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    It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: Poems
    It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: Poems
    It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: Poems
    Ebook133 pages1 hour

    It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: Poems

    By Greg Masters

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    About this ebook

    In this new book of poems, his ninth from Crony Books, Masters cuts through the lies perpetrated as the American Dream pitched to us like soap detergent over the past 50 years.

    The title poem is an attempt at a sort of "Howl 2". Written in a wayward trochaic octameter (eight beats a line) it is a grand kvetch to pierce veneer, call out government miscreants and establish truths attesting to perspectives chronically pushed to the margins and excluded from corporate boardrooms and TV fantasies.

    The bulk of the book is taken up by "My East Village," another epic poem (in trochaic octameter) that chronicles the downtown neighborhood Masters has lived in for the past 45 years, celebrating its cultural riches while bemoaning its blandification.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateNov 16, 2020
    ISBN9781098341732
    It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This: Poems

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      Book preview

      It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This - Greg Masters

      Author

      At 20 minutes, 37 seconds

      At 20 minutes, 37 seconds

      into track one of a box-set

      reissue of the Miles Davis Quintet

      recording Freedom Jazz Dance,

      a previously unissued rehearsal take,

      the raspy-voiced bandleader instructs

      drummer Tony Williams to play triplets.

      Up to this point in the ensemble’s

      working out of the tune, he’d,

      uncharacteristically,

      been lagging, playing as if he were

      still with Jackie McLean,

      accompanying with a ring-a-ding-ding

      on the ride cymbal.

      But after first working out a bass part for

      Ron Carter and a few run-throughs –

      Wayne Shorter certainly had the head down

      and Herbie Hancock seemed assured

      with splashes of chords –

      Miles instructs his teenaged drummer

      to lay down a triplet pattern and, after a

      few attempts, he hits on the pulsating

      underlying momentum that, still,

      50-plus years after recording,

      transforms the seven-minute

      master track into a miracle.

      Decades Later

      If someone had taken

      20 seconds to explain

      to me that learning a

      new language could

      prove valuable later on,

      perhaps my resentment

      at having to attend

      Hebrew school three

      times a week for four

      years during prime

      baseball-playing years

      would have been supplanted

      by eager knowledge-seeking

      and curiosity satiated by

      independent and thorough

      scholarship. How satisfying

      that might have proved.

      A simple explanation

      instead of dropping me

      into a foreign environment

      where I had to try and fit,

      be sociable, not give offense.

      What a pain, I know now,

      though too anxious then

      to do anything more than

      color between the lines,

      so to speak.

      Alphaville Revisited

      Wrong World

      I’ve been working on a

      unified theory

      to make sense of my

      uncertain perspective

      in a universe 14.8 billion

      years old, to concatenate

      the vectors.

      You know: Alonso hits

      a ball to the right side,

      the grinding of stone

      down in the air shaft,

      the moment of this pen

      on paper making

      thoughts tangible.

      *

      Fishing Line

      Fishing line.

      Amazing, right?

      *

      Tomorrow’s headlines today

      Poet Topples Trump

      Earth Renamed Rolling Stones

      *

      For those with intention but little talent

      Who am I to judge?

      Get up on that stage.

      Leave me out of it.

      *

      I used to recant

      now I decant

      *

      If I were

      to think of you

      it wouldn’t be

      because I

      wanted to

      *

      Madras

      I had madras

      *

      Us at Our Best

      I heard a

      NASA scientist

      comment

      that the Cassini

      space mission

      was us at our best.

      I’d add the pyramids,

      the music of Bach, Miles Davis

      and John Coltrane,

      the choreography of

      George Balanchine,

      the 12 two-reelers

      Charlie Chaplin made

      for the Mutual Film Corp.

      in 1916-17,

      and a video clip

      shown on TV today of

      a man shielding his

      fallen partner with

      his body amid a

      crowd scrambling

      as a domestic terrorist

      opens fire.

      What would you add?

      [audience input]

      *

      Before There Was You

      I stared at the ceiling

      people crowded me

      my blood pressure was high

      my expectations low

      now I shop for fish

      and watch the skies

      by your side

      *

      Dream with commercial

      I had a dream

      with a commercial.

      Who do I have to pay

      to get my premium

      dream channel back?

      *

      Every glimpse

      worth capture

      in the Catskills

      *

      2 a.m.?

      5 m.g.

      *

      Mild Verdict

      Brünnhilde defied her old man, it’s true

      Doing what she wasn’t supposed to do

      *

      Not Ready to Die

      There are still some

      Terje Rypdal albums

      I haven’t heard

      *

      The swallows

      build nests in the barn,

      Keith the farmer is

      saying at a dinner party.

      Before flying south,

      the new flock, could be

      dozens, all line up

      on the barn roof.

      Harry James

      An untamed girl

      is standing on a desk.

      I think we’re between

      classes when this

      episode of fury unfolds.

      An adult appears and

      attempts to restore order.

      What’s your name?

      he demands of my classmate,

      Lincoln Junior High School #4.

      Harry James, she responds,

      exacerbating the challenge

      to all decency and propriety.

      I remember her long, dark hair

      (Italian? Downtown?)

      and wanting to know more

      about her as I stood back

      admiring her stance.

      She and I both know who

      Harry James is, I’m thinking,

      some big-band leader

      our parents used to listen to.

      I’m envying her feral grace

      that likely landed her in

      detention, but for that

      moment, at least, reminds

      us more timid of the

      natural state we all once

      inhabited, from which

      we all were forcibly weaned.

      Just one more display

      of resistance I somehow

      recall 50-plus years later –

      and salute.

      Salve for Bewilderment

      I approached Eric Clapton

      at a garden party and

      started speaking:

      "I first heard your playing

      on that John Mayall

      Blues Breaker album

      when I was in high school," I said.

      How did you get that sound?

      My buddy James Hale,

      a fine music journalist,

      strolled by and with a flick

      of his wrist tapped my back

      to ratify the high quality

      of my question.

      I was forming the thoughts

      to tell the musician

      how much his music meant

      to me. How the current

      from his electric guitar

      not only sliced through the

      matter-of-factness of

      my New Jersey suburb

      but steered me and my buddies

      to the sources from which

      it emanated, all a pleasure,

      all a revelation through

      those hours of teenage wonder,

      a salve for the bewilderment

      among the sidewalk segments

      displaced by the expanding roots

      of the thick-trunked

      street-border trees or

      calling me isolate

      in upstairs bedroom

      connecting me to the

      molten core of

      a stranger reality.

      Clapton was effusive

      in his response and at ease.

      Unfortunately, I can’t

      recall his answer

      to

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