SPELLING

 

SPELLING

I was in 5-5

The way my elementary school 

Along the Horace Harding Expressway

PS 206

Placed students in classes

Was by grades

The best grades went to 5-1

The worst grades went to 5-5

We would participate in spelling bees

With other classes

And it usually ended up me 

Against ten of the students 

From the other class

If it was 5-5 against 5-1

It might've been twenty against me

I don't know if I won any

But I was the class superstar when

It came to spelling bees

So I was chosen to represent

5-5 in the school spelling bee

All my classmates were pumping me up

This was a chance to show the school

5-5 was as good as the other classes

If not better

The first word I got was:

A B S T A C T

I blew it!

There was nothing abstract about it

A concrete failure

 I still remember the look our

Teacher gave me as I was walking 

Down from the stage of the auditorium

To my seat with the rest of 5-5

L O S E R

 

LIBRARY

 

LIBRARY

I was walking with my teenage son

Talking

A rare occasion

I told him one of the things

I missed during the pandemic 

Is the library

He of course couldn't understand why

The library is a refuge

A place of discovery and possibility

Where silence is cherished 

Guarded

Expected

When the new Elmhurst library opened

I started taking out non-fiction books

And rediscovered my love of reading

Along the way I had lost this passion

When I was a teen I looked forward 

To buying a book every week

Novels

Russian

French

English

American

I read them

Some hundreds of pages long

I noticed when I started to read again 

I lacked the stamina

But after a few books I regained it and could 

Read for hours

Taking the journey with the writer

To Honduras to find a lost Mayan city

Or to Liberia to treat Ebola patients

After fifteen or so books

Life got busy again and I stopped reading

Every so often I would still go to the library

Hoping to find a book that would get me back

And once in a while I would

 

 

HILL

 

HILL

When he was in second or third grade

I told my son to run up

To his school

I would wait for him

To reach the door

at the bottom of the hill

He ran really fast

When he got to the blue door

Entrance to the school

He turned around and waved

And then he went inside the cafeteria

Where the kids were greeted by an aide

In that moment I realized

How quickly he would change

From this adorable playful

Child

To a grown-up

 I wiped away my tears 

And headed back home

 

STEREO

 

STEREO

The CD player on my stereo wasn't working

So I took it to a repair shop on Queens Boulevard

We tend to throw away old things

That don't work right

Instead of fixing them

Many times they tell us

It costs more to fix

Than to buy a new one

Some things like CD players

Have been made obsolete

Taken over by new technology

But my Technics stereo

Had a sentimental value

Maybe because they don't make them anymore

Or the cool sidelights

Or that it also has a cassette player

Or because it just looks pretty

So I took it to be repaired

I was happy when I put in a CD and it played again

Then it broke once more

I did think of getting rid of it

But I went back and fixed it again

Going to the repair shop 

Was a time travel experience

Electronics and dot matrix printers

All kinds of gadgets

Some there as almost ornaments of another age

When things somehow seemed more 

Comprehensible

My stereo was fixed and I used it for a while

But it now rests somewhere in a corner

Of my apartment

Disconnected

Like all of us in a way

BASKETBALL

 

BASKETBALL

I was a kid

Playing basketball on my favorite courts

Next to the Long Island Expressway

 My friend was angry at me

Over some nonsense that happened 

Outside the courts

He had punched me in the arm

And I was upset

So I took it out

On the older man who liked to play

With us

Who had a marine haircut

And a great hook shot

I told him to go play with someone his own age

Now many years later

At least thirty

Driving by these courts

I saw him

Seemed time had stopped

Same marine haircut

Same great hook shot

I got out of the car and wanted to

Go over and apologize

But I didn't

I watched him play for a few minutes

He looked happy

So I got back in the car

And drove away

PLAYGROUND

 

PLAYGROUND

During the summer of 69

While some went to Woodstock

I came here

To a triangular park

Off Yellowstone Boulevard

This is where we played

Before heading to Forest Park for the day

Having just arrived from Gibraltar

I was eager to make friends

One said he would come to my house

He spoke Spanish like I did

My mother prepared the apartment 

For our visitor

Who was going to be my 

First friend in America

But he never showed up

MURAL

 

MURAL

In  Kew Gardens

Behind an Art Deco movie theater dating back to the 30's

Which in the 70'sand 80's began showing porno

And now plays indie films from all over the world

Until it closed because of Covid-19

There is a small park  

Empty except for a few hungry pigeons

And myself taking a picture

Of a mural 

Showing Rodney Dangerfield

Who became famous for his rapid fire jokes

About how he got no respect