Occasional Poems by Simon Wakesberg and others

To Robert Baron on his 60th birthday, by Si Wakesberg

RHAPSODY FOR AN OLDER GUY
Robert's sixty? I say "No!"
Please folks, say it isn't so!
Just yesterday at Binghamton
It seemed his art- life had begun;
But then, in fact, he joined a host
Of émigrés to the Pacific Coast
Taught art in Cal State schools
So college kids would not be fools
Taught them about Leonardo, so
They shouldn't confuse him with de Caprio.

It was a good time for Robert to teach
To live near a California beach
But eventually they ceased to roam
And realized New York was their home
So to Westchester which they found best
They came to live, to work, to rest.

Of course, if one were to tell the truth
You can't talk of Robert without Ruth;
Where did they actually meet?
It might have been on Bolton Street
Or Binghamton? Turn history's pages
It seems they've been together for ages.
She's stood with Robert thru thick and thin
Making a couple that's gotta win.

When Rafe came, it can be cited
There was a family group united'
And among these many odds and ends
They picked up a few trusty friends.
Old college friends. Both male and female
They keep by posting tons of email.

Robert's fame spread overseas
We found it in Holland, if you please;
They praised his intimate knowledge of art
Speaking sincerely from the heart.
But we want to mention how helpful to go
To a museum as Robert explains the show
Those times together I wont forget
They illuminated the hangings in the Met.

So though you're sixty, this poem has sung
A cadence of praise for a fellow who's young;
Cheers! Hosanna! And Mazel Tov
We send our affection and our love.

Si and Sandy, October 2002

Two Poems of occasion by Carl Selkin

FOR SANDY AT NINETY
I read the banners in the press of choice
(The ancien NY Post and Village Voice)
That Sandy Fendrick turned another page.
But they refused to state her real age
Advice of counsel, fear of libel suites,
No one would buy the story, one look refutes
The allegation that she's ninety years
When we all have it on the word of Seers
That Sandy can't be more than forty five.
Of course, she has complaints, but those derive
From paying too much mind to politics,
Recess appointments, wars and dirty tricks
Pains not from her age but from ours. The cure
Is found in music, art and literature.
She has prescriptions for preserving youth
That have been handed down like Sinai's truth:
When aggravation gets to be too much,
Take two museums and a glass of Scotch.
These age-defying bromides come to mind:
Don't stay at home as long as you can find
A concert somewhere in the universe
(Than Mahler you could do much worse).
Try to eat out at least three times a week
(French is preferred but don't avoid good Greek).
Enjoy a movie when there's not much else,
And talk it over with the kid from Kielce
Whose lines put this anemic verse to shame.
(He really raised--or is it crossed--the bar
Through his encomium on NPR).
College is for the young, so take a class,
On Einstein, Yeats or even Philip Glass.
When bored go for a drive somewhere with Reed
Or meditate with Gene---till thought is freed.
These simple tricks are all you need. Alors!!!
Your clothes will always be at most size four.
Keep showing us the road to keeping fit--
With all your energy, and grace and wit.
--Carl Selkin, August 7, 2005

A WEDDING WISH FOR BONNIE AND PETER
There’s something, Bonnie, that you have to know
To know this guy that you are married to
For, oh, an hour or two by now. I’ll take
You back to seventy eight or nine. We walk
Along rock shelving at Laguna Beach
At lowest tide. An angry gull can’t teach
Us where to step and we trespass upon
His stretch of pools and mussel shrouded stone.
Peter a three-year old ecologist
Manqué, protests his father’s slippery quest
To raid a stash of mussels in a cleft
Of rock exposed to unfamiliar light.
But finally he takes his own path to the spot
And reaches for the dark exotic fruit.
It’s then he realizes that their beards
Have wed them to that rocky nest. How weird
He thought it was for fish to grow on rock
The tide incoming was the lesser shock.
But thinking now about his name and your
Vocation, maybe there was something more:
This future that the two of you will share
Riding whatever tides may fall or rise
Anchored by the love that brings you here
Buoyed toward a future on a sea of joys.
--Carl Selkin, July 3, 2005