Waterbug

Persona Non Au Gratin

My Dear Wife,

obviously you mistake for me
the speaker (or "persona") of my poem
about some pitiful husband (a husband
referred to as "I" and "me
purely for purposes of dramatic
immediacy) who dwells on his
grotesque memories of acne'd and hackneyed
and desperately horny adolescence.

Clearly you weren't listening that day
in Freshman English when the teacher
explained all this. If you think
every "I" in literature (this, by the way,
is literature) can be equated to the author,
you probably believe in Santa
and that when a TV personage
invites "you" to enjoy the show,
he is referring specifically to you.

By the way, this, too, is a persona,
you stupid, illiterate bitch, and it's
addressing a persona. It's certainly not
ME talking to YOU, not the REAL you, if you
know what I mean, and you know who I mean
when I say you, referring, of course,
to the you who knows what I mean --
because I would NEVER talk to you
this way,
Dear.

Dean Blehert

And your wife never knows

Your wife of 30 years exchanges a smile,
never realizing that, in your youth,
you looked at girls as pictures
of racy sexuality hidden under those pimples,
tired eyes, runny noses, focused on
their tits, the promise of a glimpse
in their gym shorts, t'allure
of those who said nothing,
only gave smoldering looks...
unless you've told her, of course,
in a stupid poem!
MEN!

Just a Person

Young, you want girls,
and the girls you're supposed to get
(you know, "get"), in the movies,
anyway, are cool and sexy and
give you that look and swish away
with a racy double entendre and you
know, you just know,

but all the girls you meet are
just persons, school kids,
like you, sexy, maybe (some of them),
but also saying mostly dumb,
ordinary things, sometimes having
blackheads or tired eyes or
runny noses, so you concentrate

on their tits, their rosy cheeks,
the motions of their hips and
masturbate over carefully crafted
images of them and keep
trying to turn them into
something unattainable so that
you can attain it, and, if you're really
lucky,

maybe 30 years later, you'll
exchange a smile (for starters)
with your wife and notice
with relief and joy, that she's
just a person, like you.

Dean

Vanity

In mid-adolescence
my modesty proved flammable.
I was clumsy, a bit chubby
(not as much as I thought)
and had the social skills
of a friendly mutt, whose
wagging tail knocks over
vases. Also, I was sure
I was the smartest person
in the world and wanted
everyone to know it.

Boy, the girls all knew something,
and avoided me, creating ripples
around me in the high school hallway.

At home, alone ("home" and "alone"
have long been sad companions),
I noticed in the bathroom and bedroom mirrors
(how all the mirrors agreed!)
my hairy pubes, my enormous upward jolting
erections (and admiring myself in the mirror
was enough to flick that switch) --
I thought them enormous, was surprised
when I measured myself (full erect)
and just made it to the notorious 6 inches.

Modesty? I had the idea that if all the girls
whose padded bras I didn't know were padded
could just see what a stud I was, all else
would be forgiven -- they'd WANT me and
want me to want THEM. I couldn't just
walk naked through the halls, so I had
long and elaborate day and night dreams
about going swimming with a girl, and
having lots of gritty sand get under our suits,
and having to share a small changng hut
and, hell, whatever it took to get naked
and get laid, though usually, before the plot
came to it's culmination, I'd get impatient,
and take myself in hand. I was so damned
juicy! How could all those girls resist me!?

These days I've calmed down. Last time
I went to a class reunion, I saw dozens of ladies
who once starred in my high school dreams
and didn't even ask them for autographs,
though I'm sure some of them still have
lovely hands.

Dean

Modesty

Modesty is a funny thing.
I would have said I was modest
— though not at 6 years old.
Yet some of the things I've done
would be deemed immodest.
I would have said they were
a solution to being
too modest — unseemly so.
Yet now, faced with varicose veins,
moles, dimpled thighs, wrinkles, fat
I am again decidedly modest, and will not
go about in shorts or swimming suit
even though no one is looking.

Pam

Modesty Pays Off

I was already modest by age 4.
I knew that no one should ever see me
naked except family and, if absolutely necessary,
a doctor or even (God forbid) a nurse.
And I knew that being in my
underwear pants was almost as bad
as being naked (though a swim suit --
which I called a bathing suit, and, until
corrected, thought was a baby suit --
was OK).

So I never romped about outdoors
in my underpants, but this concern
about decency paid off when I got
a wife. Being naked in a room or
in a bed or even in an embrace
with a naked lady is exciting -- hell,
the word "naked" is exciting, in ways
those of less modest upbringing
(a word which means rearing, and that
makes me think of what I'm bringing
up against your rear, dear)
will have difficulty understanding.

Funny how the things we call "adult"
are mostly energized by the squirms
and giggles of children.

Dean

When

When I was 6 or thereabouts
we didn't have air conditioning.
On hot summer's days Verna let me out
to play wearing only
white cotton underpants.
My friends too wore
white cotton underpants.
And we had contests to see
who could stick out their belly the furthest
and I won. And I was proud!
Now we have air conditioning.
It's been dreadfully hot.
But I wouldn't dare wear
white cotton underpants on the block.
I wouldn't even happily
go out to play.

Pam

POP! POP! POP! Go the Years

I still have more hair on my crown than
sprouting from my ears and nostrils.
I can still get out of my car.
(Getting in is easy.)
I can still get it up
and even in, with a little help
from my friend.

I can still remember a lot of things --
for example that word I couldn't recall
yesterday, then later in the day
it came to me -- what was it...?
(I'm joking. I remember it well:
Pyrotechnic.) I can still joke
about words that go away
on vacations.

But why am I making such a fuss
about being 63? I'm in good shape.
I should wait until I'm 85
to kvetch about growing old.

Yeah, but what if my heart explodes
next week or next year, bye-bye,
and I'll have missed the chance
to write about being old.

So allow me to lie back on the grass
and admire the fireworks,
nerve ending after nerve ending
in the brain firing off in brief blossoms
against the long night we like
to imagine, black velvet stage curtains
before which our brains make
the grand speeches and noble gestures
tragic heroes.

I've mixed up some metaphors there,
but if pyrotechnic appears (and disappears)
in act one, we're bound to drag in fireworks
in what I thought would be act five,
but here I am, still talking. Being alive
in an ageing body
is a mixed metaphor.

Dean

We're in our 60's

We're in our 60s.
I remember as a kid hanging on to Verna's
fleshy old arm on the long walk up to 16th street
where I was treated to a banana split.

Oh, banana split of my youth,
I think, at 62, I loved you
more than I knew!

Pam

As Long As You're Already Hot and Sweaty...

We're in our '60s.
I remember as a kid
being amused to see
from behind
the old lady next door
(maybe no older than we are now)
bending over to pull weeds,
never dreaming
that such a sight
would ever move me
in this mysterious way.

(There's a weed
that wants to be pulled
slowly, very slowly,
as its roots grip my soil
in ten-thousand-times-ten
tickles.)

Dean