SECTION EIGHT
POETRY PAGE ONE 

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COLUMN SIXTY-TWO, AUGUST 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 The Blacklisted Journalist)

LETTER FROM ED

April 15, 2001

dear al

thanks for your interesting paper on clinton and bush, and all those other bastards in the white house.. truer words never better spoken ... but what to do about it"...shall we have a fucken revolution? there is enough death and destruction in this "free" land of ours.. look at Cincinnati ohio where they are rioting in the streets ... blacks against whites again, eh?

listen, al, there is nothing wrong with e-mail, but you are just gonna have to put up with my foolishness.. I LIKE LETTERS BETTER... it's cheaper too... phone calls cost MONEY, which I aint got.... anyway, I cant hear you over the phone, or else my EARS ARE GOING BAD.. at almost 84 (june) anything can happen... so i can do without computers, and all that stuff.  I have editors write me letters ..yes, LETTERS, all the time..LONG LETTERS. besides putting out their magazines, they dont mind dropping me LONG LETTERS, so why are you an exception"..but hey, i am just talking.. i am not mad at you, al ... that is just my opinion .... i know this is a computer world, and i wish to hell it wasnt ... this world is going to hell fast with all this computer stuff, and people enticing young girls over the internet .... that is one of the evils of the computer..besides all the SCAMS going on too ... so fuck the computer as far as I am concerned... and my sons are lazy sons of bitches and wouldnt care to get back to me on E mail stuff.. i hardly see them as it is ... when you raise sons who are past fifty, you got one foot in the fucken grave, and they could care less about you.. i hardly see one of my sons, who lives in maryland... he is sixty one years old... the other guy is busy fucken his goyishe girl friends.. and has no time for me... I AM ENCLOSING A NICE LITTLE CHAP BOOK FOR YOUR PLEASURE..YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO USE ANY OF THEM ON YOUR WEBSITE... THEY ARE SELF EXPLANATORY...    HAVE a good day, Al...I love ya, man ... no HARD FEELINGS .... AND DROP ME A LETTER.... TELL ME HOW YOU LIKE THE LITTLE BOOK... I AM ENCLOSING A RETURN ENVELOPE.. JUST SCRIBBLE SOMETHING, EH?  ITS NOT HARD TO DO.

REGARDS.  ED GALING       3435 mill rd. hatboro, pa 19040

* * *

 

A FEW POEMS FROM
SPARE CHANGE  

authors note:

the poems in this book are close to my heart. They were all written for, and published by SPARE CHANGE, a worthy publication, published in Cambridge, Mass., and sold by homeless people on the street for a dollar a copy...Homelessness and Poverty are evident all over the country these days.  No one is ever immune.  It is to combat this condition, and make the government officials aware, that SPARE CHANGE exists.  SPARE CHANGE also conducts work shops for the poor and homeless, and is engaged in many activities to further the cause and cure of homelessness. It is my wish that no one ever need to be homeless.  And 1 am ever so grateful to SPARE CHANGE for publishing these poems ... all of them having to do with the human spirit and humanity.

* * *

SONGS OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE

i hear it yet

listen, you can

too, perhaps,

it's the sound of

immigrants who

came over from the old

country to live

on the lower east

side. the footsteps

are strident. the

sounds are strong

the cries of humanity

sobs in tearful

mournful pleadings

oh, God, please let

this be our new home,

where freedom is promised

and the knock on the door

will not be our last ones,

oh, Shalom, oh Shalom,

as we walk the streets

of concrete, as we cry

even as we remember our

old land,

   listen, i can hear

the sound of the Rebbe,

the long white beard, the

peyes that twirled down

his face, and now even

though i return so many

years later, i cannot

forget those who walked

these streets before me;

the songs of voices of

the old return in the

whisper of a breeze,

as i walk along in

memory.  ##

* * *

BITTER ROOTS

i never sold apples
during the depression

 

on this new york
street that i passed by

each day, you would find

them, men with wooden
crates, upon which the
 

apples rested, and below
the scrawled sign,
"buy an apples and help me..
            five cents..."  

the men were always so
sad looking and old before
their time, defeated by an  

enemy over whom they had no
control,  

millions unemployed and out
of work, and i, too, was
one of them,  

existing on a welfare check
of twenty dollars a week,.  

living in a cold water flat,
alone, and broke...
and often i would shiver in
the cold air, stop, and buy
a sweet apple, munching it
on the way home to nothing,  

thinking, it could be me,
it could be me...  

and from then on,
even until these days,  

an apple has never tasted
the same again.  ##
 

* * *

LIVING EASY

it's what you make it,
            they tell us...

roll with the punches,
 wise guys say,

but what the hell do they
            know, unless
                       they have been on welfare,

or worked for a buck an hour,
                        
   and uncle sam took his
                                       offa the top...

then, when you're miserable enough,
                
   then you apply for a government

housin project,
                 
  where four rooms, a gas smoked

heater, a bed, and a toilet,
                  
is like a palace,

and in a way it is, i guess,

like all the other hundred lost souls,
                
   living here, side by side,

findin it hard to come up with the
                   
twenty bucks a month,
                    subsidized by the government,

wonderin' where the good times begin...

yeah, it's what you make it,
                    pardner,
                             unless you just ain't...
        got the tools to build on. ##

* * * 

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