Growing up Backward: Gus Poems

By Al Ferber

Gus has been on hiatus for several years. He remained silent during that time. However, in the past year, he has made a thunderous comeback, producing enough material from his adventures, misadventures, thoughts, dreams, musings, nightmares, observations, recollections, and the various other sundry things that he does for four full volumes of poetry. Come jump in for the swimsome youll like; others, not so much; and some youll love. But one way or another, youll be hooked.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524558987

Al Ferber

Al Ferber a septuagenerian going on 13. Born. Regrettably… A North Philly kid. Survived education at Temple U., Penn State, Villanova U. Alcoholic 30 years. Sober 23 years. Indenture servant to Catherine the Great 34 years. Learned to love and appreciate cats and one dog. Authored 30 books of poems, 2 novels, 3 chap books. Poems in Magazines in U.S., England, Scotland, France. Still alive, on the downward path of the sliding board, as of this writing. An undocumented alien in the world. Resides Ocean City, NJ surrounded by water with Cathi, Luna, Mitzi, and Opal. So there.

Book preview

GROWING UP BACKWARDS

GUS poems

AL FERBER

Copyright © 2016 by Al Ferber.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5245-5899-4

                eBook             978-1-5245-5898-7

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/08/2016

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CONTENTS

2:10 AM

4th Quarter Highlights

Six Nights On The Sun

6 Looks

10,950

13 yrs Behind The Bar

19

21 Questions

28 Years Behind Bars

29 Years

30 Year Career

55 And Over

100%

1959

A Better Deal

A Bridge To Nowhere

A Little Tenderness

A Monument To Silence

A Stroke Of Genesis

A Tree At Night

Abyss

Acceptance

Add One To The List

Admission of Guilt

Advance Directive

After He Gets Up

After The Reprieve

Aggravated Assault

All Fucked Up

Almost Grounded

Almost

Alone

Along The Boulevard

Alto Madness

Amazon Basin

American Cities

The American Swamp

An Inch Shy

An Unexpected Life

And Something More

Anemic Fifties

Anything & Everything

Aptitude Test

Archeological Dig

Architecture

Arcs

Armies Of The Sky

Around The Circus

Around

Art Education

Ba Ha Ha

Backyard

Bad Turn

Bakery

Ballet

Bars

Battle of Attrition

Beach Day

Behavior Modification

Beneath The EL

Bertha’s Sisters

Between the Raindrops

Betwixt

Beware The Flattened Ocean

Bird Bath

Birds Shit On My Car

Birthday

Bitches Brew

Black Bird

Black Helicopters

The Black Hole

Black Night

Black Tulip

Black Water

Blare

Blasting Caps

The Blind & The Vision Challenged

Bling

Blithering Idiot

Blood In The Leaves

Blue Eyes

Bog

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bone Against Bone

Books He Never Read

Books He Never Read

Books

Born Into Shit

Born of Necessity

Boulders

Bowels Of The City

Box Nail Shut

Bramble

Branches

Breaking Apart

Bridge To Oblivion

Bring It To Life

Broken Down City

Broken Threads

Broken Town

Broken

Last Exit To Brooklyn

Bubble Bubble Toil & Trouble

Buoy

Burning Down The House

Burning Sails

Busted Wide Open

Bustin’ Loose

Calamity

Call Off The Dogs

Cancellation

The Canvases

Car Barns II

Carnival In The Dark

Catapult

Caution

Caveat Emptor

Chair Of Philosophy

Chickie Wa Wa

Children

Chit Chat

Choosing Peace

Cirrus

Cities In Ruins

City Lights

City of Clowns

Clearing The Decks

Cleopatra & The Asp

Climbers

Clouds

CoEd Correctional Facility

Cold Snap

Coliseum

Collapse of Scaffolding

Collectively

College

Color Fields

Commerce

Community Pool

Conscientious Objector

Concepts

Conflict

Connectors

Conscription

Contentious

Contentious

Not As Cool As He Looks

Costume Party

Cover Girl

Coward

Cowboys & Indians

Cracks

Crickets

Critique

Cross Sections

Crooked Path

Crooked

Cross Tracks

Crystals

Cubism

Cur

Cur

Cut Me

Lust Child

2:10 AM

Gus said it’s 2:10 AM

September 7, 2016

70 degrees outside

the wind is whipping

around the corner like

a howling winter storm

or hurricane the rain

drops slapped against

the windows like so

many flagrant insults

45096.png

4TH QUARTER HIGHLIGHTS

Gus said it’s Spring he sits

in the warming rays of the sun

wind freezing him to the bone

muses about the parade of

female flesh on display on

the beach in not that many

weeks the profound knowledge

god made sunglasses so

horny men like him can sneak

a peek without getting caught

cause that’s just about as far

as he is gonna’ get these days

and weeks and months and

years so for three months except

on those awful days when it rains

he gets an all you can see

smorgasbord of skin and curves

and think of the days when he

could do some

kind of goddamn thing about it

45096.png

SIX NIGHTS ON THE SUN

Gus said he was in the

emergency room on a gurney

with arrhythmia serious

enough to have an entire

team of doctors and nurses

hovering over him and all

he could think about was

getting home to finish his

load but that didn’t happen

by the next night he had

entered a state of hallucination

and violent thrashing called

Delirium Tremens that lasted

for six day he pulled out all

the IVs they put him in restraints

he broke out of the restraints

pulled out the IVs again they

put him in restraints again

again he broke out of the restraints

and