Anthony Watkins's Blog

A matching pair of garden poems

The Winter in the Garden

The overgrown flowering vines

so recently covered in brilliant

yellow and orange and red and white,

now stand ghostly withered,

 dead in their brown winter clothes.

I sit, in my heavy thrift store long black wool coat.

Coffee and sunshine fighting off the worst of it.

Dark green paint on the iron of the gate

and pocked and dirty white bench.

The neighbor’s cat sleeps on the other bench,

all else is covered by a melting frost,

“all other ground is sinking sand”.

In my Garden in Venice

In my mind, I live in a garden,

off one of the main canals in Venice,

it is poorly maintained,

as I am old and sick, and truth be told,

a bit lazy, and too poor to hire a gardener.

They came, and pushed over the old sprawling

dilapidated mansion, two stories of falling down-ness,

they smoothed over the garden,

plowing under the brick walls,

the gate, the old iron benches,

but in my mind, in a small old house

on the outskirts of Tallahassee,

my garden and the old mansion

still stand, shabby, but secure,

no developer can ever push them over there.

I have a sovereign deed signed

by the king of this place that

I live inside my head.

I will drink coffee here,

probably still, after I am dead.

I Read from Squared-off Books

sitting at a squared off table, 

in a room, in a world created 

by squared off minds. 

I have always loved 

a rambling ramshackle story 

set in an old house where rooms

were added over time as needed,

not by some architect’s preconceived notion 

of the art of efficiency. 

If the story leads me up a staircase in the dark

on missions ordered by untrustworthy relatives,

if night is protected by two riders approaching 

if the afternoon sun glitters on signs of broken glass 

Pointing to  forests where beautiful nymphs 

are burned at the stake 

for the crime of being free. 

If I sit by a wandering stream

looking for candid flies 

under the clear water, 

I will not square off my tale

to fit your meter nor your form. 

I am not afraid of your squared off god, 

he will never enter

the round rooms of my soul. 

Sometimes in a Magazine

sitting on the bench reading a book

and sometimes stopping to look

at the pictures in some New York magazine.

Never been there and hardly even read what it says,

but the art goes well with my coffee, or at least

that’s what you told me one time

I drink my coffee black

from a bottle of Mogen David

wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper.

Sitting here in a cross-town road in Nevada,

I like the whole “I’m from the big city” thing,

though pretty sure everybody knows I’m lying.

Greyhound is gonna take me away,

but I’m going back to Birmingham

not no yankee town.

The sign says Elko, but I don’t know,

 thinking about Led Zeppelin

and not being able to trust the signs

and about Bobby’s Lily

thinking about the law

come on greyhound, carry me away!

Pizza on the Alter

On the alter that is the entrance to Rio 

gulls and sparrows search for pizza crusts

and bits of pasta amongst the empty beer cans

 while others raid the dumpster

and dream of a paradise more grand than this.

I stand under the arch and wonder

who thought this structure was a good idea,

an arch between nowhere and nothing,

I have eaten there myself

a lifetime ago, though I had to pay

for my pizza on a cold sunny afternoon

and drank my beer from a thermos.

The Blessing

F.U.&.K. CANCER,
is a popular saying,
about five months ago
I found out I had stage four
liver and pancreatic cancer

at first we thought I had
only a few months to live
but it turned out the cancer
wasn’t garden variety super
deadly pancreatic cancer

oddly my cancer is more often
found in lungs, which is scary
but it is slower growing
now the doctor says I may have a few years
years, not months, that’s a blessing

but the main blessing is the cancer itself,
the knowing I am dying before I turn seventy
the doctor admitted I am doing better
he said, looking back, in August,
he thought I might be gone by now.

The thing is, now I know a secret:
everyday, even with nausea, headaches,
cramps and digestive issues, I am lucky,
life is wonderful, the air is delicious,
the companionship of friends
and the love of family are sweet

so whether I have 100 days
or five years, I am grateful
we are all dying, we all have cancer
and yet, I am blessed to know, to see
the short days I have left are all
magical, wonderful, truly a gift,
a gift for living, not grieving.

The Homeless Sportscaster

recalls when the tiktok world was free

and the glory of videos were not blemished

by wild attacks on all things Chinese.

Small-minded Americans believe the lies,

the lies about immigrants, about China,

about Palestine and the transgendered

folks needing to pee.

In this brave new world where Nazis

are elected by the best people,

the white people, the real Americans,

the real English and the alternatively real Germans,

we are all going to be so safe from everything

that could never have hurt us.

I look at my white face in the mirror

and feel so safe, for the world is becoming great again,

though he died today so we may never know the final score.

Hellman’s by Marriage

We only use Hellman’s in our house,

I grew up on Kraft, don’t get me wrong,

I wanted Hellman’s ever since the 1970s

when I saw the commercial of the poor guy

trying to make a midnight sandwich,

only to find his Hellman’s jar was empty,

and the store was closed so he put the bread and meat

back up and went to bed hungry,

“Bring Out Your Best” and all.

Tonight, I was making a 4 am dressing sandwich

and reading the jar as I ate.

Somehow, Hellman’s is “the Best West of the Rockies”

even though the family brand is now part of Unilever,

aren’t they a soap company?

And is now based in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

The ingredients starts with soybean oil, water, eggs,

vinegar, egg yokes, yes, both whole eggs and egg yolks.

The label helpfully reminds me this product contains eggs,

which is good to know, as I am allergic to eggs,

but apparently soybean oil neutralizes my reaction,

that or some of the preservatives.

But my wife grew up on Hellman’s so it is easier

sometimes to adopt another’s family tradition,

especially when I was never crazy about Kraft,

or instant coffee, or canned vegetables,

though I did like the little jars of mushrooms,

but I have given those up too,

she prefers fresh ones, and I guess I do, too, now,

and I switched to fresh bags of coffee,

from the Maxwell House jars or even Folgers crystals

they secretly change out at fine restaurants,

I don’t care if Juan Valdez does lead his burro up

the steep mountain paths to hand pick each berry.

I am finding life is much too short for instant anything,

and I do like the way Hellman’s makes a thick textured whip

instead of the Kraft forever smooth look.

And it all makes my wife happy,

and that tastes better to the last drop.

My Grandma to your Grandma

Another one for my upcoming collection Rag Baloney

(with Apologies to Mike Quinn and Mary Carol Catanese)

You stand, a young girl and later a young grown up women,
at the elbow of your Italian grandmother, making pasta,
making meatballs and so many Italian desserts,
the smell of spices and sweet pie fillings flavor
the air of your northeastern big city home.

Aunts and uncles yelling and waving
their hands and laughing, your cousins
missing all the action playing in the snow.

I stand in the kitchen in rural Alabama,
my mother’s mother showing me how
to chop the celery and onions,
and crumble the cornbread,
how to add the bacon fat and broth
and huge scoops of rubbed sage
to the bowl almost big enough to swim in,

then carefully pour the hot celery and onion
mix into the bowl and stir it with my fingers
into the coldness of the other ingredients,
still burning but not too much.

She, at 70, retired from the burning of her fingers
and even as time went by she would sit and watch me,
without doing, just coaching.

Then as my mother would fill the pie crusts
with the amazing egg and sugar and godknowswhatelse
I would pick out perfect halves from the nuts
we picked up that morning and cracked a bit earlier,
laid out in perfect circles to top the pecan pies.

And then to Jackson, Mississippi where my father’s mother
put on bacon and percolating coffee and we ate
the bacon while we battered the nearly blacked fried okra,
and scraped the fried corn from the ears into the cast iron skillet,
with her, every once in a while saying okay get back,
and she opened the door and basted the turkey.

Dead since ’81 and 91’ they are as alive with me
in the kitchen as they were in 1967!

Grandmothers never die, they just sit
at the table and talk to me while I cook.

Two Feet

On my feet and moving, 

don’t particularly care

 where I’m going just so happy

to be out walking around

on this cold sunny solstice day. 

I spent too long on my back 

too long in my chair 

feels so good to be out walking 

around on my feet and moving.

“Indie Publishers Hub”

Readers, Writers, Publishers:

What we more need is a global co-op that creates an online market where publishers can join at low cost and add titles also at very low costs. Maybe $10-$50 per year and $1 per title, where we can blurb a title and have a clickable link to that publishers website to sell the book (and also encourage further browsing on their site) this “Indie Publishers Hub” by whatever name, run by and owned as a coop of the publishers would be a useful thing. the world does not need another big box ANYTHING, bookstore, grocery, hardware electronics, etc.

As a sick old man who will probably be dead before this could really catch fire, i am putting the idea out there for others to comment, improve coordinate and create.

Please respond!