Different Slants

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

© Monday, September 28, 2015

Two important facts will help my readers better understand this unlikely but classic example of surreal serendipity:

1–I like to cook

2–I have three dogs

Please do not despair for my dogs! While my intention has always been those two passions should never intersect, on this one occasion, they did. My story follows.

For months, I’ve unsuccessfully combed flea markets, Salvation Army stores and especially, garage sales in Northern Illinois, where I have a store, and in South Eastern Wisconsin, where I live, searching for an elusive black, heavy and a marvelous conductor of even heat for cooks, a cast iron skillet.

(Read on …)

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

© August 27, 2015

Trapped in my three-hour commute

Wisconsin to Illinois

Illinois to Wisconsin

Over and over and over

Images spill out of my mind

Like coffee sloshing

Over the edge of a cup

Window open, wind racing by

Avoiding the striped road-kill in the North

Muscular trucks belching black smoke

Wreathing me, lulling me

Interstate fossil fuel perfume

I miss my damn exit

Every time

And the yellowed old images

Flicker by…

(Read on …)

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

© August 12, 2015

Hey, I’m not shy

Just brown-eyed

Racine is a suburb of Detroit

Wall-to-wall used car lots

Ya got some kinda problem, Bud?

Transmission shops

Emission shops

Muffler shops

Brake shops

Body shops

Tire shops

Junk cars

Town’s only

Four miles by six miles

Barely enough room for people

But if a car is broken

Ford to Porsche

All of those people

Can probably fix it

(Read on …)

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

© August 7, 2015

I built this fire pit out of stone and bricks in my Wisconsin back yard. Not a large yard, but encircled by tall pine trees. If the wind is calm, I can smell the leaking pinesap.

Also, I have three older dogs—my last dogs—a laid back black/tan/white coated Beagle with fragile hips, Betsy; an annoying and irritable miniature black Shih tzu named Chewy because with its hair hanging over its black eyes it resembles a miniature Chewbacca; and Jasmine, a tall skinny mixed breed Labrador-Spaniel, with reddish-brown hair, inquiring wolfish eyes and a desire to be on the same level you are when you are speaking to her. She is the youngest and dominant. Betsy, at fifteen will be the first to go, and Chewy, an inherited creature, daily tests my intent to always be compassionate with animals. They all sleep on our bed, separately.

(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 …)