So close to stories that leave us in tears, Bloody assessments of all our fears... With righteous letters from reader-peers And never-ending political jeers. All those ads for pleasurable things, Bras and thongs that make girls sing And dance, skip, and take to wing On a Bloomingdale's or Macy's fling. The problem, friend, is the bloody propinquity Of sexy lingerie and horrendous iniquity. One gapes at the nexus 'tween sex and death The corporate order bringing both their breath. Do you also wonder at the bomb's early light Illuminating Abercrombie and Fitch and giving fright At the jarring disorder of high fashion and might Thin models, so beauteous, hard by our plight. We'll call this the Vanity Fair effect To Indulge on one page Eros erect And on the next a gory text, with Bodies blown to the world called next.
They're Zombies walking, to and fro, Not speaking of Michelangelo But babbling gross absurdities, Sweet nothings, promises, and crudities Their plastic protruding from their head, Suggesting, they are really dead On Clergy, Union, Earl Street too Is that a St. Vitus' dance for you? Their tongues do loll and Their eyes do roll As they stagger along unaware Of their passing show for those who dare To slow their cars for the unaware Pedestrians with deep-set eyes, Ready for Romero, and bloody sighs My God! I think, I Pods and Phones And Stephen King's walking metronomes Is this our future, each one of us wired To some gizmo, gadget hired To tune out the world, set us apart From our fellows, soul and heart? So they'll stagger -- oblivious, alone Hooked up to I Pod, Pad and Phone It pleases me to leave you alone, Acknowledging your unearthly moan.
I loved you when I was hard
And you were firm, Uplifted, perky, with Dark brown nipples that Did not quit. Indeed, they got hard, harder, hardest And at times I thought I was Sucking on Jujubes...so lucky Was I in my reverie of Fortune that I did not Ever think that things Could/Would Be Different. But years did pass, and I saw you not Except as a phantasm of memory And lust denied and put off for the Time being, until you left, after I took flight with Del Shannon Yes, a runaway... Not a JD Merely uncertain About life... And oh, so, insecure about myself. Years passed, many, too many, and Things happened, bad things, with A variety of ailments...something I could Not imagine. You, with those Unbelievably gorgeous breasts, And pubic hair, Beyond compare... And now, later, much later, Your body ravaged by time and Genetic circumstance, A breast gone there, A stent, not fair, But girl, I love you still, and always will, Your body my imagining makes life real, and Your courage conquers far more than you shall Ever know... You are part of me, you know, Always were, and always will.
Architecture yummy In Egypt just a mummy With a dessicated tummy Drinking gin and playing rummy While sitting on his bummy and Singin' up a hummy and Shoutin' "hey, here cummy" and Add up this here summy Or be called a dummy…… Thanksgiving very yammy Take off your pajammy Say good morning to your mammy And right now eat your hammy Your eggs and toast and jammy Or we'll get your friend Sammy Who'll give you a double whammy... Now, now don't be gloomy Shoot off quick and zoomy Asking here? There? and Who Me? And then entering the roomy Feeling almost as doomy as the Gulf Blowout went boomy With all that gas, so sue me Or if you can, brew me A real good beer, 5% tee he he... Anyone can make a silly rhyme Ten, a hundred, a million times, My god a G & T with lime Is superior to a tick with lyme Or a trip to the five and dime Or a verse of auld lang syme (that’s not right you funny mime) Or a run with the great Dave Sime Or a borax wash to rid the grime...
I pissed on the Quran; I shit on the Bible; I spit on the Talmud; And now I'm up for libel. If only media could think ahead, Then 500 more would not be dead. But in our time, we need to know True or false, hell, right now, not slow. So God is on every side, Watching idiots collide. And claim holy writ for what they do, You'd better be careful, They'll get you.
Snowflakes, desultory and defeated And landing and dying on the balcony balustrade While promising nothing more as they expire than A brief, hesitant, though vital existence. For their evanescence heralds heat, Hot air from the south some say, Hot air from everywhere, others counter, Hot air of our making -- all of us complicit. Reminding, harking back, reminiscing, echoing Like an air brush working on history, the nostalgic Yearning for verisimilitude -- cold, sharp, Dry, crisp -- the adjectives with which we Once depicted winter...
A SELECTIVE RECOLLECTION OF SAN MATEO HIGH SCHOOL, WITH APOLOGIES TO JACK KEROUAC, NEIL CASSADY, ALLEN GINSBERG, AND LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI People walking to and fro, Speaking of Michelangelo. Eliot came too, though few could care, A second poem on a dare… Jean McIntyre would zap your paper If you dared an outside caper That violated her sense of decorum, There would be no salving forum…. Remembering Bearcats Orange and Black With Fifty Years now on Track, After graduating in ’59, you see, Called forth to seek their destiny In a world that was more in synch With the 1920s, than our benighted bin Of people awoken from a barbecue, Of conspicuous consumption, Barbies, curliques. OK, you say, I push it, but that is my prerogative. McIntyre again, quoting Marlowe’s “mighty line” to me, One day, to make a point that poetry Does not have to go from bad to worse, Nor should it traverse from bed to verse. But we didn’t even think like that back then, Those days of simplicity, of June Cleaver, Betty Anderson, women who were women,and our girls who pom-ponned and cheered their boys, And IF they were athletes, played like toys, you know, tennis, volleyball (9 on a side?) swimming…. Oh boy….That was the problem, glaring inequality, but few knew. No Betty Friedan, Marilyn French, Erica Jong; Only Chuck Berry and his little ding dong…. So we don’t have to rhyme at all, walking to and fro in the halls, and Though we feared Helen Kane or Dean Art Smith (Martha’s dad); Though we sat in a building that might have toppled at any time; We nurtured hopes and dreams that, somehow, kept it standing….. Our Principal Stewart, and our teachers, themselves products of depression, and hot and cold war, kept their political views quiet, mainly, unless we challenged the status quo; and that could place one in a difficult position; but few of us challenged anything in those (relatively) Happy Days—we were generally good kids, and few realized that a scant 13 years before we became freshmen, our government jailed 110,000 Japanese Americans for treason, with no evidence whatsoever. We had some of those people among us as fellow students. No one spoke about it, no one knew. But now we do. Our dreams were usually material, to fit in and do well—we saw Foster City arise out of the mudflats of unincorporated southeast San Mateo (we’re building a dream here!); we were a youthful mélange of Baywood, San Mateo Park, Shoreview, and others from here, there, and everywhere, even Hillsborough. A racial, ethnic, and class mix it was, hearkening toward a more complicated and cosmopolitan future; a training ground for democracy, perhaps, and/or for future self-discovery, achievement, and change…. No, we entered SMHS a scant year after Joe McCarthy took the fall. In sum, the teachers we had were fabulous even to survive the age of conformity that framed our schooling. Sputnik in 1957 provided a view of cold war heaven……scared the pants off us, made us all scientists, mathematicians. “Do you remember, when we met”……or, do you recall, “the new year’s eve, we did the town, the day we tore, the goal posts down…” (but we did not win a single football game in 1959, eh?). God but Jaeger, Cornejo, Player, and Co. built character and gave Yale Rohlff’s single wing (are you listening Red Sanders and Tommy Prothro?) and provided a basis for the Bearcats a chance to shine in 1960. Phys Ed for frosh and soph guys was, well, awful; first-period boxing or wrestling with teacher Frank Robinson was a horror for the new freshmen….yes, think about having to wrestle or box (manly sports those) and then go to algebra or economics looking like raw hamburger. That’s why I always arranged to box and wrestle Cappy Hurst and Ernie Cresci—smaller and even thinner, and we would fix the outcome before we started…..self-protection. Robbie never knew, or hid it if he did. We did do tennis well, so well, in fact that by senior year Robinson’s netters set perennial power Burlingame down on a tack; probably because our players could sing—Baarts, Lang, Steiner, Jackson—everything hit back and by Roberts, Murray, Rube Beltran’s eye…The Pendletons were our answer to Frankie Valli—yes, clean and wholesome, not hanging out in an alley. And, ah, yes, the teachers…. They made the school; and we played the fool, for a while….. Delores Henning and her purple, her perfume, her sway, and her ability to make young men swoon, to fantasize, to wish, to desire, and if lucky, to follow Miss (not Ms.) down the hallway, dreaming of what it might be like… If an adolescent male, you were in heaven when you took her course….. Lloyd Walker, the mathematician who told you, in the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, that you would do things “his way,” or you would not do them at all….oh, the way that Walker looked at you when you weren’t getting something you should be getting…. Bob Mills the chemist/football coach, Miss Burch who could dissect a roach, Fearon, Johanson, Holm and Striebel, and old Ralph Steele, who one day, literally collapsed when Robyn Anderson, with MMonroe pecs and pink sweater, left Blingum, transferred here, and waltzed into class, leaving Steele aghast at something he had never seen and would never see again….yes, he was a biology teacher…. And yes, he was astonished. And Dr. Johanna Goetzl, the closest thing to the wicked witch in all of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, who could and would belt you if you did not conjugate Latin verbs in the correct manner, or if you had not completed your homework. But she could teach! Acch! Joined then by Senor Munoz-Plaza, who made memorable hare-brained assignments (“draw a duck in Spanish”) if you will, como se dice, “quack”? Mr. C. Moore, whose understanding and ability to impart the mystics of the dismal science of economics might be summed up in several axioms, to be learned word for word, and repeated on exams, word for word. Supply and demand. If you did, an ‘A’. If not, worse. And then there was Charley Geer, whose smile seemed to break his face, Jeannie McNeil, who assured our citizenship, Charlie Marshall, who made history fun, and the redoubtable Miss Mildred Hays, with whom (see below) no one toyed. Miss (ah, yes, again, no Ms. In those days) Marcia Hinkins, whose gender preferences and sexuality probably piqued the interest of many students who, of course, were too polite, scared, or stupid to ask. But she supported women’s sport and this was really something in the 50s. Here is a sticker star for you! In music, Harold and Henry, Dunn and Use, taught us how to play and sing—nowadays that’s everything; Use especially had a gargantuan impact on so many of us that his surname says it all. And Vaden Mayers, whose math skills included teaching Ernie DeMartini to count out change for Bob Quinn and Ronny Howell when those worthies tried to get two Twinkies for the price of one…. And colleagues Peters, Chu, Connolley, Lacy and Campbell—the latter stuck with a fifth period class that had both Bob Quinn and Mike Brogan (RIPs), who drove him nuts, along with Ed Nelson and John Smith, both of whom played the slide rule like a violin. Math, like English, was something SMHS did very well. And the coaches—Burda, Huber, Lacy, Alexander, O’Neill, Alex Gorbenko (who left us far too early), Allemand, Rohlff, Rillliet, the estimable Berny Wagner, and the aforementioned Robinson, who put up with more young guff than any other coach, what with Howell, Mike Zocchi, Cresci, and the rest. Robbie, famous for moaning, again and again, “oh, you guys, can’t you do anything right? C’mon, you guys! Geez!” But at the lightweight level, at least, we won championships on the court. He may have been a schnook, but he was our schnook. And Peggy Sue Got Married, Didn’t She? Or did she? Of course she did! Home Ec loomed large for many of our students (recall the MRS degree?), as did the business and industrial arts tracks…. Who can forget Mrs’s. Quinn, Dirstine, Siegrest, Ahnstedt, along with Mr’s Allison, Sherman, Laverty, and Hanson. Recall when Larry Haas broke the 100 word-per-minute barrier on that manual typewriter? When Tony Noce dropped an edition of the Hi on the print shop floor (Pie!!!) The first was akin to going to the moon; the second, akin to needing a spoon (oh all of this so, so far before computers and digital technologies and graphics, and and and…) Oh, please return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the one and only Ben McGuire taught sex ed and driver’s ed with flair and malice aforethought. Return with us to the darkened classroom where he asked us to close our eyes as we listed to the Bridey Murphy Reincarnation Album for the 14th time (zzzzzzz); Return with us as he sought to explain how the male sperm fertilized the female egg, with a film-strip no less, with the sperm making like a crew race, and – yes, there they are again, Brogan and Quinn, softly murmuring “stroke, stroke, stroke.” It took awhile, but there was method in McGuire’s merging of sex and driver’s ed. Only understood that when I got my car….and remember six in a drivers’ ed car, and McGuire firing the pistol, the signal to stop. Stop there! Yes, that emerging car culture made hot wheels cool; we had Driller Miller’s robin’s egg blue Merc; Gordon Jacopi, Bob Schwerin, Frank Miranda, Connie Sheehan, John Krahn Tom Lemos, guys who made “American Graffiti” fourteen years before George Lucas did the same, for big dough. If you had a cool car, you had a girl (oh, how trite) and could cut 6th period and stand around; if not, you were like Toad in the movie….If you had a car that was a joke, you were still like Toad in the movie. Some of these cars (and drivers) would gather at Hal’s in Blingum on Friday nights—there were good cheeseburgers, fries and shakes there—but more important, the roosters among us would preen and crow, circle one another, while we toads remained inside. There was (our own) Johnny “Big Hunk” Moore, Joe and Bob Butcher (SSF), Ron Rivera (Cap), Lenny Nicholson (Hillsdale), and the unbeatable Arthur Lee Haskins of Burlingame. The fights were generally over in a minute or two, the police were on their way, and we would slink off to the Burlingame Theatre, there to sit in the back and either make-out or make believe that we were making out. And then there came Kermit Mills, the usher, a SMHS upper-class weenie, shining his flashlight and telling us to shut up or go home…… Hence, thankfully, here arrives the home stretch of this Keroucian ode to Arthur Pettinichi, Liberace’s putative cousin, who ran our library, and ran us out of his library if we did not remain stock-still—how would he know that Bill Neukom would become Bill Gates’ personal barrister, and three decades later, the President of the San Francisco Giants baseball team; That Ted Wright would spend a good chunk of his life as a patent attorney on one case, involving waterbeds? That Judith Binsacca would become one of the most outspoken advocates seeking to improve the lot of the poor and dispossessed in Marin County? That Pete Mayo would be killed at San Quentin, long before Clint Eastwood even had the idea that there were “punks” out there? That Dennis Cresta would also have trouble with the law? That Ronna Jurow would become an opera singer and, later, a doctor, specializing in Ob/Gyn? That Tyler Marshall would travel the world as a distinguished writer for the LA Times and other news outlets That Lynn Dreyfuss would become a golf star; Ann Parsons, George Pagano, and Gayle Etienne, real estate moguls; Sharon Freeberg central to the Oregon wine industry; Marilyn Muhlker, Lynn McLachlan, Susan Edelman, Ann Thomas, and Helen Anderson, among others, fine teachers? That Don Niederhaus would become the owner of Cold Storage Mfg., Inc., and marry Sharon Graham? That Corazon Amarillo, Nancy Davison, and Sally Burks would emerge as the backbone of the travel industry? That Cappy Hurst would become an eminent historian and the Director of East Asian Studies at Pennsylvania? That Tom Lemos would become an engineer for KPIX in San Francisco; That Larry Lovell would become the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the termite world in San Mateo? That Dale Miller would become a tough Chief Deputy District Attorney in Contra Costa County? That Lois Moran would become a highly sought-after estate planner? That Sally Piguet would become the nicest banker I’ve ever met? That Fred Palmer would master the back trails of ski Utah? That Peter Steiner would become Executive Director of the UCSB Alumni Association? That Dick Bredsteen and others would reinvent themselves to do good for their communities, in various ways? That John Alger would become an outstanding editor and writer? That Gene Chaput would never find Paul Cotton, but that he would end up in Portola Valley? That Kathy Cullinan would succeed on several levels (the Elm predicted as much), as a facilitator and trainer? And that Steve Player would also excel as a lawyer? That Maria Ciampi would become an environmentalist and President of OSA, Inc.? That Dick Fowler and Ernie Cresci would crank pitches out of FitzGerald Field and then engineer other things…including ravioli and things mechanical? That Art Dutra would spend more than three decades as a manager with Lockheed Missiles and Space Co? That Susan Hammond would get mixed up with volleyball? That Allen Jackson and Guy Jinkerson, like Player, would become Perry Masons of their time? That Barbara Jones would marry science teacher Bob Mills? That Tom Spencer would serve Los Altos as a firefighter for more than three decades? That Carol Lewis would become an artist and tour guide? That Harald Benson would become a painting contractor? That Ray Averill would become Security Division Manager at Lockheed Missiles and Space That Pat Palmer and too many others would merely disappear, or pass to other locales of which we lack knowledge and will until we meet again? We miss you, all of you, and wish we could see you again. We shall never forget you. The foregoing, of course, comprises a short list of classmates’ accomplishments. No one but no one, Mr. Pettinichi, could imagine them then…. So we go on until the next reunion, who knows where or when; Lest a maudlin spirit gain the upper hand, I bring back Miss Hays and her ragtime band: Yes, she stood there in 1956 spring—teaching history Medieval or ancient to little rugrats who cared little for what Nebuchadnezzar said or did, or whether Papyrus was something one wrote on, or the sidekick of Hopalong Cassidy or some other cowboy…..but she taught, and then it started…..the chandelier swayed, the dust rose, the roof cracked—a piece of plaster or two fell from the ceiling…more dust than ever seen rising from the floor and desks…we rumbled and rumbled—our desks bumper cars at the beach. It went on…and on, and then as suddenly as it stopped, Miss Hays—at least 110 years old we thought, who never smiled, who always looked bored, took her pointer (which she had planted firmly in front of her and leaned on during the quake) and looked out at all of us, relief plastered all over her face and said, “That scared the shit out of me!!” And Miss Hays was human, after all. Yes, the bricks were orange, not red. The red is our blood. SMHS is in it. The memories are live, not dead. Will always be.
The Rapture was a rupture Of plain old common sense. Those who embraced the message Were clearly very dense. But then who are we to crow, While the world doth take its blows. What we should do, all of us, is Seek a way to fix the hose That splatters all the Others, Whom we disdain with ease, With nary an explanation And certainly not a please. It's all for one, not one for all Only we are the ones left standing tall Through through luck more than pluck We've barely avoided a global fuck.
(with apologies to Robert Service…) The poem begins with “galloping pentameter,” moves swiftly to doggerel, then alternates with Marlowe’s mighty line, blank verse…..
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,
Where the cotton blooms and grows,
And why he left his home to roam,
God Only Knows…..
And Ross McCullough and a few of the brothers,
Who were wont to whoop it up at the bar…
But this is not about Sam or Ross,
It’s about a much, much brighter star
For not McGee, but Anna Leigh, and she too bloomed and growed
And we (smart ones) knew that one day some guy would make her glow….
That day came early, along with wisdom and the child we knew
Ah, yes, she left McGee and McGrew (and other pretenders) in the dust of old Bath Road….
Let’s trace the legend, the early lore, of beauteous Anna Leigh,
The nicest gal who came down the pike, ever Don did see…
Do you remember, those nights in September, with Kristin, watching TV
On that huge masterbed, Ross and Annie gone out, with “Quincy” on the screen…
Or driving to school in gremlins, rabbits and pacers;
You kids were quick, with minds like swift lasers
And the dog walks in the back 40, that lovely place, and raking up leaves…
and jumping in piles, and admonitions not to throw rocks, if you please!
And recall the one time, when you did, oops a stitch or seven to close up the lid.
Skateboarding, skiing, sliding down the Bath Road driveway with ease….
with far more skill than the mailman ever showed, please….
He could not make the hill at all, when snow and ice and winter called
And when he did, after sweet Susie left, he encountered an airdale, who in turn found his cleft…(not to mention that lb of butter on Annabelle’s table…)
You hunted Easter eggs in the front yard, and you swung on the willow
Kristin slept over, not with you, but with Grant and no pillow…
You were—Annabelle said--a very restless sleeper—and at night at times, you were even a peeper…
You and your friends played tag behind the house…and you scrambled across that jungle-jim catwalk—when Annie wasn’t watching you as a cat (Foofie?) watched a mouse!
You ran through the woods, you played hide-and-seek. You walked through Wrights and ran through Arnolds’ -- eek!!
Best not to get caught by witches or worse. You swooned over Wolstonecroft, but found Warren averse.
And the “Do Not Touch” Restaurant with Annabelle smiling, and that tickling torture with “Guard” Ross after sailing survival…
Almost as much fun as Atari, “Shark,” “Marco Polo,” and that catalogue elephant’s mail arrival…
You slept in “the Box” with Willie and Caesar, you avoided the bee stings and serpents in that bathouse that teased her…
You played “Barbies” morning, noon, and night; and you acted “Charlie’s Angels,” looking bright (Jacalyn Smith?)
Remember the violin concertos on Christmas eve (and the boys being forced to sing “Three Kings We”)
And fishing with Kristin and Kelly and hooking the latter….
Ouch!
Volleyball, soccer, basketball, gymnastics, skiing too
All those sports were good for you
They prepared you for golf stardom and the joys,
Of vanquishing Home Depot on behalf of Your Hometown Boys
And remember being left, at the top of that first ski hill,
You schlussed down so quickly—what a thrill
And to keep this poem in good rhyme, we note that at LCVI
You became the sports legend of your time.
This poem could continue, going from bad to worse, but heck that’s better than from bed to verse. Let’s stop here…
and raise a glass of cheer!
As helpful and friendly and nice a person we know,
It’s been grand, my dear, to see you grow.
We salute you on your day, Anna-Leigh and Don, and wish you both love and joy aujourdhui, demain, et apres demains, et jusqua a la fin des siecles!!
***
End with quote from Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Marriage: “the state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making, in all, two” No, not for you two! Look around this room: you have many examples of marriage; it is for you to choose what works for you.
To the bride...
You do jigsaws/I merely knit; Neither of us ends up in a snit; But some consider me an aging twit; knit one, purl one is not a fit. But I demur, arguing hardy, that knitting keeps your fingers from getting tardy, and slow and arthritic in the joints; indeed, knitting zen anoints...
He polarized the country That bearded man, he did He polarized the country Against the Tar Sands bid Sour gas wells were a symbol of hell Here on earth, to the depths we fell We who love oil which isn’t swell The Goderich pastor took it on, pell mell….. Alberta Energy and Utilities Felt the brunt of his wrath Hated by many, he cut a swath Using Explosives as he blazed his path Against Suncor and the Tar Sands bid Yes gas wells they did live in fear When Wiebo and the boys donned their gear And set out from Trickle Creek to blow ‘em up That Ludwig could give a wup A few nails here, a shooting there, Above all trespassers you beware And if you didn’t and took a chance Ludwig would do more than cast a glance Against the tar sands bid He’d take his gun with him, For protection, you see, Against oilmen, noisy teens, and Feds Encana Pipelines bombed we hear No conviction, never fear The police, though they did try hard, Convictions were never in the cards. Wiebo he stood very tall, for his environs and all, For nature, the earth, the animals and birds For dairy cows, their whey and curds He worried about climate change, pollution too, And, yes, he became a hero for you Energy efficient and solar-powered too, Against the tar sands bid.
For Moms: men work from sun to sun women's work is never done men go out and some get rich then they call their wives a bitch But in tact, this lack of tact reveals machismo out of whack and men who harbour not a clue how much women each day must do this poem must end, with teenage kids children grown larger with active ids and egos and needs and momentary lapses.... when they forget that mom is the only thing standing between them and the world careworn; it's a sobering thought, isn't it...... let them think it some time.
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