Eulogies

Being the writer of the family, I'm expected to write something "nice" for family occasions such as funerals, birthdays, mitzvahs, and miscellaneity.

This is a Renga I wrote for my Aunt Buzzy's passing. May she rest in peace.

"Ms. Elyse 'Buzzy' Ackerman"

Elyse as "Buzzy"
Reminds me of all New York:
Attitude, humor....

A flowing silk woman of
wit, street, and book smarts, pizzazz!

Nancy, Eddy, Ma
are missing now their sister,
wife, daughter, loved one.

But we are at peace because
she is at peace in quiet.

Bio

A native New Yorker who spends his days teaching how to grow up and write down and his nights adoring New York City and the conglomerate culture inherent therein. He appreciates the arts and humanities, conflict, and women. If you'd like to peruse his prose and verse about these appreciations, adorations, and considerations, visit him @ www.raphelps.blogspot.com.

Teaching

They may be the reason why, 15 years from now, I'll look 60 but act 16; a paradoxical profession of stress and exuberance it is.

I should be grading papers, but I've been all too influenced by one scene from the show "Keenan and Kel":
Keenan's mother: "Baby, what'chu doin' tonight?"
Keenan: "Well, Kel and I were gonna stay in an' study a li'l."
Keenan's mother: "What?! Boy, you crazy? Nobody studies on a Friday night...."
Keenan turns to Kel, both simultaneously shrug their shoulders, and they race upstairs to plot and scheme how they can get themselves into some sort of mischief and shenanigan.

Ludwig

You can expect trills and riffs
of thrilling turns and swerves,
designed to defy expectation.
My melodyelectricity glorifies you.

You can expect staccato thrusts
and pizzicato pulls and pushes.
Everything and anything to keep
you toesy, lipsy, and coyly kissing.

You can expect the gentle swallows
of coos and hand, caresses stressed
by fists gripped in layered embraces.
And you can bite that trumpet finger.

You can expect a multitude of movements,
distinguished by their tactile timbre:
The drones of a cello massage starkly juxtaposed
with the clave clickclack of ass-slaps.

The baritone grunt of an asserted dominance
harmonized with the soprano yelps and oohs
of willful helplessness. And the timpani beats
to the curves of a skin spread open,

while horns are tickled to cries of yes triumphant,
voices blown piquant through brass to crescendo
crescendocrescendoyeswavethosehandsandclosethoseeyes
Crescendo!

Ay, there's the rub. And the piano strokes
to follow for a pianissimo pillow impenetrable
by sadnesses. Our ecstasies and smiles abound.
Our notes and strokes passionate and fallen.

We made music. And goddamn,
___it was quite the symphony.
Let us bow and stride into
soundless fits laying now.

Almost Exposed

"Honesty is very sexy."- Valerie Bertinelli

Listen, doll, we've gotta talk.

I tore open your seams to get to know you better,
to see that you weren't just fluffy, freckley, girl

but I pulled ferocious and now I'm inna revelation,
and you're not too happy either since your

I'msaved securities and your thatsalrights and your
satin smiles and your preciousness gazes

are falling out dustcaked and without cohesion,
whitewashed in the bright exposure of your facade frayed.

And I know I'm no Dalai Lama, but I'm no Nosferatu, either.
And where you might be irreparable because you fell in love

and didn't come out until after you had drowned, or whored
yourself in numbers, in power, and not in passion or heart,

or carry on in solidarity with onehitwonder women when you
really mean to and do bat black lashes at all the pretty boys,

coyly, or fuck in obligation to a grand wining and dining,
I can still sew up whatever nicks and notches you've cut

and interrogated. But why would I want to? I tried to teach you
honesty, and though you've turned your head times already,

leaving those holes for you to peek through is the best lesson
still. I've got no coarse words, I'msaved securities,

thatsalrights to hide. No satin smiles, preciousness gazes,
or awkward answers to your questions to hide. Nothing.

You can tell everyothers' ears about how puny you think I am,
but I've been chugging my spinach and sticking to my guns,

and--though you're right that I've reserved my right, a
proclamation

to more tell you I how feel, No. To tell you how I feel more,
to tell you more how I feel, to tell you I feel more for you,

to tell you how more I feel for you--I deserve a bigger better
megaphone, a bigger better you. Stop being a fucking girl.

Start being a fucking woman, doll. I think you look the part.
And clean yourself. Stitch thread and needle

tightly and soon you'll open up.