Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story:  http://www.differentslants.com/?p=355
© March 31, 2014
It was a six foot by eight foot wooden box
I built it in Chicago
I was nineteen
From the heavy hinged door to the slanted roof
So the snow would fall off
A solitary window slid back and forth
The rain was defeated
The small structure was solid
And eventually I, too, was solid
Because one thing led to another
© March 16, 2014
Forward to Precision
In July 2016, I wrote
“David’s Star” www.differentslants.com/?p=3102
to express the never-ending insecurity of being ethnically indistinguishable and, at times the brutal consequences of strangers sometimes guessing wrong, and sometimes guessing right. A small room in Hell, and just my size. I stay there part time.
A brilliant Rabbi, who knew I was a writer, at a now closed synagogue in Northern Illinois asked me to help him out when he was trying to advise depressed Russian Jewish immigrants who couldn’t comprehend the meaning of the word “depression” in English.
This was in 2002, before I had published any books or anything online, either. After a few weeks, the end result was:
“Depression, Despair and The Human Voice” www.differentslants.com/?p=72.
That Rabbi later told me what I wrote was perfect for his needs.
Later, I published it on my DifferentSlants.com website and it became my most read story for years. In it, I explicitly explained what it was like to live with depression from the inside out, before I was diagnosed with it and prescribed the correct medication.
In 2004, after learning that I had three, then four brain tumors, I had brain surgery in Chicago, once in January and again in April. In April while recovering, I unexpectedly was able to read my chart when my surgeon accidentally left my file on my bed. It said: Fantastic recovery! With an exclamation point. It made me wonder what he was expecting.
After my recovery, that same hospital hired me to read some of my stories to a room filled with brain surgery survivors. It was then that I saw what my life could have been like, instead of how it actually turned out. No one in that room looked at me for the hour I was there reading. They didn’t seem to notice me at all. They just kept looking around the room or doing nothing. I understood then how incredibly fortunate I was.
I wanted to write something about the experience or another situation involving an out of control brain . This time I did a lot of research to find a way to express the grim reality some people live with every day, all day, when their physical bodies are prisoners of their damaged brains. And no, this is not autobiographical. There’s enough wrong with me as it is.
The resulting title of the poem I wrote about a person having OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder is “Precision”. It is intended to transmit the honest reality of rigidly living a life strictly within the lines.
All his lines are parallel
Boots side by side
Left on the left
Right on the right
There is a second pair
Waiting
For more serious weather
Drifts of snow
That may never come
But he is ready
Which is important
I race to work
Knowing
No one’s there
I don’t want to miss
Another chance
To be missed
Although
This may seem
Illogical
Contemplation of emptiness
During unending time
Has rearranged my
Reality