1. Crackling
Aging is like a multitude of doors,
closing in back alleys—sunless…
(or lit by a lamppost
in a film noir script).
You think you see
a beautiful face—gas-lit,
in a secret chamber—
hair with a halo around it.
You think you know
the name of that face….
But…
you have forgotten
all names.
And the face smiles back
in a thousand
crackling mirrors.
And all the doors close
on creaky hinges.
2. Dining Well
“Two elderly ladies need close place to eat….”
Sent to a “little theater” Comments page,
where one expects a word or two
on Hamlet’s “too, too solid flesh”-adieu,
but is not unpleasantly surprised
to find the world, as usual, intrudes
on “fine arts” (and otherwise).
All in all,
I wish the mesdames well;
they’ve probably earned
that much and more—
a “clean, well-lighted place”–
as one “old writer” yearned–
to sojourn…and recall:
those years when life burst at the seams,
with love, and sex, and possibilities—
before the great unraveling.
A “place” close by–perhaps to catch a show….
To ruminate on chances lost,
tie up loose ends;
comfort one another that friends
endure the nicks and knocks
of fractured journeys’ ends.
Gary Steven Corseri is the grandson of Ukrainian-Jewish and Sicilian-Catholic immigrants. He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and in universities, high schools and Little Theaters. He has published 2 novels, 1 full collection and 1 prize-winning chapbook of poems. His poems, articles, fiction, dramas have appeared in hundreds of global publications & websites, including: Countercurrents, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine, Miami Herald, The New York Times, and Transcend Media Service. He has taught at universities in the U.S. and Japan, and in US prisons and public schools. He has worked as a grape-picker in Australia, a gas-station attendant, and an editor.
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