Poemography 2023 | R.M. Usatinsky

POEMOGRAPHY | 2023

Poems by R.M. Usatinsky

pōəˈmäɡrəfē, noun: form or process of writing and representing poetry

JUNE

01JUN23 | WINNERS & LOSERS

I can see how it all plays out

there are winners and losers

there will be deep pain and

wounds that will never heal;

they say silence is golden

but silence is also the sound

of death and isolation, there

can be no sound without being;

that you have chosen silence is

to have chosen loss, loss of the

very flesh of whence you came,

loss of what you can never un-lose;

my best days have come and gone,

but yours will be marred by regret,

remorse in that your heart betrayed

you, mournful of the mindless act

of turning your back on me; and I

wouldn't hesitate forgiving you if

it was with compassion, but truth is,

I don't believe you actually have any

02JUN23 | A PATTERN OF NEGLECT

It's what happens when you don't get the roof fixed

or take care of other household malfunctions; it's the

malignant lackadaisical approach to everything that

is beginning to deteriorate in your minuscule world;

there is a state of remiss that has been an overriding

factor in your life for years; the roof, home appliances,

the cat, your demeanor, your children...me; but the

widest, longest crack in your reality is in the mirror

you've been holding up to me for so long that you

have neglected to turn the thing around and see the

true reflection; how you've digressed and undergone

a slow and unsavory metamorphosis into a belligerent

soulless thing; you have spent all these years, maybe

a dozen or more, hoisting yourself up to the summit of

a mountain that only exists in your unfulfilled ambitions

and past failures; and why put off until Monday what

could have easily been done today, or yesterday; that is

your pattern of neglect, that is how the process of decay

takes hold; and in the end it is inevitable that we lose

what we fail to protect, nurture and keep close to heart

03JUN23 | SANCTUARY

I will find a new home, a place of my own where

serenity will dwell and love will flow abundantly;

I will live amidst clean and sparse surroundings,

an austere life of equanimity and few possessions;

this home will be my sanctuary, free from hostility,

belittlement and the lack of support and empathy I

had nearly grown accustomed to for so many years;

this home will be a place of light and enlightenment;

and you will not be welcome there, nor will anyone

whose contemptuousness would deride the stillness

of the oasis created with the kindness and purity of

heart to welcome weary travelers and kindred spirits;

this sacred dwelling will be a place for my children

to sleep in placid rest, free from chaos and the din of

upheaval, free from conflict and every deplorable thing;

it will be a refuge in which their souls can prosper forth;

I will look not to possessions or material things, but only to

that which will foster the betterment of our lives, that will

serve us rather than our serving it; in this place our lives will

unite and we will become the family we were always meant to be

04JUN23 | RAISINS

I sat quietly on a wooden bench looking out

over the waterway, peaceful waves rocking

gently to and fro as I ate raisins from a small

plastic bag; it had been a while since I last ate

raisins, years maybe and for no specific reason;

as I sat there eating raisins on that bench, I was

transported back in time to when raisins played

an important role in my life as they were a staple

for parents with young children, and my children,

for as long as can recall, ate raisins and ate them

by the box full; funny, I thought to myself as I sat

there eating them, first one at a time, then by the

handful, how very familiar this feels; feels, smells

and tastes; stranger still how of all the foods that

could bring back such strong recollections of the

past, it was a shriveled up blue Thompson grape

that with every bite into its soft, juicy and grainy

flesh, memories of watching my own children play

while I sat on a wooden bench similar to this one

came rushing back, filling my heart with gladness

05JUN23 | ALIENATION

In the depths of familial bonds, a shadow creeps,

a shameful alienation, a sorrow that seeps;

a twisted dance of manipulation unfolds,

as innocence is tainted, stories untold;

a child's heart, once pure, now filled with fear,

disrespect and hostility, all too clear;

the distant parent, the target of blame,

while the puppeteer hides, playing their game;

unjustified estrangement, tearing souls apart,

a web of confusion and a broken heart;

no acts, no conduct can appease the storm,

as the child's love for one parent is deformed;

let the wounds of separation and broken ties

restore the trust where love never dies;

for children deserve both parents' embrace,

to grow, to flourish in love's sweet grace;

let empathy guide us on the path we must take,

break the chains of alienation's insufferable ache;

for in unity and compassion we must work to find

a future where parental love is present and kind

06JUN23 | THE PUREST HEART

I watched my youngest daughter this morning

as she cautiously examined the small metallic

splinter that had become lodged beneath the

skin of the palm of my right hand; so careful

was she not to inflict pain or cause a sudden

reaction as she maneuvered the tweezers and

gently removed the shard from my hand; but

this was not a rare act of kindness, it was, in

fact, just one in a series of many thoughtful

gestures my daughter has extended to me

over these past few months during a most

trying and truly turbulent time as I navigate

through the many challenges life has thrown

my way of late; she seems so tuned into and

aware of my feelings, always knowing the

right things to say and carrying out the kindest

of deeds, selflessly and ever so benevolently,

never seeking recompense or praise; and she

possesses the purest heart, never judging or

criticizing, loving me simply for who I am

07JUN23 | PLATONICALLY SPEAKING

I understood perfectly what you meant

when you told me you loved me; you

spoke of love in the platonic sense and

I'm fine with that; after all, it's better to

be loved platonically than not loved at all;

but then, seconds later––and I imagine it

was simply a device to drive your point

home––you said it again, only this time

I imagined (yes, in my imagination), that

you had meant it, meant in a romantic way,

in an intimate and sexual way as if to say

I'm in love with you, I want to be with you

and I want to spend the rest of my life with

you; and I stopped for moment and pondered

the daydream I was having and came to the

conclusion that, while being loved is the most

glorious of things, I simply no longer desire to be

loved; what I most yearn for is to be understood and

respected for who I am despite all of my quirks and

imperfections; that is the love I most intensely crave

08JUN23 | HIT DELETE

There were other words here,

another poem with other ideas

and intentions; but I hit delete

and poof, those words are gone;

they were about you, but now I

have deleted you too; deleted you

from my thoughts, from my heart

and soul; but not only you but all

those people with whom I now only

share the past; I will no longer waste

my time on lambasting or looking for

the motives behind the madness and

loathsome disdain; I will close my eyes

and lift my head towards the sun letting

the light penetrate through my eyelids,

its rays illuminating my being from deep

within; its luminescence bringing a sense

of calm to the tempest of my thoughts; I

am now one with the light, alone, at ease

and free to live with serenity and release

09JUN23 | DAYS

There will be no more storms

no more torments of rage and

violent exchange; now, there

is only calm and tranquil days;

I can sleep again, restfully with

a peaceful mind and pleasurable

dreams; I can contemplate all the

days of my life, those past, present

and the ones yet to come, days that

will be filled with immense joy and

desire to live in the splendor of what

days remain; days I will fill with love

and laughter, song and silence; days

of fulfilling all the things I've longed

to fulfill, no longer afraid of failure or

success and eager and willing to accept

both as joy comes in the doing, comes

by imagining and creating all the things

I've imagined and have forever longed

to create in all of the days of my life

10JUN23 | 182 DAYS

There is a silence that has loomed for

months; while there are other silences

looming, yours is the silence that has

slowly been killing me from within;

for 182 days I have endured the cruelty

of being ignored, treated as if my very

presence has been obliterated by some

unexplainable force of nature; I am but

a shadow on the wall, one that is seen

but never spoken to or acknowledged;

I am an invisible man who sits alone at

the dinner table eating a meal prepared

with disdain and resentment, not a single

morsel offered with benevolence or the

slightest bit of deference; and as the days

and months go by, the place which I once

held in my heart for you is slowly fading

away and you, like the others, will soon

be nothing but a distant memory, a small

piece of my soul that merely went adrift

11JUN23 | SURVEYING

I want to know how surveying is done;

how land is measured and divided into

parcels of property; how oil men and

land barons created wealth from the

countless billions of the earth's acres;

how these men toiled the land, dug

and dredged, tilled and reaped riches

from the soil; how that contraption and

the numbered stick and the pegs struck

deep into the ground calculated borders

and precise lines of demarcation; and I'm

also curious by what means that beautiful

young woman I observed at the train station

today appraised her lanky, awkward suitor

who seemed no more fit to appease the good

taste of his sweetheart than to merely act as a

temporary distraction, a brunch date or Sunday

afternoon cinema chum; everything measured,

so deliberate and quantified as if to defy logic

12JUN23 | LIES I TELL MYSELF

I keep telling myself that everything

will be okay, even if I know it

probably won't; I'm an optimist at

heart, but these days reality is so

palpable it's all but impossible to see

things in a positive light, especially

when the darkness is so utterly blinding;

and I keep reminding myself how resilient

I am and tell anyone who will listen how

I've spent nearly my entire life overcoming

adversity, bouncing back from hardships

and surviving the heartbreaks and woes

that I tend to confront so courageously

and with steadfast resolve; but the lies I

tell myself––no matter how big or small––

simply cannot foreshadow the truth, and

the truth eventually becomes just as much

a lie as the lies themselves; but there is a

silver lining because with every lie there is

a truth waiting to be brought into the light

13JUN23 | IT'S WHAT I MAKE OF IT

There is so much turbulence in the little

space of atmosphere that I take up that

the bombardment of currents that envelop

me thrust me from one point to the next

so very suddenly that's it's often difficult to

keep my bearings; I move through space,

simultaneously visualizing both where I'm

going and where I have just come from;

and from that vantage point I can begin to

clearly see that whatever the future holds

it's what I make of it that will determine

just how the story plays out; the winds of

change are uplifting, but at the same time

they make me realize how weightless I am

compared to the gales of consequence; and

whatever force propels the air through the

trees causing the leaves to flutter on their

stems, I, too, am moved by the undercurrents

that create such violent rushes that take my

breath away, leaving me gasping for air

14JUN23 | DEATH BEGINS ON THE OUTSIDE

I used to think that death came from within,

from deep inside our small, vulnerable shell;

but I've come to realize that the real death, the

dying that provokes life's end, begins exteriorly;

every day I venture out into a ghastly world of

degenerates, smokers, reeking slovenly people

whose wretchedness pollutes every soul they

come in contact with; there is a pervasive grime

festering and transmuting into a vile, toxic and

infectious sludge that oozes its decay, wafting

into the ether blotting out the sun, inseminating

the masses with its malignant disease; and I walk

through these hellfires, breathing in their fumes,

choking on their rot, witnessing the deterioration

of everything around me; but I am helpless and

forlorn, there is nothing I can do to save myself,

no one to turn to for salvation; so now, in the final

sweltering hours, I sit alone by the roadside, watching

the earth burn, its scorched land and smoldering towers

evanescing into the nothingness from whence they came

15JUN23 | CELEBRATION (PART ONE)

I remember my grandfather

with tears streaming from

his eyes on the day his wife

passed away which, by the

way, was the day of his 80th

birthday; he said that he would

never again celebrate his birthday

which, although he lived another

six years, he never did; not only

did he not celebrate his birthday,

he shunned most other celebrations;

he visited us often in Valencia during

his final lonely years; he loved my

wife and adored my young children

and had been in love with Spain since

first visiting there in the 1970s; but all

he could think about was Mary, saying

over and over again "Mary should be here

to see these children; Mary should be here

instead of me enjoying these beautiful children"

16JUN23 | CELEBRATION (PART TWO)

It's been difficult for me to try and explain

why I desire no celebrations this year; and

as Father's Day and my birthday loom, I

would like nothing more than to pretend

that neither exist; as Father's Day and my

birthday draw near, I find it challenging to

elucidate why I harbor no inclination for any

festivities, and my greatest wish is to feign the

nonexistence of both occasions; I've found it

challenging to justify my lack of interest in

celebrating this year, and with Father's Day

and my birthday approaching, all I wish for

is to ignore their existence completely; expressing

my aversion to celebrations this year has proven

complicated; as Father's Day and my birthday quickly

approach, my utmost wish is to imagine their nonexistence;

seeing how the absence of my wish for celebrations this

year has proven all but impossible, and as Father's Day

and my birthday draw near to their celebratory dates, I

yearn for nothing but the reality of their not existing at all

17JUN23 | THE SABBATH DAY

I wouldn't consider myself to be deeply

religious, and I'm certainly not as observant

as I could be or would like to be; but I do and

have always felt a strong connection to my

Jewishness as it is as much a part of me as any

other aspect of who I am; and today, as I do on

many Saturday mornings, I went to the synagogue

to participate in the Sabbath rituals of praying and

listening to the weekly torah portion being read; but

today I was a self-absorbed congregant, even (politely)

turning down an invitation to open the holy ark while

the Prayer for the State of Israel was read aloud; I simply

wasn't in the frame of mind to do anything more than sit

quietly in my seat, wrapped in my large woolen shawl with

my prayer book and copy of the Pentateuch that was given

to me as a bar mitzvah gift almost 47 years ago to the day;

and when the service concluded, I folded my shawl and

placed it into its bag and returned it and the books to the

cubby hole built into the pew in front of my seat once used

by a former member, now deceased and unbeknown to me

18JUN23 | TO DREAM IS FREE

I often wonder if I'd be happier today had

the life I've lived up until now turned out the

way I dreamed about when I was a younger

man; in that scenario I'd be a celebrity having

recorded albums, performed in venues all over

the world, appeared on late night talk shows and

had my videos playing on rotation on MTV (at

least during the years they played music videos);

I'd have published a few books, seen my plays

produced on Broadway and in London's West End;

and I'd live in the lap of luxury, an expansive home

in Los Angeles, a duplex in a high-rise overlooking

Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago, and perhaps

even a penthouse in a stately building in Madrid's

Barrio de Salamanca or London's Mayfair; and I'd

drive that 1963 Porsche 356 Super 90 Cabriolet I'd

always dreamed about; and I'd spend long summer

holidays on a yacht on the Mediterranean or at a villa

in Tuscany where I'd invite Sting, Trudie and their kids

over every Sunday for brunch; alas...to dream is free

19JUN23 | DESIRE & DISCRETION

It was never my intention to be a single

parent and it was certainly not in my life's

master plan to see my children growing up

living apart from either parent for any given

amount of time; Spain was another story as

there were so many contributing factors at

that moment in time and all parties agreed

we could make my living in another country

work for everyone, that it could even be a

benefit for the children to spend time living

in another country experiencing a different

cultural environment; but it's not the same

this time around; the players have changed

and the dynamics are far from ideal and the

children in question are older and have been

slowly and methodically conditioned to not

favor certain situations, which puts me at an

unfair disadvantage when it comes to making

decisions about living arrangements, decisions

that should be left to their desire and discretion

20JUN23 | SIXTY & OUT

Poetry has always been my respite;

a way of communicating my thoughts,

expressing myself, airing grievances and

describing the world as I see it in my own

words; and it's been a good run, half a century

of putting pen to paper, of hunting and pecking

on typewriters and keyboards; but now, I'm

turning the page and closing the book on the

final chapter of my life as a poet; I no longer

have the desire to open my heart and let flow

all of what I have experienced in these last

sixty years; at least I no longer have the need

to share them; and today, the day of my sixtieth

birthday, I walk away fulfilled, proud of the one

thousand three hundred and eighteen poems I have

written over the past fifty years; from those first

verses I wrote in the fourth grade about Betty Ann

McCracken flaking my hair with torn up pieces of

paper; and Michael Blacker rocking in his chair at

the back of row six so violently that by the end of the

school year he had rocked it clean off of its bolts;

I wrote a book of poems based on the life of my

great-grandfather; I read a poem I wrote for my

grandmother that I recited at her funeral; I've written

poems about lovers, my marriage and other failed

relationships, about my five beautiful children; about

loss and longing, about the feeling of not belonging; I've

written poems about trees and a few about my love for

food, music and the everyday pleasures and predicaments

of the life I have lived and marveled at; so, now I type

these final words not with sadness or regret, but out of the

joy of finding a new voice to resonate from deep within me

21JUN23 | NO ONE WILL TALK TO ME

It's far beyond my ability to comprehend

how I have become so irrelevant to so many

people who were once close to me; as close

as anyone could come; I understand that

human relationships are complicated, often

difficult to manage and maintain, and I've

always thought myself to be a fairly good

communicator, available, open-minded,

empathetic and warmhearted; but apparently

those self-defining traits are not as others

would define me and I truly wish someone

would have the courage to confront me and

explain just why they have turned their back on

me; but no one will talk to me, some have even

remained incommunicado for years; and I've

been accused of not reaching out to those who

have shunned me, told that I'm the one who should

be the bigger person, be the mensch, be the one to

smooth everything over, the peacemaker, the one

who rights the wrongs and quells the deafening silence

22JUN23 | NO ONE WILL LISTEN

Nothing I say matters

nothing I think or feel

is taken with any regard

or consideration of my

thoughts and feelings; I

have pleaded with her to

stop buying sweets made

with pork or beef gelatine;

I've been making this plea

for a decade or more, pleas

that fall on deaf ears, that go

ignored and defended with

pointless counter-arguments;

tables turned to make me feel

unreasonable, difficult and my

pleas unjustified; and this blatant

hypocrisy eats at my soul, defies

logic and simply makes no sense

as my reasoning––weather wrong

or right––should simply be respected

23JUN23 | DEATH BEFORE DYING

Those photos of the aging rockers

are disturbing, to say the least; some

heroes, others I couldn't give a hoot

about; but the one thing they all have

in common is that they should have

hung it up years ago; and as an aging

artist myself, I understand the desire to

carry on, the desire to create and fulfill

those creative yearnings; but when I see

my aging heroes, hoary and well past their

prime doing whatever they can, whatever

they must, to stay in the limelight, it often

pains me; they are often shadows of their

younger selves, frail, weathered and so

obviously hanging on by a thread that their

smiles are so patently feigned it hurts me to

even look at the photo spread or watch the

interview; and despite my undying admiration

for these lionhearts, I weep inside for the angst

they must feel as they wither away to the ages

24JUN23 | LONDONTOWN

You have been the lover I had always

dreamed about in my youth; the lover

I chased as a young man who continues

to lure me in, draw me close then send

me on my way without fulfilling the small

desires for which I came to you to satisfy;

you are larger than life, you are endless and

bountiful but have no need for a man as

unsophisticated as me; it was Christmas 1987,

I was fortunate to have befriended a young

English woman, Sophie, who suggested I accept

her offer to house sit for her older brother and

his roommates at their house in Kensington; I

accepted and spent that first picturesque visit

riding double-decker busses and spending hours

roaming Harrods until making my way back to

the house in slowly falling snow, spending my

evenings dunking digestives in tea and playing

an old spinnet in the frontroom trying to keep

warm as the draft won the war over the furnace

25JUN23 | HEY, HEY (HOLY MACKEREL!)

It took me 27 years, but I finally made it to

a Cubs game; not in the friendly confines of

Wrigley Field, or any other American ballpark

or stadium, for that matter; but in London of

all places; I arrived the evening before with my

youngest daughter, we had taken the fast train

from Rotterdam, through Belgium and France

and deep beneath the English Channel; we

slept soundly in our rooms three floors above

the public house in a sweltering room where

the air-conditioning was out of service; we

awoke on Saturday morning and met a friend

for breakfast before heading to Stratford, to

London's Olympic Stadium, where we saw the

first of two games against the St. Louis Cardinals;

to say I was moved and nostalgic would be a great

understatement; and as I stood and removed my cap

for the Star Spangled Banner for the first time in nearly

thirty years, I could hear Jack Brickhouse chanting "hey, hey!"

as Ian Happ hit the first of his two homers out of the park

26JUN23 | IT'S FUNNY

It’s funny how you remind me

of every girl I’d ever fallen in

love with; yet, there is strangely

something more familiar in your

eyes, something that conjures up

memories of the past, from a life

lived long ago in another place and

time; perhaps in Athens or Granada

or even back home in Chicago, where

we might have been children playing

in a park or at the beach or passing

each other as we sat on the cold metal

grating of shopping carts at the Jewel

as our mothers shopped for their weekly

groceries; and how easy it was to make

you smile, simply by saying tikanis or

showing you my fifth grade class photo

asking you to point out the nine Greek

kids in the picture; you thought Lydia

was beautiful and that Hiram was Greek

27JUN23 | FEAR OF DROWNING

It takes a minute;

panic and dread

knowing that

death is near

and unavoidable;

and as the lungs fill

with water, the mind

is overcome by fear;

while the dying comes

quickly and probably

without much pain, it

is certainly a horrific

way to be taken from

this life to the next; but

the suffering of the act

is heroic, in some sense;

there is only surrender,

no way to fight the liquid

that overpowers you, that

becomes every part of you

28JUN23 | JASMINE

It had been a while since I'd last

smelled jasmine, or seen its soft

white petals glowing like stars in

the morning sun; but there they

were, in London, so innocent in

their splendor; seeing and smelling

them brought back memories of the

jasmine vines that grew within the

tall masonry walls that surround

La Cigüeña (the stork), the old

maternity hospital in Valencia I

would pass almost daily coming

to and from home a few blocks

away; and how many times did I

pass those fragrant flowers so

divinely elegant upon their perfect

branchlets, holding the hands of

my children or the women I had

loved during the various phases of

the years I lived in that wonderland

29JUN23 | BECOMING LEAR

You could say there are many different

varieties of fathers; some are the kind,

mild-mannered, soft-spoken type whose

daughters delight in their father's tranquil

demeanor; others who are stern, cold and

aloof garnering respect and oftentimes fear;

then there are fathers like me, who look

upon their daughters with reverence and

the deepest sense of love and admiration,

but whose sentiments are scarcely, if ever,

reciprocated; sad, tragic and frustrated by

interlopers whose plans to befuddle family

ties often undermining the peace and gentle

mood that should swirl around these fragile

relationships; and who are these fair maidens

who once were the apples of their father's eye?

what has become of the honor and loyalty

once befitting a king? where have their

sensibilities gone and what will they do

when their king evanesces into the moor?

30JUN23 | UNDER WHERE?

I took great delight on my recent trip to London

with my youngest daughter to have enough special

father-daughter time to talk about underwear, specifically

my relationship with Calvin Klein and how my grandfather

was my exclusive purveyor of said designer’s undergarments

right up until his death in 2004; and not only did I tell my

daughter the whole story while eating pad see ew at a snazzy

fish-tanked Thai restaurant in Crystal Palace on a muggy night

in June, but recounted how many recountings of the story I have

told over the decades; and then on this very night, I dreamt that

this same daughter and I had been in London shopping for, of all

things…underwear; in the dream we had entered a men’s finer

clothing store and I asked the nice young salesman if he could

recommend some white cotton skivvies that were on the more

affordable side; then, as I do, recounted to him how, literally

since the day they launched back in 1982, my grandfather, who

sold upscale women’s shoes and accessories on Chicago’s

Michigan Avenue, had bought me my underwear since I was

a little boy (Saks Fifth Avenue white briefs, to be exact and

then Calvin's later on); so, I asked the salesman for two pairs

of different sized plain white underpants, in large and extra

large, that were less expense than the the CKs; he handed me

the briefs, I paid and we went on our way; on the train going

back to our hotel, I took the opportunity to tell my eight-year-

old daughter a daft,but appropriately related joke from my

youth...me: what are you chewing under there? her: under

where?...me (waiting for a reaction that doesn't come): get it?

her: not really; then I woke up, thankful it was all just a dream