Lou

I came across these verses upon an old school CCNY notebook’s hard cover page;
Apparently written by a boy I once knew. He may have been all of 10 years old. Maybe his father had these notebooks.
The kid wrote them about a sports star he looked up to.
Unfortunately, I didn’t find it timely enough to make my new poetry book’s publishing deadline, nor does the #Wordpress.com platform apparently now allow one to link a book cover click which directs interested readers to the purchase page. It’s a SHAME! Geez. Go away and write for a couple of years, and they change shit without letting loyal clients KNOW!!
Therefore, I post it upon this blog, which was deeply neglected while I composed and published my new poetry book, whose cover you can see in the right sidebar (“During Our Lovemaking Session…”) . Thanks a million, most humbly, as always, for your time reading my words.

“LOU” [circa 1970]

Lou is baad
Everyone knows
His hook is deadly
The statistics show.
But Lou is a rookie
And like every newborn
Moves and truths he as to learn.

A year has passed (is past?)
And already he’s tasted
The sweet excitement of that playoff test.

Lou pulls rebounds
Lou throws hooks
Lou takes jumpers,
Which no center should!

Lou stuffed and the crowd loved
Lou from college fame
Everyone now knows his name!
He comes home – all that and shit
Spin and shoot and everyone boos.

Now Lou is on the bench,
The giant now laid to rest;
Where a team from hometown
New York City power
Takes the eastern conference crown.

[found upon a 1970-ish CCNY cardboard notebook cover]

Reminiscing: Not Trying To Get Stuck Back “Around The Way”

As I walk to the bus stop,
Wait a minute, “walk” to the bus stop??
Oh, yes, I’m back around the old neighborhood;
‘Sold my old car to get here and create money momentum!
So as not to go “under”;
I feel I am a failure.

So…As I walk to the bus stop, each house on every block
Has a story or evokes a stored memory;
Which I can’t quite remember as I pass,
Nor will I when I return.
Spookily haunting is the past like that,
In a way I am amused by.

A girl I liked in that one,
Some tough bully kid in the next;
A friendly, now older gent still working his garage I see.
A crazy memory here,
Whip Appeal crush there.
It all a blur now.

Then I pass the park where I played
So much punch and stick-ball.
Where I diligently trained to become the next Oscar Robertson!
The former Haggerty, then “Jamaica” Park
Who knows what they’ve named it nowadays;
I did not notice a NYC Parks Department sign.
Only that they reconfigured all of the hoops courts where the softball outfield
Used to be, OMG! Weird!
Now Mexican-looking guys play cards where the Home Plate was,
When I pitched an underhand softball No-hitter,
While the girls-to-impress of the day,
Eye us from the now-gone metal-chained swings area.

Now I’ve caught the Q110.
Riding, bumping, rolling down the Avenue;
Old movie theatre marquee where I saw “Bonnie and Clyde” first-run is gone!
It is now another church?
That old sandstone brick bank building is now a DENTAL Center??
Where is Eddie’s original old “African-American” barber shop?
Is this “progress”?
I notice their absence and ask myself,
“What happened to the Caucasian Europeans and Black Americans?”
I maybe know the common answer to that but,
We were supposed to have integrated our great city and society.
This looks/sounds like I “returned” to a Third World country!

Now thicker into the ole “Valencia” shopping district,
I think the islanders took “Jamaica Avenue” too literally!
I know that this is historically the number-ONE immigrant town,
Now though, it is troubling to see here it is mostly brown!
Why, against my vision of the cross-pollination,
I said to Mum who was smiling as I walked up to the front porch;
Do humans behave contrary to the way
Our Creator and Heavenly Father planned,
Can’t we be more like the bee
Which takes pollen from flowers of any color,
Producing honey for all indiscriminately?

Did we again in this area and probably many others,
Choose American-style re-segregation?
It seems that the whole Caribbean and middle east,
Relocated to New York City over the past 20 years!
And they aren’t following the “rules” we used have to.
Driving on the road like “koo-koo”!

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the stable European descendants have lost New York City (with the exception of Staten Island – which is another whole story for a different post) to the Haitian and Caribbean coconuts and their violent youth gangs.

The only music around the way that is the same,
Is that of the Mister Softee ice cream truck.

“Stop Requested”…