Joy’s Last Couch: Slashed and Burned Lighting Up the Night Sky in Farewell
by Robert M. Katzman © August 16, 2022
*
Enormous, lumpy and immovable
Seven feet of pain
A monolith in my basement
The damned Black Couch
Where my dying wife lay
For months watching TV
Pumping morphine
Every ten minutes
*
Gaining weight from cancer
I knew that the time would come
I told her if she fell back
From climbing up the stairs
I could never lift her
The basement became forbidden
*
She watched movies from our bed
Or she pretended to
Swiftly dozing off
In a chemical haze
As I lay next to her
Holding her hand
Joy’s last movie was
Akeelah and the Bee
A wonderful film
Unwatchable by me
*
She died in May 2017
I lived on in my quiet house
Seeing her Black Couch
Too big to bring up those stairs
And I winced
In remembering her
As if the heavy Couch were
Perched upon my shoulders
*
Years went by
I married again
A wonderful person
Kind, creative, supportive
And completely unaware
Of what was bothering me
Every time we went down those stairs
Every time we watched a movie
I saw that Black Couch
Neither of us ever sat on
*
It can be so hard to let go
Even inert bad things
Become totems
Illogically, they stop Time
Drag me back to all the pain
I resolved the Couch must go
*
I asked my wife to help me
Surprised, she acquiesced
Always ready to help me
Unaware of what I felt
Unaware of what I saw
Each time I viewed that
Menacing Black Couch
*
With a razor and a hammer
We slashed that massive
Son-of-a bitch
The fake black leather
Tougher than expected
The wood stapled and stapled
Apparently intended to survive
Until the end of Time
*
I pounded, she pulled
The wood splintered and broke
We dragged away foam rubber
We dragged away the metal springs
She bagged the unburnable
I beat that terrible memory
Realizing, it was so damn hard to kill
*
But after a day it was gone
Many black bags removed
The surviving mass of
Angry Jagged wood
With its
Uncountable deadly staples
Defiantly facing the pyre
*
Yes, I make dead things real
Yes, I talk to the inanimate
Because of the spirits who
I resolutely believe
Dwell within them
Knowing the pain I inflict
Upon the remnants of
That damned Black Couch
Is the pain trapped inside me
*
I set the splintered wood ablaze
My emotional imagination
Flowing within the flames
Consuming my adversary
*
That unlike famed
George Washington:
She led no army
Fought no war
Created no country
*
Nevertheless
As the flames climbed higher
Past the bricks of the fireplace
Illuminating the black night sky
Freeing something imprisoned
Within both of us
Maybe only I would know
*
That once upon a time
A friend
A lover
A wife
A mother
Joyce slept here
***
Publishing News!
(Currently seeking representation as a speaker/poet for hire)
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 can call me for quantity discounts for 30 or more books. Also: businesses, bookstores, private organizations or churches and so on.
My two latest books are available in the Racine Wis Public Library. Both books are labeled: 921 KAT. ROB on their spines, in autobiography Dept.
Signed Books are also for sale at:
Studio Moonfall Bookstore, 5031 7th St. Kenosha, Wis, email: hello@studiomoonfall