Badger State: Getting to Know You…by Robert M. Katzman
Robert M. Katzman’s Amazing Story:  http://www.differentslants.com/?p=355
By Robert M. Katzman
© October 3, 2015
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The munching horses have become more familiar
The insanely circuitous route I take home
Each night a bit less incomprehensible
The surly burly guy with steel grey hair
Smiles at me when I buy gas from him
The beautiful deep brown Root River
Less of an impossible barrier every morning
As I learn the handful of roads crossing it
Going south on 32 each morning
I pause at Main Street’s western turn
Greeting the blinding sunrise over Lake Michigan
As if it were a cuddly puppy
Waiting just for me, too
Sometimes a single sailboat passing
Before I turn west towards
The grey concrete interstate
I have watched the fierce windstorms
Knock over trees
Supplying me with jagged firewood
Make my nighttime log fires
Rage and blaze as the wind
Forces its way through the chinks
Of my sturdy brick fire pit
The bright burning hardwood
Glows, dims, flares, crackles and crumbles
In the damp early mornings
Only powdery white ash remains
Amid the million red barns and puffing tractors
Besides the meadows and forests
Beyond the sleepy silence of a
Small town Downtown
And the tilting abandoned siloes
There are foreign film festivals
Thai, Japanese, Indian & Italian restaurants
Real Jewish delicatessens
Steaming corned beef and pastrami
Reborn Industrial Renaissance
Old buildings with new concepts
African Festivals
Arab Festivals
Armenian Festivals
East Indian Festivals
French Festivals
LGBT Festival
German Festivals
Greek Festivals
Irish Festivals
Italian Festivals
Jewish Festivals (ok, not yet…)
Latino Festivals
Mexican Festivals
Native American Festivals
Polish Festivals
Scottish Festivals
Serbian Festivals
An antique intersection
Surrounded by modern wreckage
Piles of smoking timbers and twisted steel
Chain link fences with bright yellow !warnings!
Twinkling purple neon
Seductively luring me into a
Red brick building filled with books
Thousands of old paperback books
Not a Kindle in sight!
Tchotchkes and fainting couches
Limp red-furred dead-eyed Fox stoles
Zoot suits and crumbling pulp magazines
Roy Rogers and Davy Crockett
Curling theater posters of
Long forgotten movies and their
Heroically posed un-twinkling stars
I frequently visit
These ghostly cemeteries of fame
Visiting bits and pieces of my life
Scattered within dim display cases
Disintegrating flies resting on history
We discovered
Pick n’ Save!
As wonderful as Whole Foods
But more proletarian pricing
A fragrant bakery
Apples pies and walnut brownies
Ethnic breads and chocolate chip cookies
Ice-filled glass cases swimming with
Red, white, brown, and yellow fish
And yes, staring right at you
Enough displays of
Beer, brats and cheese
To swell the Middle American hearts
Of any proud Wisconsin
Green Bay Packer tailgater
I still get lost sometimes
Bright street lights
Illuminating only Main Street
One small bungalow
Looking identical to another
Black shadows like a jigsaw puzzle
Often I’ll take the pitch black
“Road less traveled”
‘Cause I can’t find the damn road I want
But maybe that’s just me
When I want to be alone
Easy enough in Wisconsin
I ride between fields of ripe October corn
The stiff dry rows reminding me
Of a frozen parchment army
Some rows higher than my old Toyota
The hilly land undulates like
A lush and opulent woman
All hips and curves
Each old farm sold and developed
Is beginning to fill me with dread
Walgreens, Costco, Citgo
Replacing cows, goats and horses
Gentle vistas with a single structure
I accept my getting old, but
Can’t anything else just stay as it is?
I dread the coming winter
I fear a paralyzing blizzard
Isolating two hopeful grandparents
Fluffy piles of quilts awaiting us
Candles in hurricane glass
Tucked aside in every room
Cupboards filled with canned food
We hug our warm dogs at night
Fragile older people
Diminished energy
Fortified with experience
Well aware of the
Wide mood swings
Of Wisconsin’s
Sizzling / frozen weather
Earth’s North Pole
Three thousand miles
Above us
Nevertheless stoic
Come Spring
Like pink Crocuses
Poking through the snow
We will still be here
Publishing News!Â
Bob Katzman’s two new true Chicago books are now for sale, from him!
Vol. One: A Savage Heart  and Vol. Two: Fighting Words
Gritty, violent, friendship, classic American entrepreneurship love, death, heartbreak and the real dirt about surviving in a completely corrupt major city under the Chicago Machine. More history and about one man’s life than a person may imagine.
Please visit my new website:Â http://www.dontgoquietlypress.com
If a person doesn’t want to use PayPaI, I also have a PO Box & I ship anywhere in America.
Send me a money order with your return and contact info.
I will get your books to you within ten days.
Here’s complete information on how to buy my books:
Vol 1: A Savage Heart and Vol. 2: Fighting Words
My books weigh almost 2 pounds each, with about 525 pages each and there are a total together of 79 stories and story/poems.
Robert M. Katzman
Don’t Go Quietly Press
PO Box 44287
Racine, Wis. 53404-9998                                                           (262)752-3333, 8AM–7PM
Books cost $24.95 each, plus shipping
For: (1)$3.95; (2)$5.95; (3)$7.95; (4)$8.95 (5)$9.95;(6) $10.95
(7) $11.95; (8) $12.95; (9)$13.95 (10)$15.95 (15)$19.95
I am also for hire if anyone wants me to read my work and answer questions in the Chicago/Milwaukee area. Schools should call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.
My Fighting Words Publishing Co. four original books, published between 2004 and 2007 are now out-of-print. I still have some left and will periodically offer them for sale on my new website.