POEMOGRAPHY | 2023
Poems by R.M. Usatinsky
pōəˈmäɡrəfē, noun: form or process of writing and representing poetry
NOVEMBER
01NOV23 | HEADACHE
I've had a headache
for nearly a week; it
comes and goes and
wraps around to the
back of my head; I've
never had a headache
quite like this one, so
naturally I conjure up
the worst fears; stroke,
brain cancer, water or
blood clot; maybe it's
just stress, and there's
certainly been enough
of that lately; and come
to think of it, the weather
has been bad these days,
the atmospheric pressure
might be messing with my
head (I read something like
that online); whatever the
case may be, I hope it goes
away soon as I've got a lot
going on, a new novel just
started today, the musical,
and trying to get back to a
place of serenity, harmony,
and continuing the ongoing
quest of rediscovering myself
02NOV23 | ORANGE STORM
It's coming at one o'clock,
the orange storm; we've
brought in the outdoor
furniture from the balcony,
we thought we heard the
emergency sirens blaring
to warn of falling trees,
but it was just Leon, our
first-floor neighbor, out
in the hall vacuuming
the stairs; and my trees
are gone so I can't watch
their leaves blow about in
the gales (but there are the
trees that were spared and
I'm watching them sway as
I write this); Storm Ciarán
was named after an Irish civil
servant reporting on river and
coastal flooding; who knew?
03NOV23 | NOW AND THEN
I've had my first listen
and I must be honest in
saying I wasn't nearly as
moved as I thought I'd be;
in fact, I can't really say I
was moved at all; I don't
much like the song and it
didn't live up to all the hype;
now, this is coming from a
huge Beatles fan, someone
who has loved the Fab Four
for nearly all of his 60 years;
but it's not really The Beatles,
is it? and while I do believe it
brings some sense of closure,
I feel it's nothing more than a
souvenir stand novelty; it may
sound like a contradiction, but I
actually prefer the couple of AI-
generated Beatles songs I've heard
04NOV23 | STORYTELLING
It's day four and I've written
6,325 words so far of a story
I've told a thousand times; it's
my story and his story; when
I say his, I'm talking about a
fictitious narrator who is both
him and me; so, I sit, long and
focussed until my head pounds
and my ass hurts and my watch
beeps at me to get up and move;
I can feel every nerve in my neck
and my right hand is stiff, but I
will overcome the obstacles and
work through the pain the best I
can; and I can't help but wonder
if this is the end; if, on the day I
finish what I started those many
years ago, I just close my eyes
and take that final journey to the
next plane of another existence
05NOV23 | UNFRIENDED
I'm usually quite tolerant of
other people's opinions; but
the war in Israel has so many
voices flapping in the wind
that I often find it difficult to,
to say the least, hold my tongue
in retort to some of the ignorant
and mindless comments by a few
dotish characters; it's my feeling
that if you're under fifty, non-
Jewish and have no connection
to people whose families were
decimated by the atrocities of
the Holocaust, you should simply
keep your unrefined comments
and opinions to yourself; and I
respect your (mostly) feigned
support of the underdog, but your
lack of knowledge and ability to
distinguish between the truths of
history and the lies spreading across
the interwebs makes you look even
more philistine––and anti-Semitic––
than you most certainly already are
06NOV23 | BEING ILL (ALONE)
There's nothing I know of
worse than being ill than
being ill and all alone; worse
still, is being ill and alone in a
house full of people; people
you can't wake up and people
who, due to their ages and, well,
disposition, wouldn't be of much
use anyhow; it hasn't always been
this way, the were times when I
would be cared for when I felt
unwell, even a time, many years
ago in Granada, when Sophie,
nothing more than a friend of a
friend, took me in and nursed me
back to health; and today, there's
no pity for my woes, no empathy
for my afflictions and certainly no
one sit with me and hold my hand
while I shake and cough and agonize
07NOV23 | UNAPOLOGETIC
Part of me feels there is nothing
wrong with what I feel; to see
you there sparking so many raw
emotions; looking at you as you
stare directly at me with beautiful
eyes and a perfect mouth that I
imagined what it might be like to
kiss softly as we stood on some
sandy beach amazed at how we
came to this moment; a moment
which neither of us could have
imagined would be possible in a
million years; I am unapologetic
for feeling these things because it's
simply my way of processing what
is often so difficult to process; but
what use could you make of an old
man like me? how could I ever be the
man you'd always dreamed of? and how
could you be the stillness that set me free?
08NOV23 | THE END OF THE WORLD
Of the many fears and worries I
perpetuate in my vivid imagination,
the eerie and unshakeable feeling of
the end of the world has been growing
stronger and stronger over these past
few years; it's an unsettling sensation
that, at seemingly any moment, some
cataclysmic event is about to occur;
tonight, for example, I sat in a chair
in one of my daughter's bedrooms; she
was hosting her younger sister while
their mother and older sister were away
on a four-day trip to Portugal, and the
little one who, even at eight, still likes
to sleep in her mother's bed, jumped into
her sister's bed seeking comfort and a
bit of companionship; so, I sat there as
the rain danced off the windows and quiet
replaced conversation, I thought to myself,
what if all of the sudden the house began to
shake violently and the skies lit up with
bright beaming lights; sirens blaring and
screams bellowing from the street below as
the skies turned white, the ground parted and
explosions thundered all around us; I'd get into
bed with my daughters, covering us with the
soft percale quilt, telling them that everything
will be okay, that this was the end of the world
09NOV23 | PICK A PROFESSION
They are doctors, lawyers, elected
officials, accountants and military
officers––pick a profession and you
will find them on the list of men who
frequented brothels in Boston and
Washington, D.C.; such a shonda,
like men have never paid for the
services of women who provide
sexual pleasures; when will society
stop feigning this moral elitism and
leave people alone who, without
doing any harm or injury, are merely
trying to nourish their most natural
human needs; especially men who,
more and more, are finding they are
simply not being loved the way they
need to be loved; and that's a harsh
and stark reality; society's demands
on men have turned them into mush
with fancy suits, cars and no purpose
other than bringing home a paycheck;
and what about the men who aren't
doctors and lawyers and big-salaried
baby-making big shots; the thing is,
nobody cares about those guys who
duck around corners for thirty seconds
of pleasure for ten bucks in some dark
alleyway; but when the stakes are high
and the clientele are worthy of headlines
and newsbites, then they investigate and
persecute and prosecute and follow the
money; for what, and why, only god knows
10NOV23 | RUINED LIVES
I honestly believe it wasn't your
intention to ruin our lives, but you
most certainly have; you've allowed
your childhood traumas to betray
those you profess to love the most;
you have commandeered an entire
family, wreaking havoc on their
sensibilities and innocence while
completely decimating any sense
of self they may have had; you have
taken control, taken command of
four beautiful souls who placed
their every ounce of trust in you;
who looked to you for comfort and
adoration, for nurturing and consent;
and the cruelty you have so deeply
embedded through contempt and
merciless disregard will have endless
consequences and repercussions that
will, long after you have gone, live on
11NOV23 | I KNEW THE DAY WOULD COME
I knew the day would come,
sooner or later; the day when
you too would turn away and
leave me standing in the dust
of contempt and ignorance; I
suppose I should have known
how things would turn out, I've
seen it coming for years; your
disrespect, intolerance and total
lack of trying to really come to
an understanding of who I am
and what my place is in your
life has fizzled into a bleak mass
of nothingness that not even time
can fill; what has rendered me
most perplexed is your loftiness
and the idea that you have lived
and seen and experienced it all,
therefore, you know it all and not
even I can tell you any different;
and I'm not as heartbroken as I
should be, I guess one gets used
to being left and let down by others;
and I am certainly no stranger to loss
12NOV23 | WEEKEND PLANS
Been looking at my calendar
thinking about getting away
for a couple days, just me, on
my own, somewhere close but
not too close, maybe an hour or
two by train; a cozy hotel with a
pool, Jacuzzi and sauna; a bathtub
in my room and a plentiful buffet
breakfast; I'll bring a good book or
the latest issue of British Esquire,
a single change of clothes in my
backpack and some vegan jerky;
I need a little me time, a few days
to contemplate my next moves, to
meditate and stretch and take some
deep rest; I won't be there for your
birthday as the memory of last year
is just too hard for me to deal with
right now; but I won't be missed and
I'll try, hard as it will be, not to miss you
13NOV23 | ENDURANCE
I know it sounds cruel to say,
but you'll have to endure my
absence much longer than I'll
have to endure yours; and one
day you'll snap out of it and
realize I'm gone, that I have
been gone for years and that
you'd do anything to go back
in time and make things right,
to give me one last hug and to
say the words you never could
bring yourself to say all those
years ago; and there will remain
only a few scant memories, some
photographs of happier times, ones
you knew existed but can't seem to
remember; and I think of you, living
your life enduring so much pain and
having so many regrets that it pains me,
but only for a moment and then it doesn't
14NOV23 | PACE
I started a new audiobook
memoir today written and
narrated by a(nother) famous
rock star whose career I have
followed since I was about
fifteen years old; we have a
lot in common, our Jewish
upbringing, family members
who survived the pogroms and
made their way to the Americas
before the inception of the final
solution; I find it comforting and
amazing knowing with how many
people––famous or otherwise––I
share common experiences; but
there was a poignant moment early
on in the book where the rock star
reminisces about the death of his
father at 45 in 1965, when the boy
was only twelve; he is only able to
recall a few vague memories of he
and his father engaging in any sort of
meaningful conversation from the short
time he and his father shared their lives;
and for me; hearing the profound pain
in the narrator's voice was heart-rending
and I thought about my own mortality
and thought about my own children and
how they would remember me, if they
would remember any conversations we
had and if so, what would they recall
and how would I be remembered to them
15NOV23 | THE HALFWAY POINT
It's been fifteen days since I
opened that clean blank Word
document on my new Macintosh
and typed the title at the top of the
page and wrote my first couple
of hundred words, words that
today total just slightly over
twenty-five thousand as I have
reached the halfway point in
the challenge that is National
Novel Writing Month; this is
my fifth attempt at the 50,000-
word, 30-day writing goal and
I've been delighted that the story
has been flowing from within,
that I've remained focussed and
connected to the story and all its
many intricacies and twists and
turns; but mostly I'm satisfied I've
managed to keep calm and enjoy
the process of doing what I love
16NOV23 | MIDDLE GROUND
There doesn't seem to be
a middle ground, a point
where we could meet and
come to some sort of pact,
an agreement of how we
could move forward and
not continue decimating
everything we have spent
years trying to build; this
odd sort of life that once
seemed happy and poised;
a place where we coexisted
where we didn't exchange
unpleasantries or dirty looks;
where there was harmony
and even a bit of sunshine;
but whatever happiness there
may have been, once, it will
never come again and all that
will remain will be bitter regret
17NOV23 | WAITING UP
I used to wait up late,
well after eleven, until
I heard the key in the
front door; that sound
brought relief and great
comfort to the teenage
me who was filled with
foreboding, not wanting
to be a boy without a real
father again; he usually got
off work at eleven, stopping
at Ciné (later Casey's Corner)
for a beer and a chat with the
regulars; he would tend bar
there sometimes, filling in
for a bartender on vacation;
but when he came home it
was just the two of us, sitting
in the breakfast room, talking
into the night about B-movies
18NOV23 | ERIC SALM
It was one of my first jobs,
working at Eric Salm, a
men's clothing store in
Lincoln Village; my first
day of work was a most
memorable one as it was
the day Keith Moon, the
drummer from The Who,
was found dead in a flat
owned by American singer
Harry Nilsson, the same flat
where singer Cass Elliot was
found dead four years earlier;
I was relegated to working in
the pants room, were all the
newbies had to cut their teeth;
I got the job thanks to a family
friend, Randy Schuster, whose
parents were close friends with
my grandparents and who my
mother babysat for when he was
a little boy; there were a couple
of guys, Mark Schiff and Hank
Samuels, a Tweedle Dum(b) and
Tweedle Dee pair of sharp-dressed,
fancy-coiffed potheads who were
determined to make my life hell;
and there were the Weintraub twins
who I knew from school; they also
worked there and were pretty cool
to me; I only worked there for a few
months, under the watchful and mostly
menacing eye of Lawrence Fine, Eric
Salm's son-in-law, a fat man in too-tight
suits who managed the store and who
fired me when he found a pair of trousers
in my backpack, tipped off by Schiff, I
imagined, as I caught him smoking a
joint in the back room one day and
threatened to rat him out if he didn't
cut me some slack (almost an intended
pun!) and stop harassing me by coming
into the pants room and swiping whole
shelves of perfectly folded Sansabelts
onto the floor for me to refold; Schiff
told one of the Weintraub twins, who
worked in the stockroom, that he saw
me put the trousers in my backpack;
Weintraub, I think it was Fred, the
dorkier looking of the twins, who
took my backpack upstairs to Fine's
office; I was confronted and told
Fine it was my backpack, but swore
I didn't put the trousers inside, that
they were like ten sizes too big for
me anyway and some medium gray
Levi's Sta-Prest polyester slacks
that I would have never worn in a
million years; but the evidence was
beyond a shadow of doubt for Fine
and I was sent home at once; I knew
it was Schiff who planted the pants
and I made sure he knew that I knew
with a piercing stare as I was escorted
out of the store; I also had my initials
ring stolen from me while I worked
there having left it in the bathroom
after taking it off to wash my hands,
forgetting it and finding it gone only
minutes after returning to the bathroom
for it; I always blamed Schiff for nicking
it as he always made snide comments
about it; I remember walking home in
a light September drizzle not knowing
how I was going to tell my parents what
happened or if they would even believe me
19NOV23 | IT'S ALL WORTHWHILE
It's been a challenging month
of rain and wind and feeling
under the weather; sitting too
long and writing too much;
but it's all worthwhile, or at
least it will be when the month
finally comes to an end and
when it does, I will have
finished my second novel
and taken the next steps to
getting my musical stage
worthy and ready to share
with the world (at least the
worlds that my own small
world is made up of); and I
will celebrate with my one
true friend and we will eat
and talk about his recent trip
to Singapore and my projects
and the woes of relationships
20NOV23 | IT'S HOW I FEEL
I know it's not right to say
and I should know when
to keep my thoughts to my
myself, but I have to confess
that I liked my children much
better when they were younger;
it's how I feel; I know it comes
across as harsh, maybe even
boorish; but they were all such
delightful young children, I
felt blessed to be their father,
to be with them every moment
observing how they found joy
and wonder in everything; then
they grew up and assimilated
all the deficiencies, observed
the cruelty of a world that is all
too unkind and unforgiving; and
that is what they have become,
unkind and all too unforgiving
21NOV23 | OBITS
I don't read the obituaries
nearly as much as I used to;
it was a daily occurrence, you
might even say event; it runs
in my family and, as I imagine,
in many Jewish families; my
mother reads them as her mother
did and so on; and through the years
I've saved dozens of death notices;
of friends, family, former teachers,
parent's of friends and so on; they
are somber reminders of the fragility
of both life and time; we are here, then
we are not; some obits hit me harder than
others; my fifth grade teacher, a beloved
childhood friend, the mother of my high
school sweetheart (I cried as I watched
her tearful eulogy on the live feed of the
funeral); so as the years go by, it appears
my interest in the dead seems to be waning
22NOV23 | STORM ON THE HORIZON
It's brewing
somewhere
far out at
sea;
there's a
storm out
on the horizon
and it's coming
for me; coming
for me but it will
wash others out
to sea; far from
the shore, as far
as the eye can
see; and with
my outstretched
neck, I can make
out dry land beyond
the towering waves;
where hard rocks lie
23NOV23 | GIVING THANKS
I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving
in nearly thirty years; not because
I don't have anything to be thankful
for––I do, abundantly––and it has
nothing to do with being a vegetarian,
certainly there are loads of sides and
pies and other delicacies that fall into
my dietary realm; and it's not because
I dislike family gatherings, I used to
love going to my grandparent's house
for Thanksgiving dinner, if only for my
grandmother's sweet potato casserole
with the (kosher) marshmallows all
melty and a bissel farbrent on the top;
so, I suppose I don't really have any
good reasons why, for all these years,
I haven't celebrated Thanksgiving, and
maybe it's simply because the memories
of Thanksgiving past are strong enough
in my recollection to satisfy the desire
24NOV23 | THE DOOR
Sometimes I'm not sure whether
the door opens in or it opens out;
or if it's the entrance or the exit;
whether I'm coming or I'm going;
and I have to think twice, or three
times, about things I've just said
or done or had been planning on
doing; I wonder if it might just be
the new medication, or the stress
of writing my new novel in just the
the space of thirty days; or all the
chaos at home and in the world, in
Israel, in the Netherlands, in worlds
far away where people I love are so
profoundly sad and despairing; where
death is so ever-present and near that
I often wonder whether I am really still
alive or have I been taken to some other
realm, a place where one goes to push
doors open and closed, closed and open
25NOV23 | LINDA
It's your birthday today
but I've just discovered
you are no longer here,
passed away in August
after a long and valiant
fight; and I thought about
you only yesterday, and
wondered why I hadn't
heard from you or seen
your posts on Facebook
in a while; I remember the
last time I saw you, at the
Bogaard at Rebekka's dance
school performance; but that
was a long time ago; I wish
I could go back to that day,
some years ago, when we
met for coffee and talked
about so many things, but
I had so many other things
on my mind that day; and
the night that your beloved
husband passed, I was there,
watching from the small
windows in my door until
they finally took him away
at five a.m. in that long, grey
car; you came to my door the
next day saying, my husband
has died and I won't ever be
coming back here; the next
time I saw you was after
your first round of chemo in
Amsterdam, you were almost
unrecognizable, a shadow of
the woman I had known, and
I watched you from upstairs
as you sat on the stoop while
family and friends emptied
your apartment, moving you
and Rebekkah into your new
home; I brought you juice a
few times that I had made at
home with the new juicer I
told you about; I said I read
that a lot of vitamin C helped
ease some of the effects of
chemo; you were appreciative
and always returned the bottles
washed; you were a good friend
and neighbor and I shall always
cherish our mailbox conversations
and the chats we had online and
I'll pray for your lovely daughter
that she finds strength in your
memory and celebrates your
life in everything she does and
everything she becomes; she
couldn't have asked for a better
mother or a more spirited legacy
26NOV23 | THE NARRATOR
I'm on the eve of finishing
my second novel; it's only
been twelve years since I
wrote the first one and god
only knows how I've tried
to write a second novel for
years to no avail; but this
one was easy, practically
wrote itself (I said the same
thing twelve years ago); but
what's very different about
this novel is the narrator; it's
me, but playing the role of
someone else because the
protagonist of the book is
also me and I suppose I
can't really be two people
at one time, but I guess I
actually am if I'm both the
writer as well as the narrator
27NOV23 | THE UNSUCCESSFUL FARMER
I don't finish many projects
that I start; they accumulate
in drawers, on hard drives
and in the deepest recesses
of my mind; I'm like an
unsuccessful farmer who
plants his seeds, toils the
land and waits, ever so
patiently, for the harvest
when his crops will burst
from the dirt and fill his
cornucopia with the fruits
of his labor...but never do;
my horn of plenty rarely
gets filled, hardly ever
brims over with delights
of my creative ambitions;
maybe it's because I keep
planting my seeds in the
same eroded barren soil
28NOV23 | WINTER JACKET
I can pretty much remember
every winter jacket I've ever
owned, not that there have
been that many; after all, I
did live in sunny Spain for
nearly fifteen years where
one can just get by with a
hefty cardigan or a spiffy
Barbour waxed jacket; I
owned only one winter
jacket in all the years I
lived in Spain, a hunter-
green trenca, or duffle
coat, my ex-wife bought
for me at El Corte Inglés
in 1996; I loved that coat
and wore it until it was old
and tattered; my new winter
jacket––a Levi's light grey
Fillmore parka––arrives today!
29NOV23 | EX POST FACTO
I wonder what will happen to my
black Doc Martens Vintage 1461
Quilon 3-eyelet, made in England
leather Oxfords when I'm gone;
yeah, I know, morbid thought;
but these things keep me up at
night, wondering who will go
through all my things, sort
through my drawers and boxes,
rifle through my hard drives and
external drives; I guess what I
really worry about (maybe worry
isn't the right word) is that no one
will care, be interested enough to
go through my writing, to dig deep
into the enigmas of what most
people probably wouldn't find the
least bit interesting; but I guess what
is most preoccupying is wondering
what will happen to my Dr. Martens
30NOV23 | UNTITLED
I had breakfast today with
a stranger; someone I've
worked with on a project
and have met only once in
passing; we talked about the
project, mutually content with
the final result and agreed to
continue working together;
then I asked her if she'd like
to work on yet another project,
one unrelated to the first and
she said she would; we drank
chai lattes and talked about a
million things: work, family
and the disquietudes of being
creative in what is oftentimes
a lackluster world, where we
are hindered by anemic routines
and the humdrum tedium that all
but obliterates our will to create