Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

May Death Pass Over–But This Time, All of Us…by Robert M. Katzman

by Robert M Katzman © April 1, 2020 (rewritten 2/27/23)

(Dedicated to a truly good and noble person, Bill Skeens, who inspired this poem)

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Desolation and Isolation

Staring through a window

From a quiet dim kitchen

Stocked with food against the abyss

I see the shining steel fan spinning

I see the cedar swing moving

In the cold spring wind

I see the red brick fireplace 

Black with charred dead embers

Surrounded by logs and branches

But empty of the warmth of fire

I do so miss the people

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(Read on …)

When a Child Dies: Emotional Grief at Christmas Time…by Robert M. Katzman

by Robert M. Katzman © Sunday, December 22, 2019 (Revised 12/26/22…This may continue)

Written in response to Peggy’s letter of pain on Facebook: No, Peggy, I don’t know you, but I felt compelled to respond. Perhaps it will give you some possible way to cope and find peace.

I have not lost a child, but seem blessed or cursed with empathy, with absorbing others’ pain so intensely, it is like having a massive unpredictable Empath Serpent coiled within me, sometimes rearing up and piercing my heart with its fangs. I have no shield to stop me from caring.

I am Jewish without excuses, not into endless ritual, but deeply spiritual, and now old enough to have experienced the loss of so many people that I have forgotten some of their names.

(Read on …)

The Temperatures of Their Emotions…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Bewilderment,Bob's Eve Odyssey,Depression and Hope,Love and Romance,subtle erotica — Bob at 10:48 am on Thursday, December 19, 2019

by Robert M. Katzman © December 18, 2019

(Inspired by Nancy Alexander)

Cool surfaces

Glazed skin

Hooded eyes

Tentative Touch

(Read on …)

My “Bill & Ellen & Bob & Larry & Hugh & Jan & Brian” Story…by Robert M. Katzman

By Robert M. Katzman  ©  Halloween 2011

What follows is the quintessential Chicago story of hardship and friendship. It all happened on the South Side, and my story covers decades. Why not dive in and get lost for a while? Every so often, as present civilization seems to be crashing down around us, and civility with it, good happens.

Why this is always a surprise mystifies me, but just as there’s more darkness in the Universe than light, perhaps that out-of-whack ratio is mirrored here on Earth with evil overwhelming good.  I don’t want to believe that is true.  I have evidence to the contrary that spontaneous good both exists in the most modest of people, and that it is either an inherited trait, or a mutation.  

Though my story was written on Halloween, it is more goodhearted than all the witches and goblins who surface that day, and is much more of a Thanksgiving Day story, at least to me.  Let me introduce the cast of this absolutely true little drama, which begins in frigid winter, 1967 and ends in sunny June 2011, forty-four years later.

(Read on …)

What Are the Chances For Happiness?…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Bewilderment,Depression and Hope,Life & Death,Marriage and Family,My Own Personal Hell,Uncategorized — Bob at 9:22 am on Sunday, November 3, 2019

Diana Leslie Gallai Weinstein Eulogy: Diana Leslie Weinstein, nee Gallai, 48, beloved mother of Zachary Weinstein; loving daughter of Adele Ballis, nee Warman, and the late Sieg Gallai; dear sister of Julie Gallai and Bruce Ballis.

(Note: I read the first half of this Eulogy to my cousin Diana, but was unable to read the rest. So Joyce, standing next to me, immediately continued to read the words. This happened often, and Joy was always there to fill the gap. My missing hero.)

What are the Chances for Happiness? © March 4, 2008

I think the odds are long.

It requires a person to make choices.

Should I love someone?

Should I take this job?

Should I risk traveling?

Should I have a child?

 And other choices.

 If you love someone, will they love you back?

(Read on …)

Coming ‘Round the Bend, Approaching Seventy!…by Robert M. Katzman

By Robert M. Katzman © June 10, 2019

Conceived in mid-July ’49

Born late in April of ’50

Been running hard ever since

Trying to catch up

Born into chaos and diamonds

I somehow chose chaos

And the strong

Sometimes brilliant

Individuals dwelling within it

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Rearranging my priorities

Disheveled by design

I never let clothes define the man

If people only perceived

My dog-eared cover

Then maybe they missed 

A very good book

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(Read on …)
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