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