Poem Beginning With Baja Robert’s Nostalgia - John Repp

Nostalgic even for the mosquitoes, Baja Robert said (obliterating 
the rueful border between wisdom & cliché) Later never comes. 

My riposte? Hatred never dies which I’m proud to report drew 
one of Robert’s rare, gum-gleam guffaws. Lust’s relentless

swoops & swerves, love’s sweet subjunctive, the formal illogic 
of hope’s gaggle of irregular verbs—bah! Whether witnessed 

or wallowed-in, a single instance of asshole-deep, acetylene-hot 
hate drills proof into bedrock or, in the episode that begins

here, into a square of sidewalk along the undulating bricks 
of Phillips Avenue, where Murray the Lounge Lizard 

& his father loom screaming over a humpbacked landsman 
pouring forth a Yiddish cataract that roars louder as Herman 

& his ex-con, coke-frazzled son take turns poking him 
on the forehead fucking putz ship you back to Dachau shove 

that cane up your ass shvantz motherfucker light you on fire right
here schmuck Nazis ain’t nothing to what you get right here—

a sylvan Friday evening, whole families strolling to schul, 
a clutch of black-frocked elders pondering the scrum what you 

looking at faygala black-hats cram you in the ovens spittle flying,
scarecrow Murray scarlet, shoving the men, gyrating arms,

one red flip-flop spinning into the street, a boulder-strewn
flood tide of Yiddish while more & more worshippers stroll

up the hill, Fanny on the stoop screeching luzzem! luzzem!
the hippie next door perching impassive on a tricycle,  

feeding his toddler a banana, my new love, her television
& marble halvah a five-minute walk—I’ve got nothing 

but graven brain regions, nearly unreadable notes 
& helpless extrapolations to prove how easy it was—

how easy it is to hate Murray, his scrabbling friends 
& paramours howling to the blasting stereo downstairs

as I lever typewriter keys or boil spaghetti or dampen 
with silent rage the pathetic futon I dragged up the stairs 

or seethe over the monthly cash I give Herman, but I don’t 
rinse iceberg lettuce at that sink anymore, do I? Don’t endure 

the absurdity of Murray ranting about the cops I didn’t call, 
the anti-Semitic insults I didn’t hurl, the hellish headache 

the garlic I fry drills into his head, do I? After all, 
the scribbles tell me the landsman shuffled off at last 

& died soon after & “fucking Herman” (underlined thrice) 
said yes to the Fedders I charged to my Sears card to solve 

the sulphuric Pittsburgh heat a few days before Murray 
& a platoon of translucent barflies in a single afternoon 

emptied his flat, so peace reigned, love flourished 
& the I I was & mostly remain could (reportedly) stand 

at a screen-free window in early fall & watch the crows,
all of which amused Robert as we shared a Temecula dusk.