They are tap dancing . . .

artwork: ralph murre

They are tap dancing to Vivaldi

in Albany, New York tonight

according to the Community                      

Message Board heard three times

daily on your commercial classical

music station.  All four seasons are

going to be represented.  How?

It is difficult to imagine exactly

how.  You will have to travel to

Albany in order to find out if these

tap dancers will be a new kind

of Rockettes Revue, low-steppers

instead of high kickers, eschewing

Country and Western line dancing

routines for fancy dancing, no, not

step dancing, mind you, or show

tune dancing but something more

refined, something applicable to each

of our four seasons. This is Vivaldi

after all, not Lloyd-Webber or have

The Seasons been changed, abridged,

up tempoed, truncated or tarted up

for a mass audience appeal?  You

will have to travel to Albany to find

out.  Some of us will remain at home,

listening to the original, awaiting your

critical reports of just what these tap

dancing people thought they were doing

to Vivaldi on a Friday Night in Albany.

~ Alan Catlin

* previously published in The Art of Survival

(Kings Estate Press)

The Contestant's Anxiety . . .

 The Contestant's Anxiety at the Tossing of the Caber

 by Alan Catlin

From afar, as seen over the heads

of spectators seated in low bleachers,

this wavering pole makes no sense,

impelled forward by some unseen

force, then lifted, launched, hurled

furiously or dropped, suddenly, without

ceremony, a dreadful weight relinquished,

unaccompanied by applause or appreciation,

but, rather a collective, groaning,

a gasping gradually diminishing until

the post appears again and the ritual

is repeated.

Watching, closer, at one with the crowd,

the process contains a reason, a method;

you can see the contestant bent at the waist,

large leg muscles fully flexed, great arms

encircling the pole's girth, back rigid,

straining, facial muscles taut, expression

intent while the clasped hands slide down

the tapered wooden base of the pole,

anticipating the lift, the fearsome jerking

upward, the awkward balancing, shifting

weights composed for the act, equilibrium

maintained prefatory to the dread march

forward into the field of play.

A perfect toss approximates high noon

on an imagined clock facing, upon which,

no real shadows are cast.

~ first published in Opossum Holler Tarot

Island Living (RE / VERSE Post # 100 !)

photo: ralph murre

Island Living

 by Alan Catlin

There are certain

real disadvantages

to living on the Island

It doesn't pay

to be ill here

or to need any

kind of constant

medical attention

I spoke to a lady

on the ferry once

                                    about how it worked

out for her

Her husband had

Alzheimer's though

she never worried

about him taking

the dog out for

his daily walk

She knew that

the dog would

always bring her

husband back

~ first published in Edgz

SORTING OLD FAMILY PHOTOS

artwork: ralph murre

Sorting Old Family Photos
by Alan Catlin

Looking through
a lifetime of my
father’s photos:
places they had
visited we had
never seen or heard
much about except
as a paper trail
of medical bills
in unusual places.
One photo, in particular,
of my father, reminds me
of last self-portraits
taken by a photographer
known for outrageous
personal pieces of
family, friends &
self; last frames taken
on a grassy hill
looking at the lens
as he rises, walking
away until he leaves
the frame completely
and disappears leaving
the unoccupied hill behind.
These photos of my father
on a path that is labeled
on the back as, “Bill in
the Cumberland Gap
in Fall,” then another
shot, identical to the first,
“Cumberland Gap in Fall,”
my father gone.

~ first published in Grasslimb