POEMOGRAPHY | 2023
Poems by R.M. Usatinsky
pōəˈmäɡrəfē, noun: form or process of writing and representing poetry
AUGUST
01AUG23 | INTELLECTUAL NOSTALGIA
We've only had but a brief correspondence,
sharing thoughts and ideas about this and
that, the way strangers communicate when
they're still uncertain just who the person on
the other side of the wire is; but like the start
of anything new, there is novelty and wonder,
the beauty of seeing a new landscape for the
first time or seeing freshly fallen snow outside
your window; there's a comfort to be found in
strangers, they're less judgemental, curious and
delighted to know things about you that you
hardly knew (or remembered you knew) about
yourself; and today, my new correspondent said
there was an "intellectual nostalgia" about me; so,
I thought about it for a moment, wondering what
it meant and if I should ask or simply relish in the
notion of what it could mean; the short message
concluded by the writer saying they thought they
should have been born a hundred years ago, to
which I replied I shared in that exact sentiment
02AUG23 | THE SEASON OF GRIEF
I fear the season of grief has only just begun,
though its origins can be traced to March 2020,
when we last spoke at the onset of the pandemic;
we had spent time together, you me and two of
your sisters, in Valencia, during Epiphany; it was
a good time as I remember; and then the decay
and loss of what had been more fragile than I
could ever have imagined; then your sister, in
emulating what she must have thought to be a
way to punish me, perhaps as you did, for what
exactly I have never quite understood; but it's
more than abandonment and the loss of trust,
I suppose it's the losses to come that have me
the most discomposed; aging parents at the
ends of their lives; friends who are eating or
smoking or living themselves to death and
who no longer possess the wherewithal to go
on fighting for their existence; it's the fallen
heroes and those who I have admired from afar;
it's all the loss that I can hardly bare to contemplate
03AUG23 | ME, AS OBSERVER
I wish, if for only a moment, you could see
yourself as I see you; hear you as I do, too
often, belittling and berating, disrespecting
and discombobulated; I know it's only one
vantage point, but it has been, afterall, my
vantage point for fifteen years and if for no
other reason than having spent all those years
with you, I feel qualified to make these blunt
observations; there was a time when I felt you
had simply become too overwhelmed with life
and its turns and travails, disappointments and
inevitably having to come to terms with all the
things you would never come to accomplish; and
the one thing, and perhaps the most poignant, is
that I feel you never really wanted this life, being
someone's partner, mother, daughter, sister, friend
or colleague; that, left to your druthers, you would
have easily chosen a solitary life, beholden to no
one, no place or thing, creating for yourself a life
of undisturbed exile and the serenity of paradise
04AUG23 | AUTO-MINDF*CK
I keep telling myself I was born to do this,
this one, simple thing; and if you look at it
plainly, simply, taking it at face value for
what it's worth, it really shouldn't tip the
scales or seem like such an overly massive
undertaking; I mean, it's just talking and
singing, right? and I've been doing both of
those things for most of the sixty years I've
been alive; okay, so I'd be doing the talking
and singing in front of an audience of real
people, people who will be expected to cry
and laugh and to react accordingly to what
is going on––being "performed" in front of
them––that's what we're talking about here;
but there's this thing I do––that I've always
done––I auto-mindf*ck myself to the point
of paralyzation, to the point where merely
visualizing the thing satisfies me enough
to not actually having to do the thing; and
that's exactly where things stand right now
05AUG23 | THE TINY WHITE PILL
The tiny white pill I swallow every morning
is doing what it was prescribed to do, what the
doctor told me it would it do, lower my blood
pressure; and it has and does that very thing;
but that tiny white pill has also turned me into
a zombie, exhausted and numb, misty-minded
and fatigued to the point that I dozed off on the
bus this morning on the way to shul and dozed
off this morning in shul and again on the way
home from shul; and with the lethargy comes
my lack of desire for walking, for taking my
daily strolls along the water looking for that
first boat of the day to photograph; and as the
desire to walk dwindles, my craving for sweets
and comfort food surges as does my weight and
anxiety; so, I spend more time in bed than I'd
like to, hoping that when I rise, the angst will
have waned and I will be given another chance
to reset and start the day anew; but this miserable
cycle of malaise is a hard one to break free from
06AUG23 | THE SKIN CRIES
I think I would prefer to remember you as a little boy
when you were lovely and loving and as sweet as any
little boy could be; but time has a way of turning what
was once sweet into sour and loving into scornful and
indifferent; you were so thoughtful and extraordinarily
well-mannered, a real little gentleman, with your easy-
going way and delightful temperament; always happy
and ever so fascinated by the wonders of life; you were
musical and gifted with a unique talent; and while you
chose to employ that talent in a way I will never come
to understand, I respected you for following the beat of
your own drum; but what I will never respect is the way
in which you desecrated your body with an assortment of
grotesque marks, cheap, colorless and pitiable tattoos you
have chosen to permanently stain your once beautiful, soft
and supple skin with; scribblings that will remain a part of
you for the rest of your life; and perhaps these are merely a
way of expressing your individuality, but I know you better
than you'll ever realize and know these abhorrent marks are
all but defiance, rebellion and your crying out for attention
07AUG23 | IRREPARABLE HARM
The damage is done;
our children have been
raised in a home—in a
family—where so little
affection and outwardly
visible expressions of
love have existed that it
would take nothing less
than a miracle to reverse
the irreparable harm that
has been inflicted upon
them, on all of us; and it
is your callous society's
culture and their cold,
unrefined and apathetic
nature that has left us
numb, paralyzed and no
longer to feel anything but
the rain that drips through
small cracks in the ceiling
08AUG23 | DEAD CALLS
I keep getting these calls,
dead calls, on my cell phone,
from No Caller ID numbers;
and while I don't recognize the
language being spoken by the
faint, muffled woman's voice
on the other end of the call, the
voice, in it's throaty, dry Eastern
European accent does sound a bit
familiar; and while I'd never heard
my bubbe Razel's voice, I imagine
that's what it might have sounded
like; and these calls sound like they
come from the great beyond, there is
something otherworldly about them,
something unsettling and foreboding;
and even if these calls are simply wrong
numbers or crossed lines as the callers
keep talking incessantly, they do serve to
remind me that I am being looked after
09AUG23 | MONTE OLIVETE
I have such crystalline recollections
of our first apartment in Valencia, in
the Monte Olivete neighborhood in
front of the Fallas museum and the
vast expanse of bulldozered land that
in many month's time would become
the highly revered City of Arts and
Sciences situated in the dry bed of the
River Turia; I remember the first time
I walked into the flat; you had moved
in a month or so before while I closed
the chapter on the five years we spent
in Chicago; I was impressed by the size
of the place, four bedrooms, two full
baths, a formal dining room and eat-in
kitchen; the marble floors and Sr. Talens,
our genteel landlord and the couple next door,
Amparo and Jordi and their boy Adrian María;
the dogs and the park, my brother's first and
only visit and the death of Lady Diana Spencer
10AUG23 | ON AGING
I was talking to my 80-year-old mother
the other day, complaining about this
and that, how I wasn't adjusting well to
having recently turned sixty; she said,
what so many people have told me over
and over again, that age is just a number;
no it isn't, I quickly barked; actually, I
continued, sixty is the new fifty-nine!
she laughed at that quip suggesting I
should have it printed on t-shirts and
mugs; I just might, I replied; but I fully
understood where she was coming from,
age, it can be said, is all in the mind, you're
as old as you feel...and that's the point I was
trying in vain to make to my mother, I'm sixty,
but there are days I feel seventy...or eighty!
last night it was my left foot, I all but hobbled
home at midnight from the tram stop; my knees
ache walking down stairs and my memory comes
and goes as often as the Dutch rain; woe is me
11AUG23 | HIGH DEFINITION
The minute details of last night’s dream
were so very clear, like a high definition
photograph; I was stood at a small metal
sink, the basin filled with glassware and
cutlery, the final remnants of quite a large
dinner party we’d had; I was scraping dried
fondue cheese that somehow found its way
into a tall drinking glass; after minutes of
scraping incessantly with my finger nail, an
old man, perhaps my great-grandfather, put
his finger into the glass rubbing it in a feeble
attempt to loosen the hard bits of cheese; then, I
noticed Virginia’s parents were there saying how
they were astonished that a large family like ours
could live in a such a small flat; after dinner, two
of our slightly inebriated guests were seen walking
down Washtenaw and, just as they walked past the
Gallay's three-story, nearly stepped in a fresh and
steamy highly-stacked pile of dog excrement until
I caught sight of it and shouted a warning to them
12AUG23 | THE DINING ROOM TABLE
The dining room table is empty;
so is the bed and so are my dreams
and memories of what it was like
to be part of a family; Friday nights
sitting around the Shabbos dinner
table on Maplewood, we'd wait until
zayde came home from shul and grampa
from his busy day selling women's shoes
on Michigan Avenue; the two end chairs
from that dining room set are still with me,
in the home I share with strangers in a place
where I am a stranger, still, always; so, I eat
alone and sleep alone in a lonely house filled
with enough discarded things and remnants of
things bought or acquired where no memories
are made that are of any great significance; and
I can't remember the last time I had all my children
sitting around a dinner table, but it would have been
the last time, the final time; and those days are long
gone, gone to forever and they will never come again
13AUG23 | SECRET ADMIRER
At first I thought it was joke or
a fluke or misunderstanding; but
then notes and text messages came,
little trinkets left for me at work; tiny
rubber animals––a dolphin, a wolf,
a penguin and a leopard––two glass
marbles and some chocolates from
De Graaff; but who? and why? and
no one remembers seeing anyone
coming into the shop leaving these
things on the counter (or were they
sworn to secrecy?); I have some
suspicions, but no real evidence; I'd
love to catch the culprit in the act, but
don't suppose I ever will; I've never
had a secret admirer, though I have
admired many from afar though often
too cowardly to follow through; but
whoever it may be, they have my full
attention, affection and deep fascination
14AUG23 | LETTING GO
I'm letting go
letting go of
the hurt and
all those who
cause the hurt
I deserve much
more than you
have failed to
give; I'm worthy
beyond anything
you have to offer;
and I'm also letting
go of those on the
fringe; the curiosity
seekers and those
who wait in the wings
to see me fail; but even
if I do, my failure is so
much more dignified
than any trivial success
you've ever had or will have
15AUG23 | MY SAD COMPANION
We've been together a good many years
travelled down long and dusty roads
side by side through thick and thin;
challenges, triumphs and heartbreaks;
it's too soon to see where the path ends
where the journey will lay claim to one
of us before the other succumbs; I suppose
one can never be sure of these transient things;
we've seen so much; blue skies (though not
the bluest), deep green lakes (but hardly the
greenest or deepest); and we've lived long
enough to say that we've had a good taste of it;
deep down, I know I'd be better off without you;
you, better off without me, but I guess we're stuck
with each other, at least for now; anyway, where
could I possibly go without you and how could
I ever get there alone? I would be lost without my
sad companion; left fending for myself, struggling
for my very survival to face whatever the universe
hurls at us; as is such, my sad companion is me
16AUG23 | NICE HEARING FROM YOU (FOR L.T.)
All I really know about you is what
you have let me see and what I have
envisioned in my fantasies and vivid
imagination; and it's easy to love you,
I mean, it's not every day that someone
comes along who expresses any genuine
interest in me, who cares enough to call
or spend hours traipsing around doing
commonplace things; and today, you've
surfaced anew; come out into the light
from whatever place you've been attending
to all of life's necessities and unpleasantries;
it was nice hearing from you, nice to be
thought of even when your own life is on
the brink of so many changes; I can hardly
wait to see you again, to spend a little time
getting reacquainted and talking about all the
plans we're making for our lives; as for me,
I am focussed and committed to finding out
what kind of friend I can be; and want to be
17AUG23 | BRAIN FOG
Some days are foggier than others;
this morning, for example, my mind
is in an absolute flutter, vacillating
between thoughts and worries while
not being able to take my eyes off a
perfectly spun spiderweb just outside
the window my desk sits in front of;
it's spun exquisitely round, the circles
meticulously spaced like grooves on
a vinyl record; and the tree across the
street, why does it sway so aggressively
while all the other trees around it remain
still; and whose voices are those inside
my head and should I be listening to
them more attentively; and I'm worried
about my medication and the dire effects
it produces while apparently doing good
in keeping my high blood pressure at bay;
and today, for seemingly no good reason,
my throat is sore, dry, raspy and inflamed
18AUG23 | OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT
It'll all be over before you know it
and you'll be left with the indelible
pain and guilt for the rest of your life;
not that I want that, but you will have
had it coming and we all must sleep in
the beds we make; and I wonder how it
will change your life and how you will
live out your years knowing the torment
you caused; and of course it saddens me
to think of all the failed relationships and
disappointments you will have and cause;
and they'll insist it wasn't your fault, that
you were merely reacting to circumstance;
but I know better, and so do you; you thought
you were being strong, acting bold and making
a statement, but none of those things were true;
all you did was abandon your champion, the one
person who treated you with more kindness and
love than anyone; but that was part of your fault,
not recognizing the truth, succumbing only to scorn
19AUG23 | DROWNING
They say drowning doesn't
always look like drowning;
it's rarely flailing and bobbing,
gulping and gasping; it's a quiet
subtle and impassive death, water
infiltrates the body becoming the
breath of the afterlife, silent and
unwavering, liquid, inconspicuous;
the two of us are drowning, have
been for how many months, now?
and you sit ever so idly by the shore,
the ring-shaped life preserver at an
arm's-length but you refuse to throw
us the lifeline; refuse to intervene in
the drowning; observing as we sink
deeper and deeper into the silence;
how could you let this happen? how
could you be so cold-hearted as to
watch as we drown right before your
eyes; not even a prayer for dying souls
20AUG23 | BREAK-IN
Just when I thought my dreams
couldn't possibly get any more
realistic I had this frightening
one a few hours ago that took
place at the home I lived in as
a teenager on North Washtenaw,
the Litin's building, where many
of my dreams have taken place
over the years; this one, a most
disturbing episode, found me
asleep in the back bedroom of
the apartment, in the middle of
a dream; I was suddenly woken
up by what sounded like banging
at the back door; still drowsy from
sleep, I walked into the dark of the
kitchen and noticed the door ajar;
thinking the wind had blown it open,
I began pushing it closed when I
realized someone was pushing back
21AUG23 | LIST OF MALADIES FOR TODAY'S DOCTOR VISIT
Dry hacking cough
Sore scratchy throat
Anxiety, dread, overwhelm
Hypersensitivity to everything/crying
Fatigue/lethargy
Over-eating/binging
Brain fog/forgetfulness
Drooling
Minor gastric issues
Increased urination
Middle ear discharge/crusty/itchy
Tingling/numbness right big toe
Incessant belly fat
Finger pain/stiff joints
Knee discomfort (especially walking down stairs)
Varicose veins on legs
Spots on right hand
Lower lip seems off-center
Skin tags on neck
General malaise
22AUG23 | LETTER TO MURIEL
Dear Muriel,
I suppose you could say
I'm less than content with
your diagnosis of summer flu;
but, I suppose I've come to know
how things stand between us; after
all, ours has been one of the longest
relationships I've had, so, suffice to say,
I can safely proclaim that I know you pretty
well by now although I'm never really certain
whose side you're on; you rushed through my
list of maladies insisting on taking one thing at
a time; you listened to my lungs (they seem clear);
you listened to my heart (at my insistence); you took
me off Enalapril (it had obviously turned me into a
zombie despite doing what it was supposed to do); and
you gave me a new appointment in two weeks to see how
my summer flu has evolved; but every time we meet, I leave
with the sensation that you're merely putting me through the
the motions, that I'm really nothing more than ticks on a clock
23AUG23 | TSVETELINA'S TOUCH
I wasn't meant to pass by your door,
but the bus I was riding home on
suffered a malfunction and rather
than waiting for the replacement
I simply decided to walk the rest of
the way from Voorburg Station with
the intention of picking up some fresh
berries along the way; I've passed the
place dozens of times, but today, for some
strange reason, I decided to pop my head
in and enquire; you were alone, sat at the
back on a couch; you came over, opened
the door and after a short chat invited me
in; I ran through my list of complaints and
you offered a ten-minute trial, to make sure
I was comfortable and that you would indeed
be able to provide the exact thing I was after;
after thirty minutes, lathered in oil and ever so
powerfully enveloped by your touch, I realized
the thing I have been longing for all these years
24AUG23 | IN WHISPERS
I only talk to you in whispers
spoken softly under my breath;
I say hello and goodbye and
wish you godspeed; I whisper
goodnight from outside your
room and pray for you after
reciting the Amidah at shul;
and I whisper your name as
I walk along the Vliet, asking
the trees if they've seen you
lately and if they thought you
were doing well; I whisper a lot
these days, my voice is weak
and often at a loss for things to
say; I whisper to myself with the
hope that a little voice from within
will hear me and answer my call;
and I whisper for fear of being
heard, for being misunderstood
in the deafening silence of truth
25AUG23 | NEW SKIN
It's happened; I think I've
finally finished shedding
the old skin; the lethargy
and malaise seem to be on
the wane; my gait is spry,
I can breathe deeply again
and the intense melancholia
now helps rather than hinders;
and while I haven't checked my
blood pressure since ditching the
pill, I think I'd prefer a stroke or
heart attack instead of the abyss
the meds left me sinking in; I'm
cautiously productive, even doing
some multitasking and making new
plans with new people about a new
future that up until now I mostly
wasn't even able to ponder; my new
skin; it feels sleek, refined, cool and
ever so pleasantly accommodating
26AUG23 | A BROOK IN THE STORM (FOR B.B.)
There aren't many people I've known
over the course of my life who I think
about as often as you; funnier still, is
how we've only met a handful of times;
the last time we were together was on
a date of sorts when at the end of the
evening (details of which have escaped
me at this moment) we sat in my car in
some industrial complex parking lot as
a raging thunderstorm entertained us as
we talked endlessly about this that and
the other and my feelings about being
out on a date with you while I was dating
(albeit unofficially and unceremoniously)
your best friend; at one point there was
silence as we contemplated lightning bolts
and thunderclaps (me, hoping buoyantly
that I'd score); at one point you turned
to me and took my hand in yours saying
you knew deep down in your heart that
someday we'd be lovers; we never were,
but I've never been able to gaze upon a
thunderstorm the same way since then and
every time the skies darken and nature's
spectacle takes to the stage, I think of you
and of those more innocent times long ago
when hearts were hardly as fragile as they
were to become; and we're all married now
(happily or otherwise), but the brook in the
storm beautifully reflects the lightning while
she revels in the joy of the raindrops dancing
in her overflowing serenity, filling her to the
edge of the embankment with every emotion
ever to have fallen from the heavens; you are
and will remain embedded in the depths of
my heart with reverence and endless wonder
27AUG23 | HOWARD & LUCY
I can't believe thirteen years have
come and gone; it really does feel
like it was only yesterday since I
took that short flight over to attend
your wedding; you left a goody bag
for me in my hotel room filled with
sweets and treats and I made my
way to the venue, a palace built
in the English countryside in the
eighth century by a Saxon king;
to this day, your wedding is the
most beautiful I have ever had
the privilege of attending (well,
perhaps a close second to my
wedding on Wisconsin's Green
Lake in 1995); and everything
was perfect that day, the weather,
the ceremony and the magnificent
black-tie gala, only marred by the
fumes from my patent leather shoes
28AUG23 | MONDAY VOID
Not much happens in this country
on Mondays; they might as well
just cancel it or add it on to the
weekend or perhaps eliminate it
from the week altogether, leaving
six days to muck about and get the
bare minimum done between bites
of sad bread and cheese sandwiches
and brownshoe walks to the petrol
station for coffee and energy bars
during lunch breaks; everything is
lackluster on Mondays; the village
shops open at noon with groggy
employees you better not engage
too deeply with as they'll either
ignore you or kill you with contempt;
even the clouds and trees are unmoving,
they idly await the coming rainstorms to
perk things up a tad and send the natives
into a tizzy, albeit not in the Monday void
29AUG23 | MY PECTORALS
Seems I've gone and gotten my
pectorals in a bunch; they're a
bit taut and, in all likelihood,
somewhat abused as I use these
particular muscles for a variety
of daily activities such as cutting
hair, using my computer during
long writing sessions and for
holding up my iPhone while I
scroll mindlessly through the
interwebs as I lie (mindlessly)
in my bed taking respite from
the aforementioned activities;
so, this morning, my pectorals
were poked, prodded, pressed
and pummeled and I was given
detailed tutelage on how to care
for these muscles in the privacy
and (dis)comfort of my own home
by thrusting forward in a doorway
30AUG23 | FOR JOEL
I read about your mother's passing
on your social media page; it was a
short, but very loving notice as only
you could pen; as I read your words,
I felt bad having not asked you about
your mother all these years; truth is, I
had assumed she passed away years ago
(your parents always seemed much older
than the other parents when I first met
you around 1975); and seeing the lovely
photo that accompanied your post, I was
suddenly flooded with emotions and
memories of days gone by; the Shabbos
afternoons playing board games on your
bedroom floor (your parents didn't allow
you to go out on Saturday afternoons); I
remember all those times I would see your
father driving down Mozart in that boxy
blue sedan (was it a Chevy Malibu or
Impala?); I never saw your parents again
after you moved to Los Angeles in seventh
grade; and while I saw you once in our teens
(my cousin took us to the Queen Mary, docked
in Long Beach harbor), it wasn't until some 40
years later when we were reunited for a day in
Amsterdam where, accompanied by your wife,
we took a canal boat cruise, paid a visit to the
old Portuguese synagogue and had lunch at one
of the city's few remaining kosher eateries; you
may have spoken of your mother then, but I
was so overcome with emotion that day, I can
barely remember anything that we talked about;
you played a vital, though all too brief, part of
of my childhood; you were my first best friend
and the best assistant any young magician could
hope for; may your mother's memory be a blessing
31AUG23 | CUTTING CHET BAKER
While I've only been a barber
for a mere handful of years; it
crosses my mind from time to
time that it would have been
cool to cut the hair of this or
that celebrity or of a historical
person of international renown;
I saw a photo of Chet Baker just
a few minutes ago, a photo taken
by Richard Avedon in January 1986,
just two years before Baker's death
in Amsterdam; he hadn't had a haircut
or even combed his hair to any great
extent for the shoot and I as looked
closely at the photo, examining ever
so carefully the wispy strands of hair
dangling over his ears, I thought how
amazing it would have been to have
him in my chair, to hear a story or
two about his sad and amazing life