June, 2025
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The History of One Tough Motherfucker – Charles Bukowski
he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,”not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he’ll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he’s been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…”
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn’t eat, he
wouldn’t touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn’t go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn’t work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I’d had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
“you can make it,” I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn’t want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he’s better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,”look, look
at this!”
but they don’t understand, they say something like,”you
say you’ve been influenced by Celine?”
“no,” I hold the cat up,”by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!”
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows…
it’s then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.
Immigration Court – June 10, 2025
Through a new program created by local immigrant advocacy groups, Court Watch, my friend and I volunteer to be trained and be present during a court session, to aid immigrants who are summoned for possible deportation. The immigrants speak Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, no English. We speak only English.
At least 15 immigrants’ cases are to be heard. Each immigrant has received a letter from Dept. of Homeland Security ordering their presence in court to say why DHS should not deport them immediately. Some immigrants have traveled more than 2 hours to one of only 2 immigration courts in MA – accompanied by family, friends, their children. The children all are under 5, one is a newborn. Some of the immigrants arrive alone. Not one has a lawyer present to sit beside them in the courtroom.
Thanks to a Court Watch guide, we possess a few tools. We have forms in languages that these immigrants speak. If they complete this form, local immigrant advocate organizations can follow their case and perhaps assist with legal needs. We are also armed with toys and books, all of which we give away during the four hours.
We do our best. With Google Translate and forms in the languages needed, we are successful in learning about the immigrants. Many are unemployed. Most do not have a lawyer nor the money to pay for one. Some have a spouse whose own case is assigned to the other MA immigration court.
Fortunately ICE appears not to be present. But imagine driving to court wondering if ICE is hiding in the wings. Or knowing that the previous week, in the same courthouse, 10 ICE field staff in plainclothes arrested a woman in the same waiting area.
For my colleague and I, the 4-hour session flies by. (Not true for the immigrants waiting for their cases to be called.)We do our best to communicate what legal services may be available. We provide phone numbers of local organizations to contact for possible legal support. One female with a toddler, who is visibly shaking, asks my colleague to accompany her out – together they ride the elevator down and walk outside to where a friend awaits.
The good (?) news. The Court provided translation services for all cases. No one was arrested. Every case was continued for at least 11 months- May, 2026. One was continued to 2029. Couples’ cases which were in different courts were combined; and those cases closer to the other MA immigration court were transferred. The judge was patient and respectful, except when he got very angry at the DHS attorney (who appeared via Zoom).
I leave the court imaging myself in a foreign country, not speaking the language of the court, having had this experience. It’s unimaginable. Thanks to Court Watch for organizing this program.
Lynne Karsten
If You Knew – Ellen Bass
What if you knew you’d be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line’s crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn’t signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won’t say Thank you, I don’t remember
they’re going to die.
A friend told me she’d been with her aunt.
They’d just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt’s powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon’s spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – by Emmanuel Ortiz
- A Quiet Life – Baron Wormser
- A Wreath to the Fish – Nancy Willard
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Be Kind, Rewind – Neil Silberblatt
- Black Momma Math – Kimberly Jae
- Crow Blacker Than Ever – Ted Hughes
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads – Martha Rivera-Garrido
- Failing and Flying – Jack Gilbert
- Feel Mo – Michael Korson
- Footprints In Your Heart – Eleanor Roosvelt
- Forgetfulness – Billy Collins
- Growing Old – Emma Rosenberg
- Homesick: A Plea for Our Planet – Andrea Gibson
- How to Slay a Dragon – Rebecca Dupas
- I Talked to a Lady – Tanya Howden
- If You Knew – Ellen Bass
- Love is Not All – Edna St. Vincent Millay
- Men – Maya Angelou
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- Ode to Those Who Block Tunnels and Bridges – Sam Sax
- Relax – Ellen Bass
- Soliloquy of the Solipsist – Sylvia Plath
- Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
- The Four Noble Truths – Jake Onami Agnew
- The History of One Tough Motherfucker – Charles Bukowski
- The Layers – Stanley Kunitz
- The Long Boat – Stanley Kunitz
- The Shyness – Sharon Olds
- To Diego with Love – Frida Kalko
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Two-bloods – Rolando Kattan
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
- War Primer – Bertholt Brecht
- What I Learned From Listening to a Stutterer – Ellen Zorin
