 Howard Richard Debs is a poet, writer, photographer, sometime artist, musician, singer/songwriter. At age 19 he received a University of Colorado Poetry Prize; after some 50 years in the field of communications with recognitions including a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Educational Press Association of America, he resumed his creative pursuits. A finalist and recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards, his latest work appears in Yellow Chair Review, Crack The Spine, Syzygy Poetry Journal, Silver Birch Press, InkStain Press, Clear Poetry Magazine 2015 Anthology, among others, and On Being online in which appears his ekphrastic Holocaust poetry series “Terezin: Trilogy Of Names” and also in On Being online his essay "The Poetry of Bearing Witness." His background in photography goes back many years, both creative and technical, and his photography will be found in select publications, including in Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge" artist and guest editor. Born and bred in Chicago, he now lives in sunny South Florida with his wife of 50 years Sheila, where they spend considerable time spoiling their four grandchildren. Listing in Poets & Writers Directory: https://www.pw.org/content/howard_debs Website: http://communicatorsandcommunications.com/muse-ings/ The Dead In Me, A Dirge When I go I want to go suddenly. They will say he lived ‘til the end. Today the news reports a 38 year old zookeeper named Stacey was killed by a tiger, not her own species. Not one of the 1300 statistics say will be killed today in this world by someone who walks upright. Visitation My life has been wrenched from my own hands by the horror of it, I brood constantly especially at those times of year I say the Yizkor prayers of remembrance for so many murdered souls: my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins all perished during the Holocaust. I feel them in my heart, but have an urging to hear even just a word from any of them, all the more to have the privilege of a question or two perhaps, with their presence gracing what would be such a special moment. My nephew was just six during my visit almost ten years ago, when I came into his room as he was talking, so it appeared, to himself. He could not say who was there. Then just the other day my own precious little tyke was found in conversation with no one in the living room. A few weeks went by, when sorting through a stack of old photos, while looking at one of grandpa Samuel, in whose memory I am named, my son said, “we talk.” How significant would be at least some sign for his namesake. Perhaps it is a matter of merit. I will work harder. Dear Daughter Mine I know you now live near Washington D.C. far away from me. I know we keep in touch with phone texts and such sharing on Facebook virtually. I’m really writing to say we had a great time, mom and I when you spent a few days with your husband and the twins who had their seventh birthday just a while back yet seem so much older now than when last you came. I asked them what they liked best, having left here where they were born, for a more northern clime. They answered that after it snows and they go sledding mommy makes hot cocoa. Anyway, the weather here in Florida is not like there of course this time of year, you’ve had your first taste of winter that’s for sure. I know you thought that part of visiting was fine even on the very breezy day we all went to the beach to play in the sand, to squish our toes and feet in the ocean’s foaming surf, the water aquamarine like Key West you said, the most special thing was flying those kites; first time for the kids, what a sight, they holding the lines so tight, the flapping flimsy frames taking the torment of the swirling seaside winds the news said 20 miles an hour with gusts of more. So we triumphed there to say the least and I became grandpa hero once again. Our hootenanny was lots of fun. One playing a slide whistle the other the kazoo dancing and prancing around while I plucked out a banjo tune to Five Foot Two and Muffin Man before the big finale surprising mom with Burl Ives’ Big Rock Candy Mountain which her father sang to her when she was young. I never learned the song before that night, It was like my gift to her, I hope she thought so too. Then the morning that you left, heading back to life from nine to five, I clicked the PBS website and played Mr. Rodgers’ You Are Special for the twins; they never heard it before if you didn’t know so I gave them copies to practice for our next big show and I’m really writing to say: “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever” which is a quote from Winnie the Pooh, love you, dad. A More Perfect Union: Excerpts From A Summer Journal* (Reading a book in which appear Lincoln’s words given at Gettysburg. That the new nation was brought forth and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal. He said: “We can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow,” those who struggled here have.) Charleston, June 28th Arrived on Friday with church bells ringing for Carolina Day sponsored by the Palmetto Society first celebrated in 1777 they say to a year and six days removed from the Declaration. The guide, Miss Sara, in her long cotton dress, a true southern belle. Her auburn hair tied up inside her wide brimmed hat with its yellow ribbon trailing behind sitting in wicker on the veranda of the plantation house drinking sweet tea a concoction laden with enough sugar to ensure no bitter taste from a bygone era. Walked Slave Street, euphemistically named compared to the row of nine original ramshackle brick shanties where lived in squalor the great house servants. Later the United Daughters of the Confederacy will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at White Point Gardens honoring the fallen from a fateful day in not the Civil but Revolutionary War. New York, July 22nd Arrived on Saturday. Across from the hotel in Manhattan workers are loading a big red van with the mover’s name Moishe’s Worldwide Moving emblazoned proudly on the side in billboard size white letters for all the world to see. The message on hotel stationery lay on the nightstand in the room: From Concierge, Vladimir – I was informed that the majority of the shops on Orchard Street will be open on Sunday. The Lower East Side: A.W. Kaufman lingerie; Ziontalis, Judaica Department Store since 1920; Kadouri Import, Israeli produce; Gertel’s Bakery; and there at 97 Orchard Street, as mentioned in the guidebook, The Tenement Museum. The docent was of Italian descent, with thick Brooklyn accent, and black olive eyes. He told of his ancestors as so many now inscribed on the Wall Of Honor erected there, enduring steerage, and the gauntlet of the gateway, Ellis Island. He told of Nathalie Gumpertz a German Jewish seamstress, in 1874 she became the sole support of her four young children after her husband disappeared. He told of the hunger, the sweatshops, the firebrand labor organizers, rabble-rousers some say, they took to the street, many were struck down but they won hard fought victories on that battleground. Washington D.C., August 30th Arrived on Sunday. Staying in Georgetown. It is all very quaint. Walked along the towpath of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, like much before and since the water highway no longer the new way replaced by the rise of the railway. Visited the National Gallery of Art, saw the American Collection, The White House, the Washington Monument. There adjacent to the National Mall, stands the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Somber faced people go in and come out chastened. Identification Cards given at the entrance tell the stories of victims; on each cover the statement, apt for all time, “For the dead and the living we must bear witness.” Across from the Lincoln Memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a long, slow-rising wall bearing the names of almost 60,000 Americans who died or remain missing. It is all chronological, from the first listed casualty in 1959 to the last in 1975. The visitors’ grim faces reflect in the shiny black granite. Many look for their loved ones’ names-- summer days end amid such sad searches urging in pleas unvoiced for a more perfect Union. *in homage to Pete Seeger (1919-2014) Awakening Epigraph: The unknown sphere, more real than I dreamed, more direct, darts awakening rays about me-- Walt Whitman, Leaves Of Grass, 1860 ed. Prologue: Turning, staring out the window the light in the room shows its reflection in the glass, blades of light, so the view is a blend of what’s inside and outside at the same time. What is outside? A man on a stroll walks by the window A woman pulling a dog on a leash two young children running past it all happened so fast the revolving red lights spinning around, the sirens making an awful sound, the police cars all showing up, the one with the jacket and tie must be a detective pointing across the street where the body lie. Denouement: Then the girl appeared like a ghost in white, she opened the door of her toppled car crawled out and tottered over to the officers in blue who waved at her with hard fists, and other officers, as the crowd gathered, motioning them away the crime scene tape macabrely festooned the roadway from side to side where skid marks tellingly showed the braking and the speed. The mother of the child on the ground cried. It was a sad scene, an awakening, far too late. Epilogue: The Buddhists have an awakening in their view, the way to the end of suffering, achieved by overturning false belief, not a vehicle would that the tragedy witnessed itself be false not true, follow the Eightfold Path to Nirvana it is urged, but surely the path leads not down this highway.
0 Comments
|
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
