Retired, Confused, I Sing Joy’s Song…by Robert M. Katzman
By Robert M. Katzman April 23, 2016
Retiring from owning a store
What is that?
Time now indivisible?
Never late and no closing early
No more seeking to please
No more checking the clock
No more damning bad days
Regimentation?
Disintegration
***
Long ago by now
Rick Munden asked:
If I start a writing site
Will you write on it?
A friend too dear
For me to refuse
Nine years later
Not sure what success is
Is it being read?
Is it being known?
Is it being remembered?
***
Don’t wanna be remembered
As a guy who ran a store
Twenty stores
Wanna be remembered
As a writer
As a poet
Wanna think my typed words
Mattered
Made people think
Made people cry
Made people angry
Made people change
Made people remember
Falling in love
***
Known or not
In ten years
I’ll still be seventy-nine
Better hurry up and get discovered
Better hope that people
Will notice each word
Like I do
Passion into print
Harder than you think
***
Feeling comes over me like a cloud
Like a torrent
Like a wave of emotion
Now, who gives a damn about that?
***
Writing in the woods of Wisconsin
Wife in a hospitable bed in Illinois
Four months of sleeping alone
Both of us
After forty-one years
Of sleeping together
So cold
Cold in all the ways
A body, a soul
Can be cold
***
Youngest daughter calls
Tears in her voice
“I don’t want to lose Mom”
I hesitate, then say:
***
Can’t lose Mom
She’s in your sister
In your brother
In me
In you
All her words
In the thousand times
She touched you
Held you
Kissed away your pain
***
Child
I meant all that
My words are for you
But those words are for me
too
Seeking to stop time
Seeking to believe in prayer
Seeking to believe in magic
In beseeching dead relatives
***
To plead her case
In demanding of God
I believed you were better than this
Ruler of the Universe?
Prove it
Return intact:
A mother
A wife
A friend
A sister
A grandmother
An aunt
***
A small town soldier girl
Who fought beside me
For five hard years
A volunteer
Who endured defeat with me
Who chose someone
Less worthy of her
***
Her choice mystifies me
Still today
Why me?
Women create
Men destroy
What did you see in me?
Ruler of the Universe
Creator of Butterflies
Sculptor of Comets
Impervious to Time
What’s another twenty years to you?
You have so many less worthy
To cut down with your glistening scythe
I am old and tired and I need her
Please
Return my beautiful girl to me
***
Publishing News!
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: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 $29.95 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.
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