A History of a Journeyman Poet

By Robert Mäder-Kammer

But whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by sense have not a like dependence on my will. When in the broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or what particular objects shall present themselves to my view and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses (George Berkeley, 1710, Principles of Human Knowledge, Section 29).

The History of a Journeyman Poet is a collection of autobiographical, semi-autobiographical, fantasy, and science-fiction poems. Though all the joy and all the pain the author has experienced over the course of his life, all this joy and pain are far exceeded or matched by countless others. What are unique are the authors perceptions and interpretations, when seeing, hearing, or smelling, his wordcraft.

The goal of the craft of poetry writing, like other creative works, is to produce a master work. In the old craft guilds, all start out as apprentices. Some move on to become journeymen, a smaller number become masters. According to the author, these are his journeyman poems. As the journeyman is corrected by his master, the author welcomes corrections by his masters.

Also like the literal meaning of the phrase journey man, this collection of poems are interpretations of a few moments in the authors unique yet ordinary life's journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496970312

Robert Mäder-Kammer

Robert Mäder-Kammer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. His mother, Charlotte, was German and his father was an American soldier. He was never fully a German and never fully identified himself as an American. For most of his early childhood, his mother was a single parent, attempting to take care of her two sons. Her boys also lived with several families in small rural villages. These were informal foster-care arrangements. His mother was unable to work and to take care of him and his younger brother, Mike. She also felt that this was the best living arrangement for them. She was concerned for their health. She lived with her father, a German veteran of World War II, who had contracted tuberculosis while he was an English prisoner of war. Robert’s mother had also been a prisoner of war, first with the American forces and then with the Soviets. She escaped and narrowly missed being shipped to Siberia. When he was eight years old, Robert and his brother Mike, age five, were taken from Germany by their mother when she immigrated to the United States. Within a few months, Charlotte married Edward Kammer. It was not a happy marriage or childhood for Robert and Mike. Though Robert never completely assimilated into the American working class culture of his stepfather, he developed a strong loyalty to his adopted nation, and a lifelong belief in John F. Kennedys words, “. . . ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” He graduated from high school during the Vietnam War. After a great deal of soul searching, and a strong anti-Vietnam War sentiment, his sense of duty led him to volunteer for the army. Orders sending him to Vietnam were lost. Instead of Vietnam, he and his classmates were scattered around the United States and Europe. When his active duty time was up, he returned to California, got married, went to college, and joined the reserves. After graduating from Whittier College with a BA in philosophy, Robert went back on active duty and obtained a MS in clinical counseling while stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Over the next thirty plus years, Robert worked as a counselor, accumulated twelve years of active duty, and retired from the army reserves as a master sergeant. He became a father four times, divorced, a grandfather, married once again, a stepfather (or nonbiological father) and a father-in-law. Through DNA testing, he finally found the recently deceased American soldier that was his father and an impressive paternal ancestry that is now his. He is an active member of his local congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is a member of the Disabled American Veterans, and along the way, became a journeyman poet.

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© 2015 Robert Mäder-Kammer. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/24/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7030-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7031-2 (e)

Print information available on the last page.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

1953, Feldgrauuniform

Childhood Memories

Bland and Plain

Mom’s War Stories (version 4)

Foggy Winter Mornings in Mespelbrunn about 1955

Like A Hummel Figurine

On a sidewalk with Sybille Schmitz (Born 1909, Died 1955)

The Statue of Liberty, December 1956

I almost had a date with the daughter of a friend of Jack Kerouac

I Ch’ing - 1968

Medical Advice

Renting Rooms In Santa Fe Around 1982

A War Story Told While Eating Chips and Dip in 1974 (Villanelle)

Control Issues Fort Hood, 1975 (Third Revision)

The Two Inch Pencil

Der Wasserschloss Mespbelbrunn

Arabia, (1999 – 2009) Revision 4, 9 Sep 2012

The Cement Slab

Problems of Neutron Diffusion Los Alamos National Labs

Kenning Patrol in Iraq

At the West L.A. V.A.

To Hart Crane, Poet

4 A.M. Dream of Phillip Larkin

Electricity makes living in the Mojave easier.

Hengest

Extreme Mantra

Mourning

Dear Mom,

Ode on a Smile

A dead poem (12 March 2011)

Dante, the Bichon Frise, running the Agility Training course taught by Mary Dincau

Dante, the Bichon Frise

A Bad Dream of Poetry

My Beowulf and the Dragons Dream

Edwards Air Force Base is my next-door neighbor.

Ahh and Ooh

Exhibit of Still Life At the Norton Simon Museum, 11 August 2012

Heracles

Jacob Ochtervelt, Dutch, born 1654.

Mojave Desert Ravens

After Dinner Conversations on a Joshua Tree

Family Names

Meine moderne Familie

Genealogy

Sugar

My Assumed Life

Las Vegas

Entropy

My Desert Camp

A Hard Day

Can you avoid clichés when writing about the universe?

Alchemy at 30,000 Feet

On the Other Side of the Ice Wind Is Hyperborea

Athena’s Oil

Circe

Post Mortem

On Poetry

Ghost Story

1953, Feldgrauuniform

Frankfurt am Main:

the sky, the buildings, the people.

Tante and I get on the Strassenbahn.

Crammed, damp wool, umbrellas.

Tante puts me on her lap. I rub my

face on the red fox fur wrap. I rub my fingers

on the black button fox eyes.

Strassenbahn windows, drizzled, city-slushed.

Sidewalks, slippery, crammed.

Feldgrauuniform, no legs man, begging.

Crammed freezing room of mostly women.

I grip Tante’s hand and stare

at the Feldgrauuniform concrete floor.

Men behind glass taking stuff. Tante crams

her fox fur wrap through a hole in the glass.

A man slides back money and a paper slip.

Tante buys me a Mickey Mouse comic book.

Childhood Memories

Why are women attracted to controlling narcissistic men?

Holding hands