.

Long List of Requirements

The sweet and lovely woman sought
__A man to call her own.
She had lots of prerequisites
__And kept them cast in stone.

Some friends were worried such a list
__Would court futility.
But she felt it was needed for
__Compatibility.

All those with vast criteria
__They call their comfort zone,
Might learn from this fine woman, who
__Regrets her life alone.

.

.

Self-Help

No matter the causative dramas,
One challenge we all must fulfill,
Is if we don’t tackle our traumas,
It’s certain the outside world will.

.

.

Return to Normal

The man enjoyed a long-blessed life
__With love and ample wealth.
But suddenly a threat was rife—
__A challenge to his health.

He prayed to God he’d be OK
__And promised if he was,
He’d have more gratitude each day
__In everything he does.

With awesome luck his health came back
__The threat in full supplanted.
And quickly he resumed his knack
__Of taking life for granted.

.

.
Just Another Deep Blue City Day

A nine-year-old girl
Just joyful and good,
Now lay in a morgue,
The victim of bullets
Intended for others
In her crime-infested
Deep Blue neighborhood.

Of course it caused outrage
Complete with a protest,
A minister said:
“There’s no reason or rhyme,
This can’t be accepted
We have to do something
It simply must end!”

For the thirty-third time.

.

.

Russel Winick recently started writing poetry after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

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33 Responses

  1. Alan Steinle

    Your first poem, “Long List of Requirements,” reminds me of the song “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by the band Yes. This is the chorus:

    Owner of a lonely heart
    Owner of a lonely heart
    (It’s much better than a) owner of a broken heart
    Owner of a lonely heart

    Your poem also reminds me of the saying, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.”

    Is loneliness worse than the risk of unhappiness or divorce? Regret can occur in both situations. However, with a different perspective, all experiences can be seen as opportunities to learn and grow.

    Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    There is a lot of wisdom packed into these compact verses! Great thoughts often have greater impact in a condensed package! These are to be savored and saved for future purposes.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Roy – Your words are more than I feel worthy of. Thank you so much for your kindness!

      Reply
  4. Norma Pain

    I really like all of these poems Russel. You manage to pack so much wisdom into so few words with clever rhythm and rhyme.

    Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    Yes, these all have gems of wisdom. They are fine and well-crafted poems, every single one.

    But let me add this: if readers just look for simple homespun lessons (the “three miseries” of meaning, message, and moral), they will miss Winick’s overall point. All four poems are sarcastic vignettes of human ignorance and silliness!

    Consider each one. The persnickety old maid, by being too choosy, has ruined her life. People who don’t face up to their own problems and traumas will get screwed by the world. A wealthy and comfortable man typically forgets the debt that he owes to God. An innocent child gets killed in the mad criminality of our urban centers.

    By putting them all together, Winick isn’t creating catechism examples! He’s portraying the inescapable horror of human stupidity, and its perennial results. As a lawyer, the poet certainly saw a great deal of the worst side of human life: the greed, the selfishness, the cruelty, the illogic, the vindictiveness, the hatred, the entanglements of protracted litigation… everything that lawyers, psychiatrists, and policemen see on a daily basis.

    Reply
    • Alan Steinle

      First of all, if our poems don’t have any meaning at all, then we might as well be writing random syllables. What makes meaning “miserable” sometimes is that we all read into another person’s words our own meanings, which might not be what the author or anyone else saw in the them.

      Words have unique meanings to each of us because they are associated with unique personal experiences in this world. Legal writing might try to take all of the uncertainty out of words, but even here there is wiggle room for interpretation.

      If we miss a poet’s own meaning completely, then he would be justified in explaining it in prose, but one of the exciting and frustrating things about poetry, and writing in general, is that we all have our own reflections and interpretations, which don’t have to be viewed or refuted as dogmas.

      You seem to be giving a meaning to the poems with this statement: “He’s portraying the inescapable horror of human stupidity, and its perennial results.” I wonder if the author would agree completely with your assessment. If he does, does that make it the absolute meaning of the poems? And if the horror of stupidity is inescapable, then why try to improve oneself at all?

      In my life and poems, I don’t try to create dogmas, but I do agree with the quotation from Browning, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Since our language can still create confusions, I believe that the ultimate truth is not verbal, but rather is a state of certainty in eternity. And that’s not a dogma. 🙂

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Alan, I did not say that Winick’s poems have no meaning, or that their meaning was purely dependent on what each individual sees in them. I merely said that the poems were sarcastic vignettes about human stupidity. I felt that many of the other comments posted disregarded this fact, and were reading the poems in a happy, feel-good, positive. smiley-face way — something that is far too common around here.

        About the validity of individual interpretations — let me give an anecdote. Many years ago, when I was on the full-time faculty at a college, we were interviewing a young man who had just received his PhD. and who was applying for a position as a Shakespeare specialist. To test his abilities, one of the interviewers asked him to talk at length about The Taming of the Shrew. He went on for about fifteen minutes, interpreting the play as a feminist indictment of male arrogance and patriarchal control, with all the concomitant bullshit about gender roles and misogyny. One of our older professors asked him: “Do you think that’s what Shakespeare intended as the meaning of the play?” The little schmuck smiled and replied: “That’s what it means today.”

        This radical relativism cannot be tolerated in the interpretation of literary texts, and certainly not when we are dealing with traditional formal poetry. Traditional texts have meaning — sometimes clear and fixed, sometimes nuanced, sometimes conflicted. But they are NOT available for any damned interpretation at all! I think Winick’s poems are about the subjects that I mentioned, and that reading them as happy occasions for moralizing is misguided.

        Maybe Winick would disagree with me, and say that he wrote the poems purely as illustrative material for sermons or catechisms. OK, fine. But to me that would suggest that poets are not always the best interpreters of their own work.

      • Russel Winick

        Alan – I would say that I try to depict the human condition as I see and understand it, including shortcomings that may be relatable and hopefully are interesting.

    • Russel Winick

      Joseph – Thank you, first of all, for the compliments. They are humbly appreciated. Second, your analysis is a good example of why SCP has been a godsend for me, in that you and so many other contributors have so much poetic knowledge and experience that I lack, and greatly benefit from. You all can see things in my poems that I’m not necessarily aware of myself, but which often make a quite a bit of sense. As for the sound grouping of these poems, all credit for that goes to Evan, not me.

      Reply
  6. Mia

    On reading these poem I inadvertently thought of something that up to now found perplexing. What makes a good poem for me. Given that all are well written with meter and rhyme , why are some more appealing than others .On reading these I realised that the poet here makes unpleasant scenarios far more palatable and easier to read. Well apart from the last one the previous ones all made me smile but given its subject it did not jar.
    Poetry elevating the mundane? I don’t know just commenting. What do you think ? In other words thank you for these, enjoyed reading them .

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thank you Mia – I’m glad you enjoyed the poems. I try to depict life and people with messages that are no happier or sadder than reality and credibility requires.

      Reply
  7. Paul A. Freeman

    The Long List of Requirements is an excellent modern cautionary tale, if not an allegory.

    Reading Self-Help, I read ‘tantrums’ for ‘traumas’, both of which resonate, though the former doesn’t, alas, rhyme with ‘dramas’.

    And Just Another Deep Blue City Day – I didn’t understand why the blue factor needed to be included to explain away the high per capita death rate from guns and gun violence in America. That aside, the blase ‘thoughts and prayers’ ending is masterful.

    Thanks for the reads.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Are you trying to censor what Winick says, Paul? Does his “meaning” have to coincide with your political opinions?

      Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Paul – Thank you for your compliments. They are much appreciated. Just Another Deep Blue City Day was inspired by actual events, which occurred recently in a large, urban, Democratically-controlled city. For the reason alluded to by Mike below, I believe those demographic and political facts are part of the story, and therefore they were included in the poem.

      Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      At some point, Paul, you will have seen enough of what’s happening in urban settings run by libtards to realize that such “leaders” are spectacularly inept at preserving civilization. Or perhaps it will never matter how much you have seen, due to your clouded vision.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        “Inept” implies that they want to preserve civilization but just aren’t smart enough. I don’t give them that much credit. If they were inept, they’d make mistakes in our favor once in a while, but they never do. No, I think they actively want to destroy civilization to make us all easier to control.

      • Mike Bryant

        There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.
        -Leonardo da Vinci

  8. Mike Bryant

    First, Russel these poems are really great. I do know that you know this simple fact:

    The USA is 3rd in murders throughout the world.
    If you remove:
    1. Chicago
    2. Detroit
    3. Washington DC
    4. St. Louis
    5. New Orleans
    The USA is then 189th out of 193 countries in the world.
    All five cities have very strict gun laws and are run by Democrats.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thank you Mike, for the praise. And yes, I am generally familiar with those facts. I’m from the first city on your list, and it’s very scary.

      Reply
  9. C.B. Anderson

    I love a mordant poem, Russel. Keep watching the world and keep callin’ ’em
    like you see ’em.

    Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Russel, these poems tap into the dark side of the human psyche to reveal exactly why the world is plagued with loneliness, irresponsibility, ingratitude, and apathy… and what an abundance there is to go round… often paid for by those stoking chaos for personal gain. Thank you for shedding light in the dark and murky corners where the ogres and their apologists lurk.

    Reply
  12. Jeff Eardley

    Russel, very witty and most enjoyable. I particularly enjoyed “Return to normal,” that feeling of euphoria on recovery from surgery that quickly melts away into the daily grind of normality. There is much wisdom in your poetry. Thank you for a great read.

    Reply
  13. Adam Sedia

    “A Long List of Requirements” is a nice character study, but one reminiscent of a more innocent time when women who were too picky would become spinsters “church ladies.” Unfortunately, an updated version of the poem would have to be X-rated to account for the escapades before thinking she is still wife material.

    As a fellow Chicagoland resident (though mercifully on the Indiana side), “Just Another Deep Blue City Day” evoked memories of I don’t know how many local news reports (before I stopped watching for good) of justifiably outraged communities that then go on to ask for more of what makes them miserable. Also, nice double entendre on “blue.”

    Reply

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