down jacket with food stains on it.
"You cost me five dollars," she said, and it really sounded like an accusation.
"How's that?" I asked. I really didn't want to stand there and talk. I wanted to come upstairs and have my roast beef.
She went on to explain since I wasn't on the Chinese circuit anymore, she had to walk all the way over to Fourth Avenue to the Post Office to insure her package and send it on to the next person on the list instead of leaving it with the doorman for me.
I asked her how many stamps she had now and she told me she had stopped counting when she went over 100,000.
"How do you catalog them all?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't gotten around to doing that," she said. "They're all in shoeboxes. Some of my friends who are dealers tell me I should, especially if I want to sell them, and I may have to soon. I'm running out of money."
I was surprised and said, "Oh?"
"Yes," she said, "I just paid October's rent."
That really surprised me. It was not the kind of thing I expected from her.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Views
Two people carry one thing and an argument ensues,
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, "I'm always the one they accuse!"
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Robert propounds on Kate's erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can't sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He's found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn't know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren't smoking. They are. It's only a ruse.
They're thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his girlfriend won't let him abuse,
And an old man who's lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.
Check out student writing at TEC Inglés.
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, "I'm always the one they accuse!"
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Robert propounds on Kate's erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can't sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He's found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn't know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren't smoking. They are. It's only a ruse.
They're thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his girlfriend won't let him abuse,
And an old man who's lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.
Check out student writing at TEC Inglés.
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