Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2025
Empirical, poems by Alan Walowitz.
Empirical
Based on what can be observed,
that’s me reflected in the
Forever Dollar Store window,
freshly swabbed and squeegeed,
as I walk the length of
The Sunshine Indoor Mall.
So much slower now
than I remember
in any old daydream of myself.
Then, that’s me again
all wild and woolly
in the fun-house mirror
of the barber shop.
the blue neon sign which flashes
this message from the Universe:
Couldn’t You Use a Cut and Blow?–
–19.50, tax included.
Might even have made
for a Norman Rockwell
on the cover of a 50s magazine–
a man exiting middle age
and approaching the end
ignoring all entreaties
by loved ones, strangers, friends:
How ‘bout it, Pops?
Maybe there’s still time–
if only to see the handsome lady barber inside—
the place she bought from the Italian guy
who drank a little
and sometimes closed his eyes
as he wielded his razor;
who changed the name from Baldi’s
to No Embarrassment
and shut off Fox News for good;
who tossed out those hard worn Playboys
nobody but a 12-year-old
would ever touch.
I pause at the door
and take a deep breath.
Watch her scissors dance
in concert with the comb,
like the birds of Pinaud
as they exit the steeple
over Harvest Home, the senior center
a proud guy like me will never go.
Sometimes, despite myself,
the world will change for the good,
might finally seem–
even at this late date–
a place I might actually
choose to remain.
Good Company
What could have made her wake this ungodly hour
and throw her things in the old valise
she had fetched from beneath the bed–
the vinyl, glued and re-glued to the pressboard
with two brass clasps for fastening,
though the hinges at the rear seemed
ready to come apart?
The faux-leather handle might serve to carry,
or could lead her through a crowd
at the station if she chose to swing it
with the arc of an old scythe
mowing memories–where she’d been
and no longer wished to be.
But why so close to daylight.
when the chill was biting hardest?
Made me wonder in my sleepiness,
perhaps she hadn’t slept at all,
and was waiting for the coldest moment
when I might accidentally come to.
Though this performance required so much planning–
the magic of her T-shirts flying into place,
and her underwear finding the crannies
among the jeans, which had been riffled from the closet
like a trick deck of cards.
Though sleep is sometimes hard to come by
my side of any story I prefer to tell,
she smiled, and seemed to say, Sorry–
apt for someone who always promised she would leave
and seemed determined to keep her word.
I ought to go back to sleep
and dream of the inevitable–
what we most fear coming true
when we want it least.
I didn’t mean to yawn, but was so tired
and what was required any odd moment
always seemed to elude me.
She sighed as if she understood
everything about me
and might have remained, maybe all night,
if it weren’t for my utter predictability.
It’s what some said made me good company,
if only measurable in stays of a week,
or the occasional cold month, like this,
when any of us might prefer a little heat.
© Alan Walowitz
Alan Walowitz is a Contributing Editor at Verse-Virtual, an Online Community Journal of Poetry. His chapbook Exactly Like Love comes from Osedax Press. The Story of the Milkman and Other Poems is available from Truth Serum Press. From Arroyo Seco Press: In the Muddle of the Night, written with poet Betsy Mars. The chapbook, The Poems of the Air, is from Red Wolf Editions, free for downloading from Red Wolf’s site.
So very nice to be in your company here in this world of live encounters, DeWitt
Sly humor in both these poems, Alan.
Kaaren