Author Archives: Sans Souci

96. Poem for Monday: Billy Collins.The Fish

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The Fish Billy Collins poet laureate of the United States 2001-2003 As soon as the elderly waiter placed before me the fish I had ordered, it began to stare up at me with its one flat, iridescent eye. I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say, eating alone in this awful restaurant bathed in such unkindly light and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily. And  I feel sorry for you too– yanked from the sea and now lying dead next to some boiled potatoes from Pittsburgh– I said back to the fish as I raised my fork. And … Continue reading →

95. Poetry and Illustration: Slice of Life

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Slice of Life ©11/01 poetry and illustration srk all rights reserved The Original Ray’s Famous Pizza now $1.75 a slice, on the Upper West Side. At the next booth, a heavy-set woman with blonde-streaked hair, baby stroller parked at the table’s edge, sits across from her companion, a dead man-mummy. As the woman eats her pizza, The wizened old face sleeps, Nestled, gray, into the collar of a down coat. K-Joy 98.3 Long Island’s Best Music Mix               This report brought to you by Boston Market…   The woman eats her pizza. The dead man sleeps, then opens its … Continue reading →

103. Original Poetry and Photography: Make Over

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I hope this is a crisper version, and integration of the original and first edit. I really hope. Thank you all so much, you taught me so much. Make Over (second rewrite 2/3/09) I have seen you in dreams. You are young and beautiful, sitting in a car, giggling with your date in front of your building, off Fifth, waiting for alternate side parking to end, having martinis that you brought down on a tray. I still grab at the moment, the one in my mind, where I can see you laughing, tossing the perfectly cut curls, white teeth surrounded … Continue reading →

82. Poetry: Atlas

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Atlas ©1/15/02 . . Follow the highways, interstates, expressways, of the lines on my face the veins of my body. Stop at the green lights of my eyes and go at the sight of red blood. I know my hair is a tangle of weeds, brambles, and memories of fingers. My heart is a rotary through which arteries go. Some of my countries have been earth-quaked, or glaciered, shifting south when once north, creating civil unrest. Craters have formed where I have cried, filling lakes, now barren, and the desert cracked where I have laughed. Uplifted like mountains by the … Continue reading →

84. Poetry: To Be Or Not To Be

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Evolution ©5/1/07 all rights reserved by author BANG!   Birth. Fire. Water. Earth. Cretaceous, spacious, bodacious, dearth– Buds, plants, pollen; cries  for bees, moths, butterflies.  Homosapiens: planters, farmers, sowers,  buzzers, flying, busy, growers;  Petals, stamens, pistols, honey; Hives, harvest, workers; money–   Cell phones ringing? GPS?  Fly too high like Icarus?  Hives are empty, won’t be long: barren fields, dry and wan, sunspots? warming? global spawn? Look again, the bees are gone. On Einstein’s earth: years left there’s four– once the bees are nevermore.  Bang. Comments (7 total) Post a Comment redhe… Offline IM How lovely, how true, and how very … Continue reading →

88. Poetry: Fall

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I thought I would post a poem I wrote from its inception to finish; I wrote it while on sabbatical in 2001. It starts with a free writing exercise on Fall. You can see where I took the leaves. 1. Free writing exercise . Autumn begins in the Lower East side Shortly after school starts and the Heat burns out of the air. I am 8 years old; in my part of the city there is an oasis of trees. I am instructed to collect the reds and golds and bring the Dropped treasures of maples and elms to school: … Continue reading →

50. Poetry: The Light Side: Married life

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Rob and Sue Inc. Well blogerinas and blogerinos, today is another special day. Yesterday was my 2 month blogaversary (as Kari would appropriately call it) and today, well, it was 31 years ago that your Sans Souci married Mr. Sans Souci. It’s a day of celebration and gratitude. Relationships ain’t easy and marriage certainly isn’t either, but if a couple can last and not kill eachother, that’s a good sign. And if they produce a good kid, it’s even better. We did. And the good kid goes to a good school that requires good money, and Mr., who is rightfully … Continue reading →

32. Poetry: Blue Cheese

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Lunacy ©2002     original post 5/7/07   I The butter moon Waits to be spread Across the sky, Now black bread. For brief moments, The view will last, My eyes fill with this bright repast. And then with hunger, My heart does long, And bite by bite, The moon is gone. II Hughs, Plath: Wrath. Rivera, Kahlo: Halo. Rodin, Claudell: Hell. Man on the moon. I am so cold.   ””” Comments (9 total) Post a Comment Lex Offline I think I just lost again in the poetry. Am I that bad? Tuesday May 8, 2007 – 05:20am (ICT) … Continue reading →

184. Poetry: Civil War: part 3

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This concludes Civil War.             If you have not as yet read the previous parts, Part 1: Part 2:   3. The South But then! The sound of a key in the door, and the scraping of metal and the heavy screech of the police lock(1) wedged into the floor, but coming free. It was Aunt Selma checking up on her nephew! Aunt Selma who left Uncle Nathan behind while she performed this mitzvah for her sister, Greta. Aunt Selma, all five feet of her; her white hair, her eyes magnified behind her thick glasses, … Continue reading →

143. Poetry: Series: Harlem On My Mind: 5. Flaws

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A special “thank you,” to Tyler, who was the impetus for me to write this poem. I had thought I completed this series in 2002, but when he said he anticipated the 5th poem, I thought, “uh oh!” I better get out of my “dry spell” and get to work. I  highly recommend him if you are suffering from “writer’s block.”       The poems in this series are: 1. Skin 2. Take The “A” Train 3. Hail Mary 4. Theft 5. Flaws It was 1966, I was a freshman in college, Harlem was one of many suffering parts … Continue reading →

136. Poetry Series: Harlem On My Mind: 4. Theft

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Shepard Hall, The City College of New York 4th in the series, Harlem On My Mind It was spring, it was warm, the weather was kind; events were not. Theft April 1968 Someone stole the gold Cross pen from atop my notebook.  It was the beginning of a period of suffering and transition.   Soon after, it was announced that The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King had been killed; we filled the mazes of corridors of Shepard Hall; it crowns the North Campus, the building that looks like a huge, regal, fortress of dark-bricked, chocolate cake, adorned with drips of … Continue reading →

128. Poetry: Series: Harlem On My Mind: 3. Hail Mary

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Shephard Hall, The City College of New York This is the third poem in my series, Harlem on My Mind.  Harlem is a black community in the upper middle section of Manhattan.    Series: Harlem on My Mind 1. Skin 2. Take The “A” Train I graduated from High School a term early;  I was in a rush to start college and get my life going.  I attended graduation ceremonies on a cold January night and the next day began my life as a college student at The City College of New York, in Harlem.  I was 17 years old, … Continue reading →

121. Poetry: Series: Harlem On My Mind: 2: Take The A Train

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Part 2 of a series. original poetry It was 1966 and I was a college student in New York City, at the City College Of New York, in Harlem. ! was dependent on public transit. And on my parents.  I was about to grow up.       Take The  A Train ©3/23/02srk all rights reserved 1966 My dad left me on the platform of the A train on my first day of classes.  My mother told him, “Jack, take her.”  The truth was I had never traveled on the train myself. It was early in the morning when the … Continue reading →

110: Poetry: Series: Harlem On My Mind: 1. Skin

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Harlem Parade: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Passing in a Car Joseph Delaney, 1971   Collection of The Museum of the City of New York This 1964 Harlem parade honored U.S. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who later served as chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor under President Lyndon Johnson. Delaney expressed how the Harlem community felt about Powell by scrawling “Baby, I love you” across the upper left area of the canvas. Memories linked to the black community of Harlem in the 1960’s when I was a college student at the City College of New York. Sometimes … Continue reading →

99. Poetry: The Lake

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Ainsi, toujours poussés vers de nouveaux rivages, Dans la nuit eternelle emporté sans retour… ~from Le Lac, by Lamartine     photograph: Roger Williams Park, Providence Rhode Island 11/23/07   The inspiration: Oakland Lake on April 3, 2002 The Lake ©srk 4/02 The day before this day of bright sun, the water was the broken glass of a Perrier bottle; a sullen, yet rich green, refractive along the edges, heavy from the co-mingling of clouds above. Now it leans to blue then gray like the eyes of a flirtatious fickle female. On the promenade, a goose approaches, his broad breast … Continue reading →

234. Poetry: Series: Couples: 3. Shake Shack, NYC

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Asian Couple at The Shake Shack, Madison Square Park, New York City on a Sunday in August 2006 **** photo/art Sans Souci The line for the burgers, fries, shakes and cones was like a snake, winding and twisting around people, trash cans, and little running children.   It thickened and thinned as people stood in twos, threes and fours grinding their feet in the dusty path in anticipation of the “Best Burgers” in New   York City. It was a Sunday, and unlike during the week, the businessmen in suits were home watching the game, and running shoes were de rigueur. … Continue reading →

11. Poetry: 1959

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A retreat back to the late ’50’s where life was simple and safe. original post 4/20/07 I wrote a large collection of poetry after 9/11 while on a teaching sabbatical. This is one of them. When the world gets to be a little too much, I retreat to happy, innocent years. Enjoy the music; it is not all from 1959, but thereabout. I should write a poem about Richard Panik; in 6th grade he was the first boy I ever danced with. The song was Richie Valens’ “Oh Donna.”  The place was the school gym.  I was giddy.  It was … Continue reading →

9. Poetry: Needles

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The author’s grandparents Sophie and Sam Wasserman  original post 4/19/07 My dear Blogland denizens: Yesterday’s topic reminded me of my grandma Sophie who was born in Kiev, Russia, in 1893. In those days the borders changed every other week, so you could say she was born in Romania. The week that Kiev was in Romania. This poem is dedicated to her. She was not educated: the Tsar forbade girls from getting an education, probably because they were indentured to sew for the royals. Grandpa Sam (Wasserman b.1888 d.1949) sent for her and they married, and raised 4 girls in a … Continue reading →

8. Poetry: Tina, Tina, Proud and Free

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I worked in a school located in a city housing project for 17 of the years I worked for the Board of Education in New York City. During this time I evaluated children for special education programs and interviewed parents to update social histories. I was privy to the most personal information; disturbing information from people who were suffering and in need. I was a vessel into which people dumped their pain. All I could do with what was given to me was write about it. When a parent of six children came in one day in a panic after … Continue reading →

7. Poetry: The Horrible End of Roseann Quinn

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original post 4/16/07 This morning Roseann Quinn popped into my head, another friend I failed to mention on my list of losses. Maybe it’s because the weather has been so lousy, raining in torrents. Or maybe the sky is still crying for Rosie. I do. Her sensational murder in 1973 led the way to Judith Rossner’s book, “Looking For Mr. Goodbar.” A movie followed after. I just remember Rosie’s laugh and humor, her post-polio limp, and her great sense of fun. Rest in Peace, sweet girl.     For Roseann Quinn ©2002 by the author, all rights reserved I can … Continue reading →