cell

May 26, 2023

TY NEWYDD

People wondered why I traveled
to a remote part of Wales
for a writing workshop
when there were a limitless supply
at home or in touristy places in the US.
I could tell them I was impressed
with the two teachers, I could say
I was to be in Lloyd George’s home.
I could say all of that, but in truth
although I didn’t know it when
I registered for the week living
in as close to a monastic cell
as I ever want to get, the real
reason was to have an afternoon
sitting on a window bench in the conservatory
looking out in the distance at the Irish sea
a house cat curled in my lap, my notebook
slowly filling as my pen ran dry.

June 11, 2021

HARD TIME

I was only in jail once,
then for four hours, no charges
and my biggest fear was that
my parents would find out,
or the cops would determine
that I was only 17 and breaking
the park curfew was not
even a misdemeanor.

They let me go, gave me
a ride back to the park,
told me not to go in but
I wouldn’t at 2 A.M. 
I assured them,
I’d go home and get some slee
before reporting to the University
for my summer research position.


All these years later I wonder
if that was possibly the cell
that Joe Hill occupied once,
or just what other manner
of criminal I might have 
shared space with, hopefully
someone not merely charged
with violating park curfew.

April 27, 2021

AGING

We live in the cell phone age
and there are hidden advantages
that the young, exchanging
last year’s model for this,
will never fully understand
until they, too, are much older.

With the push of a button,
held in for five seconds,
the phone will go off at night,
and since no one any longer
has a landline, you are assured
that no one will drag you
from sleep to announce
they are able to extend
the warranty on a car you
sold two years ago,
or to say that a friend
or relative has died,
and denying death night hours
is the closest thing
you can do to feel that you
are in control of anything.

January 31, 2020

SUMMER, THEN

For three days I was
a short order cook
a change from my table duties
when the regular guy decided
that a night of drinking didn’t end
when the bar closed
and broke back in
through the rotting back door
that was always next
on the list of things to be fixed.
The owner, my boss, said he’d wait
three days for the cook
to dry out in his cell,
but my cooking made him reconsider.
Yet the customer still came, paid
Were patient, and after
the three days past,
and the old cook couldn’t make
even his nominal bail
the boss hired a new cook
and I went back to dishes
and filling coffee, and looking lovingly
at my dishwasher, my friend
for a too long too long summer
until I went back to college.

January 11, 2020

MONOCHROME

It is an admittedly odd sign
of my age that I recall clearly
when bathrooms were tiled mostly
in monochrome, black and white,
and it was a mark of quality when
each tile was hexagonal, a hive
of ceramic cells, impenetrable.

Now tiles are square or rectangular,
come in a rainbow of colors, often
intermixed to achieve looks
unimaginable back in my youth,
and walls a painted with any color
you can imagine, not the eighteen shades
of white from which my parents had
the choice for our new house.

But change can be for the better,
and in proof of that you need only
look around and see that bathroom
fixtures are mostly white, occasionally
black, not sickly green or peach,
and, thank the gods, no one has
avocado appliance these days.