Different Slants

(Originally posted on July 21, 2008, then reposted March 10, 2017 in frustration after the 2016 election, where insanity began to rule what was once a last best refuge for people seeking a chance to live, to be happy)

To me, being an American is an idea.

A concept.

An agreement of equals.

A willingness to tolerate the differences in others.

A celebration of the beauty of cultural diversity.

While maybe originally, ours was a government,

“Of the Protestants, By the Protestants and For the Protestants”

We’re bigger than that today.  A numerically insignificant People like my own family, Jews, now represent less than 2% of the total American population, but I believe that our Constitution includes me when I read it.  I don’t live in fear, here.

Soon, there will be more Moslems in America than Jews, but I don’t care.  They came here to escape the same killing chaos that brought my family here, as well as looking for a new start and a fair chance to become successful.  I welcome them.  Besides, when the hating is missing, they may remember that we’re linguistic cousins who speak two versions of the same Semitic language, as do the Assyrians, who are Christian Arabs.

(Read on …)

Robert M. Katzman © Halloween, 2015

Saturday afternoon

Late autumn

Unfamiliar country road

I keep losing

Rock n’ Roll on my radio

Hunt and peck

Hunt and peck

And I miss my damn exit

Cursing the wasted time

I turn east on:

What?

I look for a sign

“Seven Mile Road”

Stretching into the horizon

No stoplights in sight

I zoom ahead

(Read on …)

© July 11, 2015

Ain’t nobody like me, up here

Or just barely

I’m a Mediterranean oasis

Wherever I go

A hot-house flower among

All the dour Teutonic people

***

Young girl cashiers

Mostly blonde

See my silver Star of David

Dangling from my neck

Glinting in the harsh lights of

Small Wisconsin stores

“Ooooooh, how pretty!”

Some of them exclaim

When first noticing it

Bright against my olive skin

“What is it?” 

Some ask me

(Read on …)

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

© October 11, 2014

She called me her Eagle. I called her my Swan.

We collected many of those ceramic birds at yard sales and flea markets, over the years. Now they have all flown away, somewhere. We remaining two old birds have shed so much besides feathers. All the chicks are also gone. Feeling weightless is so freeing, but we now seek a smaller nest.

Our exploration of the possible has gradually taught us about seeing life, land, rivers, shores, some buildings abandoned and some buildings preserved. And how we learned to perceive people differently, as well.

Not so surprising to us, but nevertheless causing a stark loneliness was a confirmation of our assumption that in so many small places with red-painted farms, “The People of the Book” have run out of pages. (Read on …)

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

© June 26, 2014

I can hear it far away

Weaving in and out

Sirens

Firetruck?

Better get outa the way

Wasn’t I painting something?

Mrs. Phillips, your boy has talent

You can tell that at seven?

(Read on …)

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

© February 3, 2014

The phone rang in the dark hours of the morning.

Asleep, I wasn’t fast enough to get to before it stopped.

I fell back in bed, irritated, but too sleepy to deal with random calls before dawn.

Then, a few minutes later, it rang again. I stared at the phone for a moment, then leaped up to capture the beast before it escaped, whomever that it was calling me so stupidly, and twice. I listened to the voice on the phone. It was mechanically human. The call was from the Compulsive Drug Corporation, or the CDC. The voice wanted to know:

(Read on …)