This was written in 1971 when i was working as a sports reporter for The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York. i was a champion of traditional (and the right way to write a news story as taught to me by “Coach” JB Leftwich at Castle Heights and Fred Russell at The Nashville Banner). A young and new reporter wrote the story about a man who had epilepsy and struggling had committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor of the Watertown YMCA.

i was irate at the article because it violated the rules that were my bible for print journalism. When i complained, my great friend John B. Johnson pulled me aside and calmed me down. He was right, of course. i was out of line. When i got home that afternoon, i sat down and wrote this:

no one heard
his epileptic call of delight;
later, no one would even know
the crass and un-smiled-upon disease
had crashed his brain
as he leaped
from his fifth floor room window
with that call of delight
but
his mind raced onward
into the ecstasy of madness
as he dwindled toward oblivion
but yet,
not quite oblivion
as his wish for recognition
would also be buried
amidst the headline of
“Man Killed In Fall Out of Window;”
even his name was plummeted
into the obscurity of
second paragraphville;
his falling from grace, even in his delight
from the YMCA’s fifth floor,
past the gym of happiness
and
showers of cleanliness
against the cobbler’s sign
(which should have been symbolic
but
even that as coincidental)
onto
“the concrete of the sidewalk below”
according to the newspaper reporter,
but
did little to shatter
the stillness of early morning when
the milkman continued to drop his bottles on the doorsteps
and
the bicycled paperboys thudded their paper missiles
against the walls of the porches
long before the sun rose
to meet the day,
refusing to yet relent
to storms of winter;
the elevator even disregarded
the sacrifice of delight,
carefully coasting down and up
under the auspices of the new elevator man
whose name no one knew
and
who would move into the YMCA the next day
so he, that man whom epilepsy had possessed
to end it all with a yell of delight
passed on
in his fit;
not one soul, not even the newspaper reporter,
acknowledged
it was the disease of Caesar.

If you haven’t noticed, i am going through old stuff, trying to clean up my files. Of course, i will never achieve that goal, but it’s fun to work at it, and what else do i have to do that is productive. This was written back home, i’m guessing for Thanksgiving, referring to the drear of a basement dorm room in Nashville. i still like it.

the sun is shining outside, but it is cold;
the sky is blue outside, but the trees are bare;
the wind whispers softly, but its coldness bites into the skin;
the windows reflect the sparkling sunshine, but the glare hurts the eyes.

i walked to the top of the hill and looked down on the lights of the city,
hoping to remember something beautiful and warm,
but the memories brought sadness
because they were of the past instead of the present;

a tear came to my eye, and the wind made the tear cold.
i was alone; the fact burned my heart as it chilled my soul;
i watched with sad amusement as two squirrels
in the lone tree on the hill chattered to one another;

i walked down the hill back to my lonely room,
four walls, bare lights, blaring radio, books, un-emptied ashtrays.

the sun is shining outside but it is cold;
the sky is blue outside, but the trees are bare;
the wind whispers softly but its coldness bites into the skin;
the windows reflect the sparkling sunshine;
but the glare hurts the eyes,

and all is calm

but yet…

i wrote this in 1962, right after i received a letter that revealed my relationship with a beautiful young woman from Cleveland, Ohio, whom i had met while she was visiting relatives in Lebanon, Tennessee, was over. Her name was Gay. i find it interesting that i used a ship at sea to describe my feelings. i did not go to sea on a ship until the next summer.

i stood on the old bridge,
leaning forward against the rail,
a tear traced its lonely way
down my cheek;
the wind whisked the tear away;
the pebble i dropped into
the deep water below
shattered the moonlight
into a thousand pieces of ripples;

i remembered;
another tear began its futile journey
against the wind

i remembered her:
soft lips, soft like the moon’s shattered reflection,
tender touch, tender as the wind carrying tears away;
gone
but
she would be back;
after all she had promised;
everything was quiet;
i waited.

Note: she never came back.