Allen Shadow's Blog, page 3
August 19, 2016
‘July Arrested Me’
Big July arrested me
the little kid
with the skinny arms
urging the steering wheel
alone in the unlocked Studebaker
the sun exploding
off the taillight chrome
of the fat Buick parked ahead
Wanting so bad
to roll out into the world
I had only imagined
how it would feel
like sex probably
which I also
did not know
or flying
And I did somehow
when the brake released and
I began rolling backwards downhill
and for a long moment
was on a fear-struck joy ride
maybe the last of my little life
but I might see the farms of Iowa
wild horses
and the TV sunlight of California
If a rear tire hadn’t kissed the curb
setting me down hard from my cloud
back to rest on the East Bronx street
to the cry of “supper”
Filed under: essays, lifestyle, literature, Lost New York, media, New York City, poetry, travel, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: Poetry,writing,essay,cars,abandoned cars,writing,journalism,news,dreams,1950s,New York,music,Studebaker,Dodge,Hudson,Cadillac,memoir,memories,remembrance of things past,summer,James Dean,travel,lost n
July 12, 2016
‘Wrecked Nash’
Upon viewing this beast, this tank, this dream of a car at a local auto show, I knew it was time to reprise this poem from my recent chapbook, “America, I’ll Have My Way With You,” followed by a rumination on the original experience, which appeared in a post here on 3/9/10.
In the Wrecked Nash
Big stand of day lilies
in the July morning
the time when the trees
begin to hang
the country taxi
takes a bend on 23A
headed up the mountain
I was nine the summer
in Mahopac when the ambulance
came and took old man Figarelli
the guy who threw
hot water on the dogs
humping on the gravel roads
of the bungalow colony
later me and Leif
sat among the hornets
in the wrecked Nash
that listed in the weeds
we had the front seat
and the world
all to ourselves
the huge plastic wheel
the split windshield
the hot seats
we could make up anything
excursions to distant states
being Audie Murphy
home runs a mile high
deadmen flying through the trees
From ‘The Hot Ride’ (3/9/10)
A heat bomb hit me when I slid into my Chevy today, a welcome rapture after an icy winter in upstate New York. It took me right back to the tireless Nash that was heaped among the weeds in my boyhood, nested among toads and copperheads in a bungalow colony in Peekskill.
A James Deanish boy named Leif was my summer partner in crime. He was the true grit country boy, I, the city kid learning the ropes. We were just short of teenage, and that mechanical skeleton was our rocket to the moon.
We sat in the stultifying July sun, hornets circling; our souls exulted from the dusty upholstery scents as we took turns behind the hot steering wheel, the battered speedometer feeding our imaginations. The cracked and crazed sheet metal became a time machine, taking us on far journeys through states that were as yet unknown. Our young hearts baked and burned. Turn after turn, we explored, as if mapping out the rest of our lives.
I have no idea what happened to Leif after that summer. Year after year, my own soul baked on: in my father’s Studebaker, Dodge; in my first car, a 1948 Cadillac hearse. That black monolith took me to California and back twice, tracing every road I had imagined in that magical Nash.
It persists. I’ve since traveled the back roads of most states. I continue the journey every chance I get: Cross Creek, Savannah, New Orleans, Pueblo, Greensboro, Kansas City, Staunton, Barstow, Albuquerque. Somehow, it’s always just beginning, when the sun enwraps you behind the wheel.
America is in my blood, my bones, as evinced in my writing.
Filed under: "Hell City", books, essays, fiction, journalism, lifestyle, literature, media, photography, poetry, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: Essay,cars,abandoned cars,writing,journalism,news,dreams,1960s,New York,bungalow colony,Peekskill,Cross Creek,Savannah,New Orleans,Pueblo,Greensboro,Kansas City,Staunton,Albuquerque,music,Miss America
December 22, 2015
Shadow’s NY Times Story Included in ‘Best of 2015’
The piece I wrote as part of the New York Times “Walking New York” feature last spring is included in the Times feature: “2015: Our Best Visual Stories and Graphics.” The feature is published in today’s online edition.
To find my piece, click here, scroll down to the “Walking New York” story and search “Kovler”. Or, even simpler, click here, to read it (it’s a short piece) on this blog. I wrote this one under my given name, Allen Kovler vs. my penname, Allen Shadow.
Filed under: essays, fiction, journalism, lifestyle, literature, media, news, photography, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: 2015: Our Best Visual Stories and Graphics, Allen Kovler, allen shadow, Grand Concourse, new york, new york times, novelist, NY, NY Times, poet, the Bronx, Walking New York, writer
October 29, 2015
‘Hell City’ TV Pilot is Finalist
My Hell City TV pilot was selected as a finalist in the 2015 World Series of Screenwriting competition. Based on my novel by the same name, the pilot was chosen in the TV Drama Pilot category.
Winners and finalists were chosen from more than 700 submissions worldwide. The Hell City series is based on my novel, a literary thriller about a search for homegrown jihadists, with unforgettable characters and an undercurrent of longing for a lost America. The novel can be found on Amazon.
Filed under: "Hell City", fiction, journalism, lifestyle, literature, media, movies, news, terrorism, war, writing Tagged: allen shadow, Drama Pilot, fiction, film directors, film festivals, film producers, Hell City, literary agents, TV Pilot, World Series of Screenwriting
September 3, 2015
Windy Hill
There was the country road
went on forever
me and Leif hurling rocks
swinging sticks
on the way to town
Weeds all sweated
gravel in our sneaks
Fords occasionally
even a Packard
long enough to make us dream
would the girls all be pretty as Renee
would we fly
Dusk back at the bungalow colony
Pete the jocky took us out on Thunder
bareback in the fields
nothing but the night birds now
Vesuvius beneath us
and the orange sun
Note: Windy Hill is part of my poetry series on summer.
Filed under: lifestyle, literature, poetry, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: Allen Kovler, allen shadow, music, poetry, songwriting, writing
July 24, 2015
Elegy for Claude
We did take the world
Didn’t we, Niño?
Took all the dim bar light
And made it sing
Didn’t we, Niño?
Made the girls call our name
At least some of time
Didn’t we, Niño?
And even dared take the city lights
And bend them into dreams
Didn’t we, Niño?
And in the end
Knew for sure
How the gleam in your eyes
Would simply go on forever
We did know that
Didn’t we, Niño?
Claude Haton
R.I.P. Claude Haton
My little brother
November 1, 1955 to July 19, 2014
Note: A benefit concert in Claude’s honor will be held August 1 in Cairo, N.Y. (proceeds go to scholarship fund for local high school students).
Filed under: music, poetry, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: Allen Kovler, allen shadow, Claude Haton, music, poetry, songwriting, writing
July 7, 2015
The Red Apple Rest
Took a wrong turn and ran smack into my past: The Red Apple Rest, a way station for city travelers on their way to the Catskills, abandoned now for nearly 30 years. Had no idea she still existed.
The Red Apple Rest
Beautiful in her ghostly repose, she inspired this poem:
THE RED APPLE REST
Came upon her by accident
and as surprised as when
she loomed up at us
as we breached that far hill
in the Studebaker
The Red Apple Rest
that boyhood vision
ship-like
in all her sweeping glory
magic oasis for urban escapees
Snack bar windows yawning
for the idling Fords, Mercs and Greyhounds
engines hotter than Venus
dogs, malts, pastrami
loudspeakers and mothers’ calls
Free to roam and exult for a time
gape at the oddities
men with beards
girls with midriffs
until back in the oven car
stuffed with pillows and dishes
and dreams of an endless summer
Filed under: lifestyle, literature, media, New York City, photography, poetry, travel, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: allen shadow, Catskills, poetry, Red Apple Rest, rest stops, Route 17, Tuxedo NY, writing
July 1, 2015
Ode to the Lost Motels of the Jersey Shore
Exploring Seaside Heights, N.J., for the first time, and, sadly, I find no treasure-trove of midcentury motels like there are in Wildwood. Here, as testament, is an image of a Jeffrey L. Neumann painting of the Seashell Motel in Wildwood and my poem on the same subject (total coincidence, but not surprising, since Jeffrey and I cover the same beat: lost America).
“Sea Shell,” a painting by Jeffrey Neumann
CHECKOUT AT THE SEA SHELL MOTEL
the caramel room
at the Sea Shell Motel
dollar store palm prints
and nicotine sills
cheap rum hangs in the shaft of sun dust
hula lamps hold the afternoon
dealings have come and gone —
Greek families, pimps, divorcees,
schmuck runaways, suicide watches
music plays no more
only murmurings and distant trucks
the scent of the bulldozer
Filed under: art, essays, fiction, lifestyle, literature, painting, poetry, travel, Uncategorized, writing Tagged: allen shadow, Americana, art, Jeffrey L. Neumann, painting, poetry, writing
April 27, 2015
Shadow in Online Edition of The NY Times
Just to clarify, my story appears in the online version of the “Walking New York” Magazine feature in The Times, and doesn’t appear in the print edition. If you’re looking, click here and search “Kovler” in your browser to find it quickly.
Filed under: essays, fiction, journalism, lifestyle, literature, media, New York City, news, writing Tagged: Allen Kovler, allen shadow, Grand Concourse, new york, new york times, novelist, NY, NY Times, poet, the Bronx, Walking New York, writer
April 25, 2015
Shadow in The NY Times Online
Just to clarify, my story appears in the online version of the “Walking New York” Magazine feature, and doesn’t appear in the print edition. Go to the story online and search “Kovler” in your browser to find it quickly.
Filed under: essays, fiction, journalism, lifestyle, literature, media Tagged: Allen Kovler, allen shadow, Grand Concourse, new york, new york times, novelist, NY, NY Times, poet, the Bronx, Walking New York, writer
