"germantown" poems
No one born too far from Niedersachsen, said Oma,
ever quite captures their sing-song intonation.
Characterized by subtleties, like an umlauted vowel,
all non-native imitations sound inevitably as ******
as would a cry of “ello, guv’nah!” in a London coffee shop.
Her Plattdeutsch instincts neutered
by decades abroad, married to a son of Milwaukee,
her permanent, dormant longing for Salzgitter awakes only
to trigger hunger pangs of irreconcilable nostalgia
at the passing whiff of a Germantown bakery.
She taught me the word “sehnsucht” over lukewarm coffee
and a pause in our conversation: a compound word
that no well-intentioned English translation
could render faithfully.
It isn’t the same as just longing, she sighed— longing is curable.
Sehnsucht holds the fragments
of an imperfect world and laments
that they are patternless. How the soul
yearns vaguely for a home
remembered only in the residual ache
of incomplete childhood fancies;
futile as the ruins
of an ancient, annihilated people.
How life’s staccato joys soothe
a heart sore from the world,
yet the existential hunger, gnawing
from the malnourished stomach
of the bruised human psyche, remains—
insatiable, eternal.
Long enough ago, a reasonably-priced bus ride away
from the red-roofed apartment in which she babbled her first words,
a kindly old man in a pharmacy asked her
about her peculiar, exotic accent. Once inevitably prompted
with the question of where she was from, she responded only
that she was a tourist off the beaten track.
And when I pointed out, to my immediate regret,
that she gets the same question back here in Ohio,
I realized then that, not once, has she ever referred to the way
the people of her pined-for hometown spoke
as though she had ever belonged to it.
Sep 29, 2015
Sep 29, 2015 at 2:21 PM UTC
I’ve had this red heart shaped locket
for 12 years now.
I got it as a gumball prize
at a rundown Chinese restaurant
(maybe in Germantown?)
A lot of the paint has chipped off
and the tiny keys to it are long gone.
What shows beneath the paint
is shinny tin.
When I was a tacky teen
I would wear it clasped around my
neck imitating Sid but not
knowing it.
I always wanted someone to give me
something like this
but I impatiently jumped the gun and
cranked the dial of the machine
myself,
and the tiny Valentine rolled out.
(SINCERELY, YOURS TRULY)
No sentiment to share.
Now I’m nearly 30
and it hangs on my key chain,
a teenaged 50 cent memory
amongst adult responsibility.
If you see me standing crossed arm at a show,
and spy my red locket,
know that I’m an advocate of
living in the past,
and harboring silly passions.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 1:24 PM UTC
Joel's ten month old only child, a son, had just started walking as Joel was sentenced to jail for three to six months for fighting, after charges had been filed against him. Each time a court hearing was set Joel went, but the dates were always post phoned. Joel meet Sena a tall dark skinned buxom twenty nine old French speaking woman, just off the coast of Ghana. They married and through mutual friends came to America,and settled in Germantown. Sena spoke French to her dacca. She was a devoted mother and wife. Each time that Sena dropped her child off at daycare, she covered dacca's face with kisses,before heading for the indoor fruit stand that employed her. Joel always cocky and prideful,all of his life,drove a black Lincoln with his girlfriend closer than a flea on a dog, and met sales quotas when required. Granted one phone call from jail, Joel spoke with his rejected wife Sena, asking for bail money, his once proud and sarcastic voice breaking. A lawyer informed Sena that since charges had been filed ,the conviction had to stand. Joel now sits in a shared cell occasionally looking through the steel bars in lock down, gazing up at stars that he once rode and walked under freely.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
They say you got my gift to you
My apology for all the bitter days
of teary silence and rage.
Yes, I played it tricky & deep.
They knew too much
about too many private things.
Dream language is the tool of hypnosis
Creates a window into the dreamer
The front door with majestic scenes
of a lazy lioness and her pride,
At the foot of acanthus leaved columns,
That was built by my sister, the engineer.
She learned the language
From a pair of twins from some
small Texas germantown
Never told her, I built a back door,
To which I gave you the key.
They say he cut you cruelly-
To keep you from mucking up their profit,
To keep you from abandoning your race.
All for a few minutes of wisht?
Stole a few years of my dreams
scribed and kept set away for you.
I'm glad we found a better way.
If I wake to find it's just another dream,
I don't know what I'll do.
It's the wildness they hate in us.
They only thynk it's about race.
Apr 22, 2013
Apr 22, 2013 at 7:49 PM UTC
13th and pine
15th and pine
12th and federal
broad and morris
13th and spruce
juniper and lombard
juniper and locust
13th and walnut
18th and ellsworth
12th and kater
23rd and christian
15th and rodman
9th and filbert
17th and carpenter
10th and spruce
17th and cecil b. moore
23rd and annin
17th and ellsworth
somewhere desolate in Germantown
broad and catherine
12th and spruce
4th and catherine
10th and christian
16th and reed
Jan 17, 2015
Jan 17, 2015 at 1:12 AM UTC
Lost, though the lake at my side
Could not be any more familiar
It's this vantage
New shipments of sunlight
Swim to me
Cars rocking along, they haven't seen
My screams
I'm lost, I'm lost
Someone bring me home
I'll never return to Germantown
Aug 3, 2010
Aug 3, 2010 at 2:41 PM UTC
on February 18,1688 the germans bravely protested against the condition of slavery a monument still stands to this day in commemoration of the landing of the german colonists and earlier on the monument's other side on October 1683 these same fearless colonists caused a rumble within that place for they strongly believed inside their hearts that all men were created equal and each deserved to be free.and i'm sure that with their own eyes they saw the ensnaring chains of slavery torn apart and quickly fade .the steady rain of torment ceased to fall anymore on black limbs .freedom's bright light pierced the darkness for the humble whose hearts with silent prayers sent up to HIM than freedom spread through out the land.but its mighty voice would not have been heard and known without helping german hands.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 10:11 PM UTC
I sat on concrete porch with enclosed porch watching my daughter
Getting ready to venture to the laundry mat, twenty-one, wise single
College educated the same college where I received my degree
Thinking just how thankful as her father I am for her
And that she's here with me, one so young yet so accomplished
Any father would be proud. At thirteen she was a supervisor at local
Church ,getting a salary. At fifteen she was a founding member of the
Germantown \Settlement Choir and a cheer leader at sixteen for Ba
mtoms football team,also she started swimming in the Roxborugh
Doing Cart wheels on our side lawn. So as you can see leadership
and also kindness to all have always been in her blood,
And I bless the day that she was born
Jan 11, 2016
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:26 PM UTC
The fire’s gone out
in the last wooden hut
Fresh snow has been falling,
cold hunger abuts
The Red Coats emboldened
in far Germantown
The wind carries stillness,
with death all around
A General stands watch
on the farthest of hills
His heart never waivers,
his anger instills
The firewood gone
but the embers still burn
O’er forests and rivers,
to Paris in turn
The Schuylkill runs quiet,
Lenape scouts have returned
“Our enemy grows fat, Sir,
in taverns that burn”
The outcome awaiting,
its body count high
Where cabins though frozen
—the stars and stripes fly
(Valley Forge: November, 2020)
Nov 20, 2020
Nov 20, 2020 at 2:26 PM UTC