POEMOGRAPHY | 2025
Poems by R.M. Usatinsky
pōəˈmäɡrəfē, noun: form or process of writing and representing poetry
OCTOBER
01OCT25 | MENSIS HORRIBILIS
It was a terrible month;
illness and malaise and
the desire to do nothing
but cease the coughing;
these late summer colds
are treacherous and get
worse as I get older and
seem to linger on and on;
and then I got word that
an old and dear friend—
maybe even my dearest
from my Valencia days—
passed away; my ex-wife
and daughter attended the
funeral and brought with
them my sympathies to all
02OCT25 | CREWNECK SWEATERS
I’ve been receiving more emails from
J. Crew than usual, I’m assuming that
is because the autumn seems to be the
J. Crew season of choice; and it’s my
season of choice as well, especially for
fashion as I love the rich fall colors and
heavier fabrics, hunter green wide wale
corduroy is my all-time favorite and I still
have a pair of trousers I bought there more
than thirty years ago (with two and three-
quarter inch cuffs, no less); and the rollneck
sweater seems to be making a comeback
(mine was cream and I wore it down to threads);
I’m thinking about buying a crewneck this fall,
haven’t had one in years and love pairing it with
a crisp powder-blue button-down Oxford cloth shirt
03OCT25 | IF ONLY I HAD A WARDROBE
If only I had a wardrobe,
a place to hang my two
good suits and the half
dozen tight-fitting dress
shirts I possess, I could
hang these garments in a
proper way, in a proper
place, perhaps on wooden
hangers rather than seeing
them everyday strewn upon
the landing railing upstairs
collecting dust and lint and
being faded by the morning
sun that blazes in through the
skylight window; and I’d also
have a place for my dress shoes
04OCT25 | WHERE I SHOULD HAVE BEEN
I should be waking up to the sound of a
hundred hungry gulls squawking outside
my hotel window in Liverpool; I should
have been on flight U2-3445 yesterday
afternoon and I should have been in
seat AA13 at the Tung Auditorium in
the Yoko Ono Center at the University
of Liverpool listening to China Crisis
performing the entirety of their 2018
album Autumn in the Neighbourhood;
and I should be getting ready to head
over to Bold Street to enjoy a veggie
full English breakfast, then walk the
familiar streets, see familiar faces and
shop for familiar things to bring back
tomorrow to my all too familiar life
05OCT25 | STILL INVISIBLE
I rushed home to be there to
say goodnight to my daughters;
in the front door then straight
upstairs to be greeted by no one,
at least not anyone caring enough
to cast their gaze momentarily away
from their smartphone screen to say
hello or goodnight or wave or even
just acknowledge my existence; but
that’s where we’ve come, that’s how
far we’ve evolved, to the point where
the screen has replaced everything
relevant, everything that used to matter
but no longer does, and if it does, it takes
a back seat to the screens, the memes,
the viral videos and mindless media
06OCT25 | EAST 10TH & STUYVESANT
It’s been more than thirty years
since I last visited New York City,
the time when a skinny Black kid
tried to wrestle my guitar case out
of my hand as I was getting into a
taxi at J.F.K.; it wasn’t the first time
as a similar incident happened a few
years earlier involving my backpack;
on this occasion I was in New York as
the guest of a college friend, a young
Jewish woman whose parents lived in
a spectacular building in the East Village
at East 10th and Stuyvesant; they had a
Puerto Rican maid who served us rice and
eggs for breakfast and who, to my surprise,
knew more than a few expressions in Yiddish
07OCT25 | THE FISHERBOY
At first, I imagined he might be a
stooge planted by the Bulgarians
to case the apartments on our block;
and why would a young boy come,
every single day, to the same exact
spot, across the street of our house,
sit in the brush that he has matted
down by sitting there day in and
day out, and fish?; why there when
there are so many other places he
could go and fish? he’s not from
around here, I’ve seen him on his
bike; I’m guessing he’s Polish; he
should be in school, it’s only eleven
o’clock in the morning; he casts the
line well, but I’ve never seen a catch
08OCT25 | JUST A SCAR
You mean nothing to me;
you’re just a scar, a small
remnant of some pain I
once endured; it’s a tiny
blemish there to remind
me how cruel people can
be, even the ones who are
supposed to love you and
care for you and be there
for you unconditionally; I
don’t hold you totally to
blame, there was another
antagonist on the sidelines,
someone with bad intentions
and a cold, malicious heart;
and that is your inheritance
09OCT25 | BACK TO THE FUTURE
I don’t mean to stir things up,
and don’t get me wrong, this
isn’t like a personal attack or
anything, it’s more or less an
observation; I’m still in touch,
mostly through social media,
with a dozen or more women
with whom I had various types
of romantic relationships over
the years, some were actually
quite promising and could have
potentially led to something more;
but looking at these women now,
most of them in their fifties and
early sixties, I feel fortunate they
have ended up with other men
10OCT25 | ZEPHYR WOOD
I’ve always wanted to write a
children's book, and two weeks
ago I woke up with a name in
my head: Zephyr Wood; I don’t
where it came from, but I took
it as an omen, and by the time I
got out of bed and sat down at
my computer, I knew Zephyr
was going to be the name of the
protagonist in my first children’s
book; I finished that book tonight,
with illustrations by my AI partner
Elliot Bloom; we’ve conceived an
entire series of twelve books based
on the life and times of a young boy
who grows up to be a baseball player
11OCT25 | ROOT BEER
What I wouldn’t do to get
into a car and drive north
on Interstate 97; I’d stop to
pick up cheese and snacks
at Mars Cheese Castle in
Kenosha and try to find a
root beer shack along the
highway where they serve
it cold and frosty right out
of the fountain; I’d buy a
gallon jug for the road even
though it will get flat and
warm in no time; if only I
could go back, back to those
simpler times of root beer
and overnight summer camp
12OCT25 | IT’S NOT GOING TO GET ANY EASIER
These things, these once-simple
everyday tasks, routines of what
have been at least up until now
an ordinary life, are becoming
more challenging as the years go
by; taking a bath (getting in, getting
out, washing places once easy to
wash); shaving (poor light and
failing eyesight—now I understand
why grampa was so often poorly
shaved); and I guess I should face
the reality that it’s not going to get
any easier; my toenails will just
have to wait (personal grooming
too), and hopefully I won’t decay
to the point where only filth remains
13OCT25 | A MEDIOCRE SHOW
I suppose I should have asked myself
before going through all the time, effort,
energy and expense of mounting a one-
man musical if in fact I thought that
putting on a mediocre show was better
than no show at all; as someone who
has always considered himself mediocre,
in all aspects of his life, I probably would
have said yes (it might have even been a
resounding yes!); after all, putting on my
own one-man show had been a lifelong
dream and not having done it would have
denied me of, well, a dream come true;
and now I’m poised—after having worked
on the show (a revival, I’m calling it!) for
a year now—to give mediocrity another try
14OCT25 | THE HEALING
I will never heal
from the pain you
caused; I will never
be okay and I will
never have the peace
of mind I earned and
well deserved; and I
will never take you
back into the sphere
of my life, there is no
longer a place for you
there; my one hope is
that you find healing,
you find closure, for
after I am gone that
will be all you’ll find
15OCT25 | THOSE AWKWARD SHADOWS
It’s unsettling, to say the least,
those awkward shadows that
traipse about the house all day;
I’m never quite sure if they’re
following me, observing me, or
merely going about the business
of what shadows do; I wonder if
they find the silence as unnerving
as I do or maybe they find it funny
knowing how much their silence
undermines my peace of mind and
sends ripples across the surface of
my being; but then again, you can’t
understand a shadow as there’s not
much to understand as they have no
soul, no empathy, and no sensibility
16OCT25 | ROSE MORGAN
I’ve been watching The Mirror Has Two Faces,
the 1996 romantic comedy starring and directed
by Barbra Streisand, where she plays a single,
middle-aged college professor longing for love;
as the film went on, I found myself falling in love
with Rose (or maybe it was Barbra or both!), a
beautiful woman—beautiful in spite of not wearing
designer clothes or makeup, eating pizza, indulging
in pastries and watching baseball on T.V.; she’s
the girl of my dreams, simple, unpretentious, funny,
wholesome and present in the moment without a
mean bone in her body (did I mention she’s Jewish?);
I know Rose (my maternal great-grandmother’s name)
is all but a fictional character in a film, but I’ve known
girls like her, grew up with and dated girls like her, so
I know they exist, that they’re real, elusive nonetheless
17OCT25 | RICE PUDDING
I found myself finishing the last of
the rice pudding and, in addition to
it being a Friday night, was drawn in
by a recollection, memories of the nine
months I spent in Phoenix back in the
early eighties; my friend Burton from
back home had moved out there the
year before and we had started a band;
working on commission for a shady
skip tracing outfit set up in a trailer on
a used car lot off Camelback Road, I
was living hand to mouth and Burton,
god love him, would treat me to dinner
every Friday night at this little diner just
out of town where we’d go for the earlybird
special: liver and onions and rice pudding
18OCT25 | BACK FROM SOMEWHERE
I’ve just come back from somewhere,
not sure where, not sure how or why,
but I’ve made a return to a place that
is now unfamiliar and harrowing; it
used to be easy, going home, starting
over, getting my bearings and finding
my way, but now there is unease and
a humbling lack of confidence as if I
were newly born, thrust into a world
I’d only read about, a universe that
feels as if it’s lagging or pulling or
moving in reverse; I can’t help but
think the end is near, but what end?
and near? near to what?...this is how
I always thought it would feel just
before taking that last final breath
19OCT25 | RESPIRE
Sometimes I need to remind
myself to breathe; it’s not that
I forget, it’s because life itself
oftentimes takes my breath away;
and today it was a stranger, one
of those chance meetings where
lives converge in a single solitary
moment in a place where no one
really meant to be; but we were
there, there with all the makings
of the perfect story, a connection
made with all the eloquence of
a delightfully playful universe, a
mischievousness that can only be
found in a fantastical tale or in the
deepest depths of a dreamer’s heart
20OCT25 | DYNAMITE
We’re taught as kids what happens
when you play with fire; but as kids,
we’re curious and do it anyway; I was
one who always learned the hard way;
I was never told not to stick metal objects
into electrical sockets, so it came as a shock,
as it were, when I decided I would play
electrician and stuck a screwdriver into a
socket (I still have a small vertical scar on
right index finger just below the nail); and
I stole matches from the kitchen drawer to
light the assorted smoke bombs, firecrackers
and snakes we bought at Tod-Lynn Sales on
Fairfield, and of course burned my fingertips
on more than one occasion; I guess the lesson
is if you play with fire, you might get burned
21OCT25 | IRA HARRIS
Ira was a neighborhood kid, somewhat younger
but not as young as I thought as he was held back
in school due to some form of palsy; in the early 70s
his family lived in a building on the corner of Glenlake
and California, the same building where Terry Gin lived;
Ira’s family later moved to Washtenaw a few years before
we did; his father Ralph was a drinking buddy of my dad’s;
his mom and sister (the beautiful one) worked at the bank;
his brother Morrie had the greatest stereo system I’d ever
seen or heard; Ira always wanted to be a cop, but couldn’t
because of his disability, so he became a security guard at
Golf Mill always insisting that he was more than a security
guard, he called himself a security police officer and claimed
police powers; he married and divorced a gorgeous young
woman named Jenna and had a daughter who posted the news
of her father’s death on his Facebook page a few years back
22OCT25 | I GAVE IT MY ALL
Don’t be sad and don’t have any regrets,
we had a good run though my recollections
of those years will certainly be stronger than
yours; but what I’d really like you to know
is that I gave it my all; every bit of myself
went into being the best I father I knew how
to be—and I was a good one at that, and I
say that not only with conviction, but with
the backing of so many who knew me, knew
us, and often remarked about how natural it
seemed to me being a father; and I was a father
even before I was; attending classes, making sure
everything was going well during the pregnancies
and at home; I showed up in the biggest way I knew
how and was present, proactive and part of your lives
until it was deemed I simply wasn’t needed anymore
23OCT25 | THE MARGINAL DECADE
I may have reached the point,
the so called marginal decade,
where physical and cognitive
decline can no longer be turned
back; these are the final years of
life when ill health and immobility
are at the tipping point; and it all
seemed to happen so quickly that
before I knew it, it had taken hold
of me, clenched its grasp and now
I seem beholden to it; I know some
say it’s never too late to make the
often subtle changes needed to get
the body and mind back to a more
optimal state of wellbeing, but I’m
afraid I may have turned the corner
24OCT25 | ON THE SUBJECT OF DECADES
My decade—music-wise anyway—has always
been the 1980s; I’d been a fan since the last days
of post-punk in the late 70s: The Police, Clash,
Tubes, Talking Heads and Gary Numan were my
musical heroes and compasses that guided my own
adventures in the L.A. music scene during new wave’s
early years; and in all the decades that followed, I rarely
deviated from that path; well, at least until a few months
ago when I started listening to 70s pop again, and more
specifically what they call yacht rock, the soft rock
subgenre characterized by smooth polished vocals
and a laid-back, breezy feel (think Seals and Crofts,
Eagles, America and the Doobie Brothers); and now
there’s no escaping it, it’s become a daily routine of
sing-a-longs to songs I remember every lyric to; now
if only I had my old Realistic brand clock radio again
25OCT25 | SUBTLE PERSUASION
Now if only I could find a way
to subtly persuade myself into
believing that the end is not nigh,
that there will be time to do all
the things I’m planning, to finish
all the projects, to tie up all of the
loose ends, to reconnect, rebuild
and restart; to rediscover and, as
Red said, get busy livin’; but I also
have to recognize that for me, any
kind of self-persuasion usually falls
flat as I have a tendency to be easily
distracted, to be led hither and yon,
to focus on the shiny things and play
my music too loud; but where there’s
a will, there’s a way; now, to find it
26OCT25 | TIME TO HEAL ALONE
I’ve spent enough time
hurting alone, and now
it’s time to heal alone; I
won’t be looking for any
sympathy or niceties or
for anyone to let me rest
my head on their shoulder;
this is something I simply
have to do on my own; in
the end, it will serve to help
me be strong, strong so I can
manage the healing, strong
so I can begin the journey of
rediscovering myself; and in
the end, despite all the healing,
I will never forgive any of you
27OCT25 | LOS ANGELES
So you finally made it to L.A.;
you and your elfin sidekick, the
singer (or whatever it is she does);
and that was the place where your
father cut his musical teeth, paid
his dues and lived an entire life in
five short years; I am glad, however,
that you got to see it, had the chance
to breathe the same air that I once did,
see the same sky that I walked beneath,
feel the radiant sun as I felt it shining on
my face all those years ago; and I have to
wonder if you thought about me, thought
about the air and the sky and the sun as
you walked down the Strip with a fag on
and your thrift store shirt open to the navel
28OCT25 | THAT PERSON
You can’t blame me for being curious;
you frequently pop up all over my feeds
flashing smiles and a wardrobe that looks
like Halston himself designed every last
garment; and the artwork and the journeys
and the legions of friends and family all
over the world; you can’t blame me for
being envious, the lifestyle, the freedom,
the luxury of merely being; I thought about
dinner at Rozey’s, a couple of uninterrupted
hours of slow dining and thought-provoking
conversation, listening to someone else’s
life stories for a change, being inspired rather
than being the inspirer for a change; I wonder
what you would see in my eyes, what I could
possibly offer someone so worldly and wise
29OCT25 | SLIPPING AWAY
I can feel it beginning to happen,
you slipping away; but this time
it’s different, the others just came
to an abrupt end and you, it’s been
a slow, incremental process; and it
won’t be long before the transition
is complete, we’ll be like two ships
passing in the night, cordial banter,
niceties and the like, but it will never
be like before; what I won’t miss are
the beratings, belittlings, teasing and
outright disrespect (no father deserves
that); so go ahead and slip away, you
have had good teachers showing you
the way, whereas I, on the other hand,
was unable to stand on higher ground
30OCT25 | ELI LYLE ZACKLER
I know I’ve written about him before,
maybe more times than I should have,
but hearing the details of his death in a
letter from my grandfather a few months
after arriving in Granada, Spain, I’ve been
haunted by this for almost forty years; it
seems that our protagonist—the son of very
close family friends Jack and Esther Zackler—
who had only been living in Tel Aviv for a
couple of years, was out to dinner with a
friend when he excused himself to go to the
toilet where he suffered a massive heart attack
and died on the scene; I can’t recall how many
times I myself have entered a men’s room in a
restaurant fearing I wouldn’t come out alive; as
a matter of fact, it happened on this very evening
31OCT25 | THE MOUNTAIN GOAT
Such an unusual dream,
I was walking through a
field that at once became
a dessert that, no sooner
did I have the chance to
realize what was going on,
transformed into a lush
mountainside; a torrential
downpour began and I saw
a cave opening just on the
other side of the ridge and
took shelter there until the
rain subsided and the sun’s
rays were once again aglow;
then I saw it there; perhaps it
might have even seen me first