Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Allow Me My Foolish Mortality….by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Life & Death,Love and Romance,Philosophy,Poetry & Prose — Bob at 1:15 pm on Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanksgiving, 2011

Allow me my foolish mortality

My assumption of being more

Than meets the eye

The illusion of my value

Enduring beyond a moment

The weight of an observation

A measured interpretation of

Another’s expression

Calculating the risks of

My children’s relationships

Who weighs the value of such judgments?

What makes one’s past words more than

Faint rustling of dead leaves?

Are my pronouncements a telegraph

Clicking only on my end of the line?

 

Why do I seek

God’s

Confidence of reception?

More than a pebble

Less than a comet

Like all of us, ultimately

Ending as a grain of sand on a shore

Shorn of singularity and distinction

As time passes and contemporaries fade

 Increasingly I am

A file

A complaint

An unread letter to the editor

I pray thee

Allow me my foolish mortality

That my wisdom will endure

My memory be treasured

That my words will linger in the air

Unchallenged by the wind

I will seek contentment

With now

With the comfort I can deliver

With appreciation of transient beauty

And for a moment in time

Perhaps I mattered

*******

About the writer and his other life in Skokie, Illinois:

Bob Katzman’s Magazine Museum: 100,000 periodicals back to 1576!
Wall of Rock: 50 years of cool Rock periodicals on display & for sale
4906 Oakton St. (8000 north and 4900 west) Skokie, Ill 60077
(847)677-9444 Mon-Fri: 10 am to 5 pm / Weekends: 10 am to 2 pm

Katzman’s Publishing Company site: www.FightingWordsPubco.com
Katzman’s online non-fiction stories: www.DifferentSlants.com

Poetry? For me, writing poetry is not an option.
It’s a response to emotion. Like cigarette smoke,
it’s fast-flowing, shapeless and with little time to capture it.
Writing poetry in an imperative. I say what I feel compelled to say.

I sell my five published books via mail order and accept major credit cards.
I don’t use PayPal. I just talk to people on the phone.
Fast, reliable service. Read my stories and see what you think.
I’m also available for hire to read my true Chicago stories to organizations
and answer all questions. I autograph my books when I sell them.

I am currently seeking an agent to do more readings.
Feel free to call me at the number above.

5 Comments »

Comment by Lori Ann Gum

November 21, 2011 @ 1:36 pm

Bob, Beautiful, as always. Happy Thanksgiving my friend. Have a nice family gathering and be thankful for all God put in your life and be positive each and every day. It’s amazing what smiles come back to you when you give them away! They cost nothing!

Comment by Bill Skeens

November 21, 2011 @ 2:26 pm

Bob… I believe we all want to matter and want to hope that when we leave this world that we made it a little better than we found it. Know that you have indeed had a positive impact on many lives on your life journey. Happy Thanksgiving. All my best. Bill Skeens

Comment by Don Larson

November 21, 2011 @ 4:27 pm

Bob,

Keen words of your wisdom in this poem.

What we do in life is important. Your life is important. God knows you as God knows us all.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Don

Comment by Gargi

November 26, 2011 @ 3:07 pm

As I said before, Bob– as transient as the sand mandalas of tibetan monks….such is life

This subject of remembrance beyond ‘one life’, that you hope to capture, try to capture, is of course ‘captureless’….and you know it. Yet, magician that you be, Bob, you have paradoxically captured it somehow– in yet another exquisite still-frame of your mind’s eye. Bravo!

Love that line: Why do I seek God’s confidence of reception?

Comment by Robert M. Katzman

November 26, 2011 @ 3:39 pm

Gargi,
What you wrote is typically lovely.

My answer to that line about God is to say that the older I get, the more fragile, the more scarred–the more I realize the temporary-ness of whatever I’ve done or thought was worth doing. Transience prevails.

The arrogance of expecting to be remembered or valued beyond life is irrational and ultimately undercuts the ability to enjoy what is here, now.

That’s what I wanted to say.

Aim lower. Try to be happy.

Bob

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