How Much Time Do We Have?…by Robert M. Katzman

Filed under: Uncategorized — Bob at 10:39 pm on Friday, December 4, 2020

December 4, 2020 © by Robert M. Katzman

I seem to be spinning out of control

Loneliness like a giant blade

Slicing away moments for touching

How much Time do I have?

Days peel away like dead leaves

I want to see my children

I want to see my grandchildren

I want to see my friends

How much Time do we have?

***

The Pandemic has erased

A whole level of culture

Restaurants, Artists, Singers

Writers, Playwrights, Architects

Thousands disappear silently

Every single day

The worldwide numbness

The celebration of ignorance

The elevation of empty leaders

How much Time do we have?

***

Do people realize what’s coming?

Is there comprehension anywhere

About what’s coming?

Like a hoard of Angels of Death

Like a shroud about to drop over the planet

The great wave is coming

How much Time do they have?

***

The magical Vaccines on the horizon

For so many, for millions

Are too late

Beyond reach, beyond hope

Because…because…because

Science is a lie?

Scholars of medicine are false gods?

Why don’t people listen?

***

Death isn’t a Democrat

Death isn’t a Republican

Death gets the last word

Doesn’t care about elections

How much Time will you waste?

***

I have had forty operations

I never finished college

My future is uncertain

I am no genius

But I cling to each moment

Hoping I will live

My family will live

My friends will live

***

I live alone

I go nowhere for pleasure

I wear a mask to walk

To buy food, to buy gas

To buy Time

But…how much Time do I have?

***

This isn’t the Black death

People know so much more now

Than they did in the 13th Century

Can’t intelligence, honesty, reason

Rule the Earth for just a little while?

So much Death is coming

Don’t waste a moment

Tell anyone you’ve ever loved

That you love them

They need to hear it

Because…because…because

How much Time will we have to say it?

***

Like an Ice Age of Emotion

A frozen cube of isolation

An empty Alcatraz for one

We wait, we hope, we need

The melting embrace of all we love

One day, some day, some day soon

Oh God, are you listening?

****************************

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 mans lif’e than a person may imagine.

Please visit my new website: https://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.

Comments (7)

7 Comments »

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Comment by Marilyn Zimmerman

December 4, 2020 @ 11:01 pm

Every minute of every day a gift. Gratitude my name. Transplant patient is my claim. No immunities. Trying to be brave. My only child shared. Yes, we live in fear….. today, tomorrow,
Right now. Love and devotion….. mother and daughter still attached. I gave her life, she selected to save mine. Today, tomorrow, Right now……gratitude and prayer to carry us through. ??

429247

Comment by Brad Dechter

December 5, 2020 @ 6:06 am

You tickle at the fear of all of us. Our self-preservation instincts ask us the same questions- you just put the written words together. As my wife and I “pinball” walk in our neighborhood, these questions you write surface time and time again.
My response- it does not matter. Persevere. Be grateful rather than depressed. Tough through it and be careful. We will get through this, we just have to be smart and survive. Then all the questions you ask will fade away as our psyche heals and we look forward to our futures and shake out the PTSD of Covid 19.

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Comment by Gilad Suffrin

December 5, 2020 @ 9:13 am

Dear Bob, you put it so well for all of us! In the last 8 hours I don’t feel well. In any other winter it would be like: ok, just a virus, it will pass in a day or two, as usual. Today it is like: what if, what if, what if…. Ok, I need to isolate myself in a separate room (I did), be with a mask, take precautions, maybe tomorrow take a test, etc. This Shadow is clinging to our heels and there is no escape.

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Comment by Bob

December 5, 2020 @ 9:43 am

Gilad, I do pray, by myself, and will for you and our distant friendship.
You were such a warm moment during a very difficult time in my life and in your/my country.
Please be well, soon. If any place on Earth has Jewish doctors…
Let me know how you are doing.
I revised the poem this morning. Hard to express it as clearly–and briefly–and I want to, immediately.
Love, Bob
In faraway Wisconsin USA

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Comment by Don Larson

December 5, 2020 @ 10:02 am

Hi Bob,

I hope your words bring you comfort. ??

I am not afraid. Life is not intended to live in fear.

BThere are no guarantees in life; only individual expectations.

Each person feels and faces life as they choose.

Best wishes, my friend.

Don

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Comment by Bob

December 5, 2020 @ 12:59 pm

From Nancy Alexander: Your poem sounds so mournful. I too feel that way about time as I often picture it inexorably sifting through my desperate clutching fingers. I want to claw back moments with people I loved & lost, call back times I’ve regretted, to somehow suspend the passage of time – greedily holding on.
I long to re-do my actions and redeem my failings. But no matter the sorrow, or how out-of-synch I feel, the seconds keep. ticking. by. I have to go on – there is no choice. Also… and, as completely useless, I also rush ahead. I dread what I think might happen – what if, what if? I can live in this fear and anxiety obsessively.
It is only the experience of living in the moment, when I feel I can catch up to myself, to life… and hear birds singing to me, see the beauty around me, sense the enormous gift in the here and now, of being loved whole-heartedly by another person, just for being myself. THAT is timeless.

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Comment by Jim Payne

December 5, 2020 @ 3:19 pm

First to Nancy: What a touching love poem you wrote. You felt Bob’s soul and shared yours too.
To Bob: From your vivid imagery we heard your lonely cry reaching out for connections from the cell block of time running on. You have reached us with your words. After your poem, I can better feel my lonely desperateness and know I’m not alone. I do go on.

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