Different Slants

by Robert M. Katzman © July 27, 2022

(This conversation actually happened, when I was in a desperate situation and needed some unusual assistance. No laws were broken, but it was easily the most terrifying conversation I ever had in my life, long, long ago)

The older man then looked at me, right into my eyes, and he said

“It is good when a son shows respect to his Mother 

Your Mother says you are good to her  

Is that so?”

I nodded  

Nervously

“Do you call her, make sure she has everything she needs?”

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman © July 21, 2022

If anyone else alive today 

Still remembers

I certainly knew the

Delicate irritating nature

When handling persnickety

Fabled Coleman Lanterns

During windy Chicago winters

With so much frozen

Moisture in the air

It was damned difficult

To light a wooden match

To ignite the mantles

Fifty-five years ago

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman © July 15, 2022 

In December 1977 in a then-shabby, mostly Eastern-European working-class area of Chicago – at the intersections of Damen, North Avenue and Milwaukee (now part of the too-expensive-for-anyone-to-live-in Wicker Park area) — an incident occurred which would be better placed in an episode of the Twilight Zone than anything I could have anticipated. 

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman March 20, 2022

Like a World-Series of murder

We sit in the stands and watch

Like a bookie in a newsstand

Betting on when they’ll fold

Guys in a bar stare at the screen

Full color killing this time out

No shaky D-Day photography

Advancing the recording of death

***

(Read on …)

By Robert M. Katzman © June 20, 2022

So, the only significant argument 

I have ever had with

My steadfast construction assistant 

The beauteous Nancy

Was over the secretly famous (?)

“Sorting Out the Screws Affair”

*

(Read on …)

by Robert M. Katzman © June 10, 2022

*

Not that anyone is breathlessly 

Waiting to read my chaotic thoughts

But thoughts have no stop signs

Thoughts just careen relentlessly

Until captured or forgotten

*

I think the idea of a Menorah

Came from a Wanderer resting

Lying in a sandy oasis

Lazily watching a Tree

Perhaps the only tree in the oasis

*

(Read on …)