Noncitizens

A couple of days ago, I posted an image of my parents along with their alien registration cards on my Facebook. I had this to say.

October 11, 1944. Although my father served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II, my parents were never citizens of the country, ever.

Yet, I’m afraid, for that, there is an ugly sentiment in our land today that would want their remains exhumed and deported. 

SUNDAY, January 26, 1975 and 2025: 'Mayhem', 'Plate Glass'

At 6:55pm, it begins.

By 9:20pm… mayhem.

Wounded,

I step out.

My isolation, 

Complete.

My destitution?

To this day.

 

The setting in 2018

    1975, six days after your twenty-first birthday.

    It commences inside the doorway at the far end of the foyer (the last visible entry to the upper left, just past the larger of the two bulletin boards pictured).

    Two hours later, the main incident takes place within the lighted room; continuing, ten minutes later, before the smaller bulletin board. 

    While I was "up-close-and-personal" for the 6:55 and 9:20 events, I had retreated by 9:30pm to where, pretty much, this outside January 26th, 2018 perspective was taken. Back then, in 1975, there was a floor-to-ceiling, plate glass, window pane to the right of the silhouetted, door frame seen in the foreground of this later shot. Arranged in panels surrounding the entry, they made for the main entrance. They no longer exist, but it was at this adjoining pane, adjacent to the door, where my final point of view, four feet farther to the right, was situated in 1975.

    The floor was carpeted then, and colored a dark, grass green. The looped banister was not as wide, but much narrower and the handrail made of blond wood. Only its single row of descending balustrades was fashioned of metal (brush steel I believe). 

    With that said, other than what the poems and my brief description of the layout state, I cannot be more specific about what actually occurred involving the elements to which I allude.* Nothing salacious. Suffice to say, this happenstance was singularly, the most life-changing moment, by far, in the whole of my existence. From this night forward, I was never the same.

    There was no advocate.

    There was no audience.

    There was... 

    Nothing whatsoever.

    I loved you, body and soul.

    And was utterly, utterly alone.

    Desolate.

    The truest, purest futility a person apart can know.

 

    Now the actual fiftieth observance begins. It's 6:55pm once more.

    9:20pm.

    9:30pm: it ends, and I am struck by the relentless indifference of time’s arrow. Did its forward momentum pause for a moment? 

    Did it back then? No. 

    To change metaphors, how unaware nor concerned time sweeps over the present, sending this too - my fiftieth observance - into eventual oblivion. I am the one however, we all are, being dragged along with my ragged past tied to me, in tow, pulling on me, until time completes my destruction, and discarding me, moves on into the future I will not share.

    Yet perversely, that’s where you and I will one day be joined in forgotten likeness.

    I only wish we could know another moment in life. One more moment.

    You see, I still hope. I still stubbornly press my case, with or without audience.

    I cannot undo the truth of you, no matter whatever happens to me.

 

‘MAYHEM’

Dreamsteel-Blue,

Short is the work

Skirting her thighs.

Quick to give rise

To a surfeit of dreams,

Whose misstep,

What mischief,

Bestrode me it seems.

‘PLATE GLASS’

Plate glass,

Decades thick,

It’s clear what you reveal to me:

That pity ‘s blind

To any pain,

Which looks on,

Unrequitedly.

 

 

 

Music credits: 'NATURAL' by Florian Christl from 'Pianissimo' (2023)

ADDENDUM: There is yet another poem, a fragmentary portion from an early, untitled work, related to this instance. I started it but never finished, only liking this one phrasing in particular:

"...No shock to the gray eyes,

Which on my behalf,

Reflect back the hindsight,

Most youthful girls lack...."

*It may be that I shall yet chronicle the incident in full, though for reasons, not at this date or occasion. Rather, I will wait a short spell, and it will be under the rubric of Dreamsteel-Blue, that I shall detail the event.

 

 

 

 

Annually

 Once again... soft delicate wishes issue from my waiting lips.

Keep her precious, happy, and safe another year.

 

 

Felled (Image Rollover)

The tree which was... is gone.

It was too near the house. It was too problematic. It was too large and leafy, though a lovely sight in its spring bloom.

It was sad, but necessary to see it go.

Gone.