Walk with Me: Intergenerational Poetry

By Barry S. Savits M.D.

Enticed, I walked along the white sand beach
joining, by consent, a stranger
who was going my way,
as daylight slowly crept into light
and tangled my bare feet
with the sharp sherds of sand and frothy wavelets
which cooled my toes
and carried me away into another world.

Barry Savits appreciates the gifts life has afforded him, and enjoys reflecting on his varied life experiences and perspectives on the world around him.
In a collection of poetry and prose, Savits explores diverse themes that include social justice, the emotions and the possibilities often encountered along life’s path, and the lessons learned as we all attempt to overcome obstacles and challenges and love unconditionally. His vivid writings reflect on an introspective walk on the beach, a kiss tinged with mystery, an alley that lures late-night revelers, a look back at fatherhood, the crumbling of a wall against love and permanent involvement, and a baffled mind. Throughout his collection, Savits encourages others to enjoy the word play, appreciate the Eden in which we dwell, and welcome a world that promises goodwill and harmony.
Walk with Me shares poems and prose that explore one man’s life experiences as he embraces life’s gifts, challenges, joys, and obstacles.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665731935

Barry S. Savits M.D.

Barry S. Savits, MD is a US Navy veteran and retired physician who was Director of Surgery at St. Mary’s Hospital and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center for twenty-eight years. He is the proud husband of a middle school teacher, father of four sons, and author of two other books.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Barry S. Savits M.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Images created by Barry Savits M.D.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3195-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3194-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3193-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022919749

Archway Publishing rev. date: 11/23/2022

Contents

A Walk

A List

All I Have to Give

Ain’t That …

Advice

A Friend

Apple

Aging

A Letter

Alphabet

A Riot Within

A Kiss

At Home

A Love Story

A Letter to God

An Answer From God

Afraid

A Cactus in Alaska

A letter Ne’er Written

All in Pennsylvania

Bonnet/ Hose

Before

Brain Change

Bedtime

Bones

Beauty And The Beasts

Brother … Brother

Beyond My Windows

Cossacks

Curious

Chronology

Children

Celebrate

Chaos

Communicate

Choosing

Cold/ Warm

Connecting Metaphors

Collections

Cholent

Designated Sponge

Dim Sum

Dear One

Doodles

Dreams

Dice

Dumb Dumb

Dark

Drawers

December 1955

Darkness

Dare We Talk

Dancing

Exploring Hope

Eve

End Game

Embrace

Empty Nests

Everyday

Endings

Examining War

Fire

Foreskin

Fond Memories

Fences

Forgive, Not Forget

Finding Out

Filter

Fatherhood

Figuring Out God

Future

Friends

Gone

Godspeak

Green

Georgia

Gates

Haven

Holiday Market

Hold My Hand

Helen’s Happy Birthday

House, Home, Family

Home

How To Tell The Future

Heart

Honky Tonk Alley

Hovering

Hovering 2

Help

Heat

I Love All Things

If I Thought

Inside/ Outside

I Love You

I Thought

Instructions

Ice cream Man

I Have To Ask

Irma La Douce

Imagination

Inaugural Celebration

Jerusalem: Sisters of the Wall

Jungle

Knowing

Khyber Pass

Love Lost

Living Room

Library

Late Night

Maria Teresa

Mad Mind

Memories

Mothers

Moment

Modern Wedding

Mr. Payne

Music

Meteor Man

My Last Son

Noises

Nose Job

No Matter What

Now-a-Days

Now

Non-fungible Tokens

New York City

Not Spoken- Not Forgotten

The Night of Darkness

Old Age?

Once

One

Olympus Lost

Oysters

Pheromones

Poetry

Portrait of David

Peddler

Pictures

Poetry2

Poetry 3

Perhaps

Plotting an Agenda

Parade of Faith

Period{s}.

Past Passions

Perfection

Peru 1966

Proteins

Partisanism

Portrait Of George B

Roots

Resolutions

Resolutions

In 2021

Rubble

Restless

ROYGBIV

Rejoice!

She Says Yes

Stephan

So Many

Suddenly

Silences

September 10

Saving The World

Subway

Scorched Earth

Short Themes

Say Gay

Songs of Yesterday

Shoes

She

Smarts

Six Hours

The Dark Hours

The Sea

Trust

The Tablecloth

The Cottage

Throne

Thinking Love

2021

The Open Hand

Tomorrow’s Promise

Thinking

Talking to God

Today and Yesterday

Tomorrow

Tik-Tok Shorts

Tuna

The Baffled Mind

Tomorrow 2

Two Faced

To My Mother

The Trainee

The Ten Commandments

Three Surprises

Umbilical Cords

Understanding Love

Voting

Versions of Sin

Vacation

Women

What’s Next

War

WritingZzzzzzzz

Winter Babies: Spring Flowers

Walking

Words

Words 2

What Is Going To Happen?

Waiting In the Dark

What I Would Do

What Did I Do

What If

Why

Witness

What Happened Next

Warm Tears

Why I Write

You

You … And the Rain

Yom Kippur

76054.png

A Walk

The sea was edgy last night.

I heard its roaring voices,

both soprano and bassetto

from my windows.

It washed ashore

some of its flotsam and jetsam,

an act of sharing from its accumulated bounty,

tidbits of what lay deep within its provenance.

Enticed, I walked along the white sand beach

joining, by consent, a stranger

who was going my way,

as daylight slowly crept into light

and tangled my bare feet

with the sharp sherds of sand and frothy wavelets

which cooled my toes

and carried me away into another world.

I had become an explorer,

an archaeologist,

ferreting out the treasures

on the winding shoreline

which happenstance {or preordination}

placed before me

as a gift to eyes that see and ears that hear

and a mind to scramble both into

an omelet of ideas and emotions.

I saw a sodden teddy bear

half - buried in the sand.

lost from some child’s playpen

and carried away by the ocean currents,

perhaps to share

with others more in need than they

or to grant an unknown child the solace of

animal comfort.

Just beyond me, I spied an empty purse

which could have contained a litany of life’s

necessities

and other offerings, just for she who lost it.

It was carried away by raising tides

as she lay in the throes of passion with her

lover

upon a soft and gritty cushion,

temporarily shutting out the world

and other interrupting thoughts

to just be,

be open,

open ended,

never ending,

celebrating the pleasures of the flesh.

Where is she now?

Still searching on empty beaches

for redemption or for joy?

I saw broken bottles

floating around me in the frothy foam,

refugees from some drunken rowdy night

on the other side of the world.

Whose lips touched the rims of that which

remains-

so long ago, so long ago?

The Conch shell beside me

was more of a gift from nature-

A hint to the Out of Water World

that much more remains hidden beneath

the salty brine and waves of fury.

Just as it is in life,

I turned and addressed my companion.

"Move along with me, my partner.

Hear my story.

I have one, you know.

Then I’ll listen with bended ear

to your tale

so that we might walk together among the dunes of time.

Let us learn from each other."

A List

I made a list

of what I will embrace with joy

and cries of welcome.

This includes women, men, and rainbows

in addition to other more intangible touchables,

and even ephemeral end points.

Hello city!

Hello world!

Let me touch your hardened carcass

so I may feel the soft beat of your heart

and the kindly human feelings and frailties

that lay within your seeming bony carapace.

There came a time when i was still young

that I opened up the airways and breathed the tomorrows.

I gulped, then, as I grasped the passions, the learnings, the freedoms.

afforded within my world.

Before this epiphany

I had given no thought to my good fortune.

accepting the comings and goings

as entitlement.

Now, to prevent an overload,

I can but sip their essences.

Yet, that can be enough.

I am home again.

There, I hope that you will be waiting for me..

All I Have to Give

All I have to give

is what you see before you,

standing tall,

waiting for your response and acceptance.

My contributions to your lifetime

may seem small to you

but they will be as roaring thunder in my ears.

I can offer you loyalty-

to care for you always-

as you ride the waves

we might share together.

I will teach you how to swim,

even on dry land,

and hold your hand

at headache time

or in moments of grief and despair.

I can gift you partnership

in dreams of green pastures

and sunny Sundays

and children curled around us

as we celebrate our nights together.

I hope that what I can offer

is enough.

It is more than any stranger can promise you,

no matter what they claim to offer.

Choose wisely my love.

Choose me.

Choose a parade of happenings

we can enjoy together.

We can shine with a brighter light

if we are wrapped as ONE.

Ain’t That …

Thought the day would never end.

It did, bare footed,

music with its penetrating pulsations

rising up from lakeside, down below

skies blue

who would ever think

there would be so many worlds

like when we were young and beautiful

now our beauty takes a different channel

I love you plain and honest

no makeup-natural

cry at will-or smile

I remember both

you work too much

come home

nights can also be long

sometimes lonely

only sometimes

when you fill the spaces

my cards show a straight flush

I feel the victor

Hallelujah

the drums beat ongoing

there are times when I close off the sounds

other moments

my feet move to the rhythm

ain’t that life.

Advice

I tend to give advice

more often than taking it.

My sources ask,

I reply.

I try to picture their state of mind

and then direct the exchange

to one or two notches above their expectations.

Better to have a goal

and feel the possibility of obtaining it,

if one works towards it,

than to settle comfortably

into a clustered cloister.

I seem to be giving advice more frequently

nowadays.

Everyone thinks an octogenarian

will have all the answers.

I don’t.

I admit it.

That’s why I keep both ears open,

waiting for that latchkey core of data

that will give deeper meaning to

mere letters and words

spewed out randomly.

I stay tuned.

A Friend

He sat beside her,

often with hands held,

as she suffered through

a long, depressing illness.

She was lost in semi- thoughts

of why now.

Why now- why, why, why.?

Why am I here?

And He?

He who sat beside her

felt an obligation to be near,

eyes tearing,

to follow and to share

each step in her suffering

and to hope for a quick recovery.

He remembered long afternoons

under a warm sun,

of picnics, strolling on green sward

and laughter shared

with this now frail lady.

He talked slowly to her in low pitched tones.

His thoughts, penned in bookish phrases,

were carried on the molecules of air

that drifted between them.

At first,

she could not answer

to his words.

But she soon followed him

with her eyes

and blinked approval

of his perseverance and dedication

in being a bedside friend-

a loyal companion-

willing to wait and see.

For her part, she wandered in her mind,

from forgetting nearly all memories

to blurred glimpses of the past.

There were moments of semi- clarity,

and then, twilight.

She climbed upward, slowly,

until she reached the awareness

of the today world,

enabled by her strong will to live- and luck.

He who sat by her

was a major part of her rehabilitation.

Soon, she raised her arms in recognition

of His presence,

later followed by vocal utterances,

while bland and noncommittal,

had hints of a more deep-felt gratitude,

and even passions beyond the friendly.

As the calendar days marched by

and measured time passed,

she was able to take a few steps

out of bed, arm-in-arm with Him

round and around her bedroom’s open spaces.

They grew closer in all ways.

He smiled now,

and she copied His demeanor.

Doing so she regained the spark of life

she had almost lost.

Together, they once again laughed into the

wind, all the while defining the shapes of the

overhanging clouds and waltzing on sunbeams.

Their future now promised more possibilities

as time lay unfurled before them.

Apple

The Apple resounds strongly

in the historical record.

It may also be said to dictate where

mankind stands today.

In the Garden, it was a soft, chewy fruit.

Circumstances redirected it to grow a barrier

blanket

around its sensitive interior

to withstand often unfriendly climate encounters

and vengeful citizenry.

Carried to so many environments,

it also came face-to-face with animal and insect

insults.

The skin was an adaptation

granted by the ‘ONE on HIGH’

so that Eve’s descendants

could continue to savor Apple’s flesh

one bite at a time.

It was meant to be a college education on the vine.

Dining on compacted inter-knowledge

most certainly has had a positive impact

on humankind’s fickle performances.

All the while, benefits learned with

Apple’s development of a smooth and lustrous

covering

have been repeated in nearly all earthly species -

In trees, animals, and birds,

even men and women …

Hiding stunning attributes

beneath deceiving cloaks.

Aging

Fearful petits pas

tap of cane

brutal streets

midst towering edifices

only one facet of progress

the distain of passers-by

too slow too slow

flat feet

Paddling to an ancient rhythm

head inching down

overwhelmed by structural decay

abetted by time

and lack of maintenance

mind wandering

the path less clear

fighting to remember

fashion and modesty forgotten

drooling lips

body leaks

orifices in revolt

alone even in crowds,

grateful for even the slightest boost

to an ancient frame

In spite of everything

Ain’t Life Grand

A Letter

Today, a slice of heaven

came to me.

It met my eyes

which quickly filled with tears

and emotions

I cannot fully describe.

It arrived by mail.

It was a letter from my grandson,

Ayden,

ten years old.

He wrote a poem

in blank verse

and said he loved me.

He hinted broadly

that our chats by phone

and zoom

meant something important to him.

I returned his feelings.

His words meant mountains to me.

it was a letter from He

who will be here,

to carry on

when I am gone.

Alphabet

There are

twenty-six letters in our alphabet.

All are important.

All have their place

in the language we speak.

There are even more human skin colors

and hues.

Each one can have a meaningful role

in the world

we should want to create.

A Riot Within

There’s a riot goin’ on inside me,

especially in my upstairs where it counts.

Where eyes find focus

and brain waves prompt the movements to my

hands.

I’m in a fire engine red mood-

hot under the collar-

angry as a bull on Pamplona’s

cobblestone streets.

Don’t understand the heat

I’m generating.

I have to give the Devil his due.

He’s got me under his leathery left wing,

flying high,

so far up that the city streets define as fine ribbons

and buildings substitute for Lego pieces

waiting to be moved at will

by those more powerful than you or me.

We landed near Hell’s fire.

That got my goat even more,

and cranked up my bitterness

into full gear.

Let the world cave in

under its mendacity

and an economic hierarchy

which always short changes the damn fools

who walk the filthy streets,

as most humans seem to do.

My heart’s aflutter,

Fast,

pounding like a galloping horse at the racetrack.

I’m drooling because I can’t hold my

bod together.

I’m oozing out of all my pores,

falling apart.

Let me grab an axe

so I can feel it’s cold steel

complexion.

It’s an instrument I’ll need

to raise, to ruin

the rotten goods around me.

I feel so lost,

even I wouldn’t be able to find myself

if I went alookin’.

A search party would do no better.

Let me break down the windows and the walls

so I can see the hazy, polluted outsides better.

I see only mayhem in my mind.

The consolation prize

is the stench of civilization

mixing with the stale air

within my abode.

O ‘misery

O’ unhappiness

O’ the poisonous pits of silent despair.

Where do I go from here?

What’s next?

Should I go stalk my victims in the dark

Or …

perhaps a tall glass of cold milk and apple pie

will calm me down,

lower the fire in my feverish frame

and get me ready for a night of streaming Netflix-

my favorite channel.

Not a bad idea!

A Kiss

Ruby lips,

moist,

Inviting,

but tinged with mystery

speak volumes to my senses.

I admit to passion

and desire,

even though the luscious labia,

pressed to mine,

promise, for now, only a welcome moment

with no commitment.

All the same,

it is a reprieve

from all the salty seas

I have encountered

traveling through quixotic landscapes.

Although the now hints at more tomorrows,

I wait, expectantly,

for the next kiss

which I can then interpret

to be

at least

a momentary victory

in the ongoing battle for acceptance-

with eventual comradeship.

At Home

The afternoon was just like any other day.

Frank was on the Peloton upstairs.

The whirling of the wheels sounding from above.

Katie was nursing Will on her left breast

a chubby, noisy, adorable

ten-week-old man-child.

Willow had her dolls,

at two, a grown-up toddler,

strong willed, but alluring.

Katie’s husband Will sat on the couch,

phone involved, always,

planning, composed almost anywhere.

Joe came in the door,

coming home

from his middle school teaching job,

soaking wet,

sweating to be blamed on his uncooled classroom.

He was weighed down with grocery bags,

anticipating dinner.

He was greeted by all.

Grandmom, Pam, cooed over the baby

whose full attention

was his mother’s milky meal.

Barry was zooming with his writing class

which was blasting verbal creativity into