Blah blah the snail
He lived in a pail
And was drowned
With an Ajax equal
Blah Blah was pale
A quite dead snail
And this poem
Will not have a sequel
The Man in The
Iron Mask
The man in the iron mask
Was told to perform a task
He couldn’t speak
No measured cheek
And no response was asked
The man in the iron mask
In life he couldn’t bask
Hide from sight
Nowhere for flight
And all his time was past
The man in the iron mask
Has left us all at last
No smile from lips
His sunken ship
His die was finally cast
Where I Was
I was,
where I was,
when I wasn’t
I wasn’t aware,
when I was
I was all around
Then I skipped town
I was aware
where I was
The Lone Ranger
The Lone Ranger
Never a stranger
He was my hero inside
When I was a Young Man
When I was a young man and wore younger clothes.
I struck a position
And laid out my pose
I wrote stories
And paid through the nose
In poetry, songs, and sad-lined prose
Where will I go?
And what will I be?
These were the words that were haunting me
Now, I am older
The clothes are the same
And I really and truly
Have no one to blame
I still write my sayings
But not on a wall
People all tell me I still have the call
When I was a young boy, growing up in South Philly,
I lived across the street from a city swimming pool. In those
days, the pools had wooden dressing rooms in which to change clothes.
Kids could swim for only 45 minutes a day because so many kids wanted
to swim. The recreation leaders wanted all the kids to get a chance
to swim. We would line up outside the pool. The lifeguards
would count the children and let in 100 kids. The
lifeguards checked to make sure our bathing suits were dry so that the
same people couldn’t get in to swim twice in a day. In those days,
we all had only one bathing suit, so we couldn’t cheat. However,
in order to get around the dry bathing suit rule, some kids would go
swimming, get dressed, and when they came out, they’d throw their wet
suits under passing cars to squeeze and dry them out.
If they went early in the morning, then returned late in the afternoon,
the lifeguards didn’t recognize the kids.
When we got in, we sat on a wooden bench in the order of our numbers.
After each session, it took about a half hour to clear the pool.
If someone had an accident because they could not reach the bathroom
in time, the pool closed for hours or didn’t open again that day.
In addition to having only 45 minutes in the pool, the days alternated
between girls and boys days. That meant that I could swim only
three days a week, and only during the day. At 7:00 PM, only adults
over 18 could swim.
That’s what it was like when I was growing up downtown. There
were lots of rules to control the numbers of kids participating in activities
because of the huge number of baby boomers. I was a war baby but
my generation was effected by the crunch too because we were still growing
up and wanted to use the pools and everything else that was available.
It was a very different time, maybe harder than now, but I’m glad I
grew up then, and not now. This time seems much more violent and
frightening with less rules to guide us. There is too much hate
and self-indulgence. I think it’s a good thing to have rules that
encourage us to share our resources, just the way the lifeguards used
to do at the Swimmies. Understanding that is a step toward loving
one another and that’s the real McCoy.
Copyright 2000 by Harry Martin Polis
