Different Slants

Does a rising tide really lift all ships?

A rising tide only lifts the ships that are still in good shape.

by Robert M. Katzman © June 10, 2023

In the silence of his garage

In the Northwest corner

Where essential tools dwell

Are they conscious of him?

Do they tremble in anticipation

As he once again becomes active

Ready to do his carpentry?

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman © April 25, 2023

(Dedicated to and inspired by Raphael Pollock, a friend since 1964)

Up at 3 am

I am older now

More careful now

Packing began a week ago

Notes to remind me:

Computer/Phone/Hearing Aid

Money/Driver’s License/Boarding Pass

My good wife wakes up with me

Makes me hot coffee

Mother Hen’s me studiously

Insuring I leave nothing behind

She drives me through the rain

We both search for the airport’s lights

My one-time high school classmate

 Endured a heart attack

I bring him the only medicine I have

I’m flying to see my friend

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman ©  May 18, 2023

A friend, Ron Buzil, sent me and a number of our other classmates from Caldwell Grammar School at 8546 S. Cregier St on the South Side of Chicago a message that a person I once was in kindergarten with in 1955, Michael Froman, had just died at 72. What follows is a series of unexpected emotions and memories locked away (I thought for good); but I guess the lock was sorta rusty. Long forgotten, I realized I had a debt to pay.

(Read on …)

First written five years ago, this memory of when I met Joyce Esther Bishop later on this day, mother to all of our children, and then when I was impacted by her death 42 years later, deserves to see light, be reread, be remembered by her countless friends and family:

by Robert M. Katzman © April 27, 2018

Never knew when it would hit, how hard it would hit, or where.

*

Didn’t think it would be in my kitchen in Wisconsin on a sunny Friday morning, on the 43rd anniversary of when I met a beautiful young love I’ll never see again.

*

It is one thing to type that.

*

It is another thing to experience the totality of that slammed door all at once on the first anniversary of that endlessly shared day with her, without her.

*

Oh, she’s gone.

*

Forever.

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman © April 2, 2023

Long time ago

Passing over the Root River

During Passover

The muddy chocolate flowing

A fast-moving body of water

Morphing into a

Malted Milk Waterfall

Where the Old Mill used to be

(Read on …)