Different Slants

Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story:  http://www.differentslants.com/?p=355

By Robert M. Katzman

© October 3, 2015

 

The munching horses have become more familiar

The insanely circuitous route I take home

Each night a bit less incomprehensible

The surly burly guy with steel grey hair

Smiles at me when I buy gas from him

The beautiful deep brown Root River

Less of an impossible barrier every morning

As I learn the handful of roads crossing it

Going south on 32 each morning

I pause at Main Street’s western turn

Greeting the blinding sunrise over Lake Michigan

As if it were a cuddly puppy

Waiting just for me, too

Sometimes a single sailboat passing

Before I turn west towards

The grey concrete interstate

I have watched the fierce windstorms

Knock over trees

Supplying me with jagged firewood

Make my nighttime log fires

Rage and blaze as the wind

Forces its way through the chinks

Of my sturdy brick fire pit

The bright burning hardwood

Glows, dims, flares, crackles and crumbles

In the damp early mornings

Only powdery white ash remains

Amid the million red barns and puffing tractors

Besides the meadows and forests

Beyond the sleepy silence of a

Small town Downtown

And the tilting abandoned siloes

There are foreign film festivals

Thai, Japanese, Indian & Italian restaurants

Real Jewish delicatessens

Steaming corned beef and pastrami

Reborn Industrial Renaissance

Old buildings with new concepts

African Festivals

Arab Festivals

Armenian Festivals

East Indian Festivals

French Festivals

LGBT Festival

German Festivals

Greek Festivals

Irish Festivals

Italian Festivals

Jewish Festivals (ok, not yet…)

Latino Festivals

Mexican Festivals

Native American Festivals

Polish Festivals

Scottish Festivals

Serbian Festivals

An antique intersection

Surrounded by modern wreckage

Piles of smoking timbers and twisted steel

Chain link fences with bright yellow !warnings!

Twinkling purple neon

Seductively luring me into a

Red brick building filled with books

Thousands of old paperback books

Not a Kindle in sight!

Tchotchkes and fainting couches

Limp red-furred dead-eyed Fox stoles

Zoot suits and crumbling pulp magazines

Roy Rogers and Davy Crockett

Curling theater posters of

Long forgotten movies and their

Heroically posed un-twinkling stars

I frequently visit

These ghostly cemeteries of fame

Visiting bits and pieces of my life

Scattered within dim display cases

Disintegrating flies resting on history

We discovered

Pick n’ Save!

As wonderful as Whole Foods

But more proletarian pricing

A fragrant bakery

Apples pies and walnut brownies

Ethnic breads and chocolate chip cookies

Ice-filled glass cases swimming with

Red, white, brown, and yellow fish

And yes, staring right at you

Enough displays of

Beer, brats and cheese

To swell the Middle American hearts

Of any proud Wisconsin

Green Bay Packer tailgater

I still get lost sometimes

Bright street lights

Illuminating only Main Street

One small bungalow

Looking identical to another

Black shadows like a jigsaw puzzle

Often I’ll take the pitch black

“Road less traveled”

‘Cause I can’t find the damn road I want

But maybe that’s just me

When I want to be alone

Easy enough in Wisconsin

I ride between fields of ripe October corn

The stiff dry rows reminding me

Of a frozen parchment army

Some rows higher than my old Toyota

The hilly land undulates like

A lush and opulent woman

All hips and curves

Each old farm sold and developed

Is beginning to fill me with dread

Walgreens, Costco, Citgo

Replacing cows, goats and horses

Gentle vistas with a single structure

I accept my getting old, but

Can’t anything else just stay as it is?

I dread the coming winter

I fear a paralyzing blizzard

Isolating two hopeful grandparents

Fluffy piles of quilts awaiting us

Candles in hurricane glass

Tucked aside in every room

Cupboards filled with canned food

We hug our warm dogs at night

Fragile older people

Diminished energy

Fortified with experience

Well aware of the

Wide mood swings

Of Wisconsin’s

Sizzling / frozen weather

Earth’s North Pole

Three thousand miles

Above us

Nevertheless stoic

Come Spring

Like pink Crocuses

Poking through the snow

We will still be here