weekend lines:Sunday, August 16

Toe prints in August

(1977)

Carvings stretched like pennies

Imbedded in their walks,

Wooded with splintered scents;

Town’s people dared to gawk

As I read ancient names—

I’d swivel my head back

Around again to see;

Street names last history

shuffled feet toe—I nursed

it there to know its line;

We left Mantorville when

Those planks shattered the night

And sun repressed our time—

Mom and I passed Mayo;

Ten minutes out of town

The radio got quiet;

A man delivered news—

He told us Elvis died

Then silence followed us;

Eighty miles the wheat fields

Waved singing “I’m all shook up”

And I cried to mute them;

I felt my toe again—

To ease me from my pain

My foot toed the dash;

I was no Elvis fan—

Of his famous lines to see

On Memphis’s gracious lands;

“My mama always told me…”

He said in a song once—

Knowing as mothers can be;

His name was trod to stain peels

In Mantorville’s street lights glean

Then they’d bow dolefully;

The “king” was dead and my

Toe would always know the

Pain etched my memory.

Captain Salty's Dissertation

Poems from Captain Salty’s uses metaphors, rhyme schemes, and word-play to mask a deeper meaning. A few are overt, and comment on issues the world needs to or has made great strides to amend. Allegories, parodies, and miscalculated tapestries imbue Salty’s pages with realism. Its poems are rarely fantastical and tend to comment on legends or crumbles from the mythical properties of history.

My narrative poetry comes to light in this book. I frequently depart from the metrical and lyrical sound boards that were cells to me so long. It is truly a departure for me. There are both obvious and subtle double entendres. The poems are bold and stir the pots of diversity; they call kettles black and skim lines of perversity—just enough to simmer. They stew issues as varied as racism and women’s strides toward equality. Salty’s poems ponder isolation and disparity, how society has come together and how it has just as easily grown apart. His poems often confess how individuals meet briefly to compare notes from the heart.

Life slowed things down for me in 2012. I like to say I retired from America. I quite gratefully left the game much of America plays where the dollar waits patiently at the end of every bank of cubicles, where CEOs get fat watching cogs oil their chairs so they swivel. I retired from one of the many incarnations of "the American dream." I decided to follow my dream, the one that begins to realize itself when that dollar is replaced with a FOR RENT sign at the end of cubicles. At mid-way in life, money is not everything. In fact, it was never really anything to me except a means to a tenuous life of the odd extravagance. Peace of mind, enjoying life, and living far, far off anyone’s time continuum can last at least thirty years. Now, in 2015, that pendulous life I fed for years is remembered more as a nightmare. I savor life, I favor it and see it for what it is— or was.

Captain Salty is a metaphor. He’s a sailor, a fisherman, a— salt of the earth. He is a repentant pirate, a retired buccaneer watching sea squalls and albatrosses beneath a beard. To him, life’s a puzzle, and his has been lived piece-meal. He’s seen America at its best, its worst, and the odd peace between the two states.

problogue

There is a sense of tangibility born in all the poems in Scenes the Writer Shows.   They convey my travels or are based on incidents in my life.  They examine the lives of those close to me and interpret what they experience and how I was affected.  I attempt to bring the reader as close as I can to sharing the experience with me.  Through use of musical rhythms and sensory details I hope my poems create spaces of my time to which the reader can relate.

            From the sun swept fjords of Norway to the urban streets of downtown Minneapolis I’ve recorded experiences.  Some taught lessons and others were merely observations.  In Scenes the Writer Shows the reader travels with someone who tests people. In my life I have often “pushed the envelope” and taken the less gilded paths that weren’t handicapped accessible.   Most of the forty-one poems are written from the perspective of someone with a disability.

In “The Hustler,” for instance, lines are crossed, doorways are shadowed and places are briefly visited.  The protagonist is left looking for those trains that would not go where he wanted.  The poem is a summation of my years in the 90’s living in a neighborhood declared a “Drug-free zone” in Minneapolis.  It may seem embellished and playful, but accurately reflects my thoughts, or perceptions of others’ thoughts, at that time in my life.  The poem reveals how being disabled has touched me through others in various venues and vistas of urban street life.

 

My book attempts to emulate the feelings that follow me.  In “Humility’s Clown” words are taken from an actual conversation I had.  It is light-hearted and sometimes sarcastic.  My poems try to describe reactions I often get for things that do not fit the stereotype of the disabled.

Poetry is a disguise.  Often it is cathartic and self-serving and offers little surprise.  To that end, a poem is a chance for a metaphor or simply a simile with which we play.  In Scenes I have revealed the deepest and sometimes most disparaging things I’ve seen or heard.  It is either me, or a disillusioned figment of me, baring my soul.  The poems never point fingers; they just accept that life often has nothing affirming to say.  My book is filled with transcripts of the places I’ve been; filled with happy moments of life with light sprinkles of situations from which I’ve emerged scarred.  I trust the reader will decipher which is which.  They will be able to distinguish, with salient resonance, the positive experiences I’ve had from the negative.  They will know which stories are and which are dissertations, which yielded knowledge and fascination and which yielded seeds for self-loathing.

It is my sincerest wish that this book will entertain the reader as I intended.  The poems, in their rarest instinct, are merely banal slices of life.  That’s where metrical cadence and lingual play come rushing to snatch words from mediocrity.  I believe that is what good poetry should do.  Enjoy.




http://www.amazon.com/Scenes-Writer-Shows-Forty-one-places/dp/1466987669/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367345495&sr=1-1&keywords=scenes+the+writer+shows

 

Books of Michael Amram : Books-fReado

Books of Michael Amram : Books-fReado

The Height of Chutzpeh

Synopsis of The Orthodoxy of Arrogance

 

               Mordichai  (Moritz) Lebenschizt was raised by Orthodox Jewish parents.  After his parents are killed when he is eleven, he settles in Schaan, Liectenstein.  There he learns to suppress his Jewish tendencies, among other things. The year is 1928 and Mordichai sees a crazy Jew hating man rising out of the ashes of WWI.  He loses his name and becomes Moritz, a more Christian sounding name. He never has a bar mitzvah and never grows pe'ot like his father.  Moritz has a hard rebellious bend. He is brash, arrogant, pompous, with a knack for charming people.

 

In 1935 he meets Hannah Krankenstein in the Haage during a protest against the National Socialist Party.  Hannah was also orphaned but became reclusive, introverted and reticent.  Moritz found her to be charmed by him.  She hung on his word and fed his enormous ego. By 1939 they had settled in the town of Dachau, Germany. There they curtailed their Judaism and flew under the Nazi radar.  They would escape through a tunnel to a beer hall in Munich when the Gestapo came calling.  By 1944 they were tired of playing the game.

 

               Hannah and Moritz make their way a night through Munich. They follow the Rhine south along the Austrian border to Switzerland. They board a train destined for La Harve, France. In a small apartment in Le Harve they wait out the war. Moritz has built a small sailboat. In the fall of 1945 they make their way with their boat to a beach at Calais. At the narrowest point, the cross the English Channel to Dover.  After spending a few weeks in South Hampton they get on an ocean liner to New York as “displaced persons.”

 


 

               In 1960 Yeshiva is born to the Lebenschitzs.  She is raised as an Orthodox Jew by her mother.  Her father is very liberal with tradition and Jewish law. This confuses Yeshiva who is always trying to win her father’s affection.  She is not a handsome woman and is told as much by Moritz. She is tormented at Hebrew school and slandered in Yiddish behind her back.  She rebels and holds off her bat mitzvah until age eighteen.

 

 

 

               The conflict between father and daughter is omnipresent.  There is a lack of communication between the two which Moritz justifies by his being an orphan..  In the end Mordichai is forced to confront his lack of affection towards Yeshiva.  His wife has grown, greatly due to his encouragement, from the mousy woman he knew in Germany.  Now she aligns with Yeshiva  to take a step back from his life of arrogance.

 

               The Orthodoxy of Arrogance  juxtaposes events in history with a subsequent familial conflict.  It borders on the least likely outcomes of historical events.  They are often endured by arrogant and self-indulgent attitudes.   The Orthodoxy of Arrogance is the story of sheer will and the belief in oneself.  http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodoxy-Arrogance-Revised-Edition/dp/1490715371/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382886362&sr=8-1&keywords=mb+moshe

When cruising was special

Grenada

                Fire licks at everted ankles.  The pink bottoms of Negro feet creep fourth as the dancers’ spines bend.  Steel drums ring with metallic pulses as the breezes muss my hair.  Their backs are nearly at a right angle, inches from a soiled stone floor.  The coals roast their feet and I swear I can see smoking feet and smell burning flesh.  A precision patter draws under the limbo pole one by one.  In rounds they go, dancers, limbs flashed in reds, blues, yellows and orange.   Higher, brighter flames illuminate Grenada’s sky as a crowd thrives on this spectacle.  The stars connect the path.  Orion the hunter shows the way as eyes fixate on constellations.  My eyes drift from shows to space and back again.

                A bamboo limbo pole rests starkly in the crotch of two branches lashed together.  Each round it is lowered and now levels 4 inches from the hot, stone ground.  Their faces grimace in mockery.  Pain is an ignored effect.  Open flames brush at bare skin and beads of sweat collect in puddles under the pole.  The crowd is mesmerized a slowly applauds each dancer who clears the pole.  Shiny, large breasted black women and men who walk like skeletons command the tourists’ cameras.  They click often and flashes catch the dancers as they try to blend in the night.

January 31, 1970-19:00

The Costume Ball

          A faint jingling seeps through elevator walls.  My sister and I are dressed as penguins as we descend to the main dinning room.  My mother wears a green flannel shirt with corresponding jeans of a deeper emerald that pierce the eyes.  A 5-gallon hat completes her attempt to emulate Mr. Greenjeans, the co-hort of Captain Kangaroo. The captain did not pilot our ship but hosts our favorite children’s show.  The doors open and I see bells bobbing as the tentacles of a jester’s hat command the room.  He stands guard over a large steamer trunk.  Its contents is never revealed  and act only as a prop to divert attention from his big feet.  Bells adorn his points, all points, head to toe.  He paces to jingle among costumed cruisers with obvious frustration and abandons the mysterious trunk in the middle of the room.  The jester works the room like a politician shaking hands of the likes of Cleopatra, some clowns, a fairy or two, Mickey Mouse and the scarecrow who needed a brain. 

                We smile and try to act as festive as two flightless birds could.  Each of us wear a full suit of moderate black and white.  Our heads are covered with hoods that squeeze our cheeks.  The captain enters to judge the contest.  Susan and I mug for pictures and try to bolster our chances of winning.

                “Well, what do I see here?  Two penguins? “

We nod vigorously and hope our inimitably is appreciated by the captain.

                “And from were do you hail?”

Minnesota we say in unison.

                “Burr, cold up there right now.”

Again we both affirm the captain’s rhetoric with a nod.  He walks up and down the line of contestants with the thoroughness of a naval inspection.  He stops at the jester whose hat has begun to sag and the signs of a jilted, despondent charlatan are evident.  It is obvious that the trunk contained props which he never needed to use.  We see him breathe a sigh of relief and he is rewarded the second prize.  He removes his hat and the captain places a medallion of the ship around his neck.

                 My mother  realizes the captain probably has no idea who she is since most of the crew is European and Mr. Greenjeans was not the star of the show.  We appreciate her effort though.

                “The Minnesota penguins, yes.  You know there are no penguins in this hemisphere.  We won’t quite make it down to your climate this cruise though.”

Statuesque tales

 and my grandmother kept an austere house.  Things had plastic coverings that crunched when one sat down.  A kid was allowed to be a kid.  According to grandma though nothing in life was 100%, least of all the austerity of her apartment.  My sister and I shared a fold-out couch that fronted the wall of my grandparent’s bedroom. Lighting was dim and the small television would fill the room at night with neon.  We would watch Ed Sullivan late into the night with the sound low.  Shadows bounced off thick wooded walls and I would wander into the kitchen for a midnight snack.

                The next day my mother walked us down to the subway.  The bristles of my freshly crew-cut head felt the hollow winds as we descended.  There was a smell of gummy, sweet, stale candy precluding the other odors of the world I would briefly know.  I liked it, and for a moment I paused on the stone steps and surveyed my new environment.

                “Michael, we have to keep moving.  We’re in New York.” 

My mother was not one to stop and smell roses, not that there were any in subterranean NYC.  So I increased my pace, skipping two or three steps until I was waiting for them at the bottom.  I was a fearless, adroit kid.  My sister was 2 years older and a bit more calculating.  She was the kind of kid who was destined to be in the advanced classes and on honor rolls.

                “Hurry, our subway is coming!”

A slim line of light pierced the graffiti of the tunnels and there was a thundering sound, rising sharply to a screeching crescendo as the subway came into sight.  The doors, also festooned with graffiti, quickly slid open and ejected a diverse mass of people into the dank, urine tinged air.  My mother dropped three tokens into a turn stile and we were scattered among the oncoming crowd.  She grabbed my hand and led me through the masses.  She now wore a look of complacency.  It told of her determination, her pride and her comfort level on her home field.  She grew up in the Bronx and was proud to show her children the sights.  Still not yet a total cliché, the Statue of Liberty was our unanimously decided destination (although I may have swayed the vote a little). We rode the subway to Battery Park in lower Manhattan. 

                “Battery Park,” sounded muffled over the PA system in our car.

                “Get ready kids.  The next stop is ours.”

We flanked our mother as she hung onto the plastic straps.  We clung to the poles on either side.  My sister stood there looking at the advertisements whether they were legitimate or not.  I, however, swung from my pole in curiosity of the other passengers.

                “How are you enjoying your ride?” or “Where are you going?” I’d ask.  Most often New Yorkers would give me a look that said “Get out of here kid, you annoy me.”  Or they might look at my mother with disgruntled overtones, quasi-politely conveying that they would like her to harness and perhaps muzzle her child  The doors suddenly opened and we charged into the sea of New Yorkers.

We exited though the turn stile and ascended to the street.  My eyes felt the warm sunlight graze them harshly.  They adjusted instantly and  I pretended I was a mole or a vampire coming into the light for the first time.

.

****

                “Three for Liberty Island.  One adult, two children.”

                “How old are the kids ma’am?”

                “5 and 7.”

The briny air smelled of seaweed and  felt cold and damp.  I listened to the seagulls and wished I had some food to offer them when they settled on things to rest.  Small and oddly mannered, they pandered to the influx of tourists  High and mighty in the clear ocean sky, the gulls circled with the malicious intent of vultures.  Yet, their grace and soft winged flight patterns made their presence inviting.

                 I was about to see the symbol of a better life for thousands that had arrived on these shores and I was amused by menacing birds.  When you are young the bigger things in life are sometimes shadowed by smaller things of no real importance.

****

                 Earlier that year my grandparents had taken the three of us on a Caribbean cruise.  We had visited Grenada, Haiti, Curacao and Martinique.  One night after my grandpa thought I was safely in bed in my stateroom I wandered into his. 

                 They waited alone on the small sink.  A faux smile taunted me like a vagrant clown.  Their mechanical pink gums frothed at the hinges as my grampa’s dentures marinated  in a shallow aqua-green dish of liquid.  Yellow-white plastic molars amazed me and I thought the rest of our cruise could now only pale by comparison.  They were rife with masticated food of our recent dinner.  He had eaten the beef Wellington along with a side of broccoli.  The soft crust that surrounded the beef now lined the inlay of the gums.  An ominous greenish-black vegetative hue had imbedded itself between the teeth.  Morsels of withered meat tried to hide below the gum-line.  Whatever they had masticated for him, he had made them his own and they had the personal smell of my grandpa.  This smell segued sublimely into the stale, meticulously pungent, old- people smell my grandparents had managed to recreate from their Bronx apartment.            

                “Wow, what are those?”

                “Michael, these are my teeth,” he quickly answered unnervingly.

                “What happened to the real teeth in your mouth?”

                “See, if you don’t take care of your real teeth, someday you might need these.”

 I decided I’d call  them “toy teeth” and immediately set about announcing this fascination to the entire ship.  When I went back to nursery school we were all asked to tell about our winter break. 

                “Michael, did  you see anything exciting on your break?”

                “Yes, my grandpa’s toy teeth,” I quickly replied.

****

                We boarded the ferry in one communal push and  I ran straight to the coin-operated looking glass.  I felt tall and commanding as I clung to my post and my feet precariously toed the thin metal step.  Practice is necessary to view things of great importance correctly and I peered through the glass blind and imagined what I could see.  I imagined how I would see the statue and how I should feel seeing it  The other passengers had taken seats where they could.

                “Michael, sit down,” my mother called. 

                “I want to look through here though.”

                “There’s nothing to see right now.”

I shrugged and joined them on the crowded bench.  In moments