Connections

By Clifford Peacock

Poetry addresses fundamentals that shape our lifes brief moment . . . Supreme Being, Evolution, Societal Evolution, perception of the Inner Spirit, Soul. Awareness and acceptance of our physical, emotional, spiritual integration is based upon Connections . . . external and internal. HUMAN . . . family, friends, kindred souls, culture, religion, experiences, countless unknown sources; NATURE . . . animals, plants, trees, the universe; CONNECTED . . . understanding, acceptance, satisfaction; DISCONNECTED . . . fear, sorrow, hopelessness, apprehension, failure; INTERNAL CONNECTION . . . to the spirit, key to the who am I enigma; reluctant admission to a frightening reality . . . to some questions,
there are NO ANSWERS.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 10, 2009
• ISBN: 9781441577108

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Copyright © 2009 by Clifford Peacock.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

The Face

Prelude To Poetry

Human

Perception

Awareness

With You

Willie’s Comin’ Home

Finality

Christmas On The Courts

What You Gotta’ Do

You Took My Hand

The Awakening

Prelude To Poetry

Nature

Death Of An Amaryllis

Breakfast With Lenny

For Flo

Poop And Circumstance

Brotherhood

Breakfast At Mickey D’s

Count D’ Orsey

Prelude To Poetry

Connected

Connection

Clarity

Creation

The Gift

Disconnected

Letting Go

Empty Chairs

Dubai

Reflections

Nightmare

The Face

Hitchhiker

Spider In Space

Prelude To Poetry

Internal Connection

The Moment

Yesterday

Tears

Face Of The Church

Too Late

Belief

The Pact

Epilogue

THE FACE

Slowly, I circled the spotlighted, black ebony sculpture

Of softly chiseled, curving lines, a woman’s perfection.

Heart pounding, sounds fading, eyes rose in anticipation.

No eyes, no face. Only blankness to hide what lay deeper.

Sadness, premonition of what the depths conceal

As intuition probed beneath the shallows to reveal

A glimpse of compassion, anger and hopeless fears,

Yearning to unleash the heart, shed cleansing tears.

How can such emotions remain stagnant, sunk so low

That even deep search cannot induce a clarified flow,

Allow loved ones, as well as yourself, to be aware

Of who you may be even though all is not laid bare.

So a face is carefully crafted, a clever mask to cover

Unexplored feelings that may lie submerged forever.

Communication via diluted truth, flawed perception,

We become strangers in a world of mass deception.

Peering closer where the sculpture’s face might have been,

Oblivious to all, save the sorrow overflowing from within,

A reflected face slowly appeared, a tiny tear, a silent sigh,

And then I knew, the premonition proved true . . . It was 1.

PRELUDE TO POETRY

I grew up in a fairly large (100,000 people) for that day Southern city that was laid out in a completely segregated grid (white and black) with various groups located within each grid related to economic status. Needless to say, there were many more economic levels in the white sections than the black.

I never went to school or church with a black person, nor to a movie or the beach. I never sat next to a black person on a bus even if the only seat left was in the back of the bus, and they did the same regarding the front of the bus. In short, there was almost no contact with anyone other than a white person.

On the rare occasion, once in the only white high school and having made some friends in higher level economic groups, that I visited in their homes, saw a black maid or two . . . can’t remember ever talking with them, though. And when our high school sports teams traveled around the state to compete (most cities had only one white high school and one black), the other teams were all white, too. So, sports didn’t bring us together.

There was one business street that wasn’t segregated. No, not a red light district, that business was segregated, too, two different sections of town. I can still see the white red light district to this day (come on, now, I was just a kid, it was the shortest way from our neighborhood to downtown) as starch-white sailors lined up for blocks just to get inside the houses. I assume there was a black red light district, too.

Anyway, the one business street where blacks and whites interacted was lined with furniture stores and featured a huge indoor and outdoor city market . . . fresh meat, game, frogs, squirrels, vegetables, fruits, everything imaginable. What an exciting place! Stalls were manned by blacks and whites, customers were black and white. During my years from six to twelve years old, there seemed to be a somewhat racially blind atmosphere. It’s the way I remember. It was as if this was the way life was, the way it was meant to be. No contact whatsoever between groups most of the time, then a different group consisting of blacks and whites on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It worked for me, no questions, just the way it was.

Behind me right now, as I write, is a combination bookcase/pull-down writing desk that was bought in about 1934 in a furniture store on that bi-racial street, actually tri-racial in that era’s attitude, because the store was owned by Finkelstein. I still remember the sign on the door. Most of the stores were owned by Jewish people, a fact well-noted by the white grids of the city. Yes, there was a social segregation regarding this group also (clubs, neighborhoods, etc. but not the school system). I may come back to the Jewish groups later in my group thinking, but won’t pursue it now. Somehow it will be tied into economics/social status grouping.

That bookcase, bought on time was to house my set of Book of Knowledge encyclopedias, also bought on time from a persistent, slick, door-to-door salesman. He played on my father’s seventh grade education and machinist’s occupation as well as my mother’s background as a school teacher to make the sale.

I lived in the depression thirties during the desperation-filled days of fathers who walked the streets searching for work of any kind, even illegal, if available . . . once-proud mothers who would accept left-over food and hand-me-down clothes for their children, even solicit help from organizations and strangers . . . mothers who would close the door when their children left to walk to school and sink to the floor, tears spilling between fingers pressed over eyes as a pool formed on the cracked linoleum. Even worse were the families where the male members . . . father, sons, brothers had given up . . . and they sat on the front porch quietly, blankly staring, even forgetting to take a drag on the butt collected from the sidewalk. Talk about man’s kinship with animals, basic instinct of survival . . . and fatalism.

Ever been to Africa or seen a videotape, movie, whatever, of a wildebeest cut off from the herd, surrounded by jackals . . . head down, tail down, spread-legged, waiting to be slaughtered?

That’s the way it was in my neighborhood, but not for me. My Dad’s job as a government-employed machinist on the naval base held throughout that rotten time. We had few material possessions, but I didn’t know it, never did, until I started having to make my own living. And, the memories come back. Sent by my shadowy prompters?

How does this relate to my attitude toward race or minorities as these groups are often called? Not sure except that during all this, I wasn’t aware that the blacks might be infinitely worse off, that their children were hungry, their parents in despair. I didn’t even think about it. Didn’t know it. They were Wednesdays and Saturdays at the market and on the tri-racial street. I had no black friends, or acquaintances as a child. We lived in different worlds, truly.

This was not the case in some ways, very significant ways. During childhood, I spent summers between the ages of roughly six and twelve with my grandparents in the country.

You know, this is the first time I’ve ever wondered why this was the order of my life. Was it in some way to shield me from the harsh reality of depression era urban life? But I didn’t know it was so bad. The kids with whom I played, went to school and church with, fought with, they didn’t know either. It’s only when I look back that I know how bad it must have been, when I recall some of those adult faces as they really were with the dead eyes, the despair, the hopelessness.

I wanted to go to the country to be with my grandparents, counted the days until school would be out, couldn’t wait to pick up my country life with Boots, my cousin. So, it could have been that my parents arranged it to make me happy. That would be like them, even if they would have preferred to have me at home. Besides, they came to visit every few weeks and spent the weekend just to let me taste a few spoonfuls of discipline, so that I wouldn’t become ill from excessive freedom . . . or deprivation of love they so freely gave me.

And the thought does occur, not happily, but with some degree of certainty, that my parents were human. Perhaps they enjoyed their summer as well.

In any event, I realize now that those annual three-month adventures have done more to formulate my attitudes and positions regarding race in particular and "groups in general than any other influence in my life . . . including the Merchant Marine, the US Navy, Martin