Patriotic Address

On November 6, 2001, I was asked to give a short speech to an assembly of middle school students that would be both instructional and patriotic. We had just been attacked on September 11th of that same year. I had lost a few of my former students in the towers of the World Trade Center on that day.

As I look back over that speech today, it seems a tad sentimental; yet today we remember, with appropriate sentimentality, those who have died to keep us free, so I am posting it today.


Patriotic Address
Christopher Bogart

“Freedom of speech and expression - Freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - Freedom from Want – Freedom from fear anywhere in the world.”

These are the four freedoms President Franklin Roosevelt spoke of in his Four Freedoms speech in 1941, and that have gone before us in our two hundred and twenty-five year history to light our way, ensuring the freedoms we enjoy today. These freedoms have guided us. They have been bought and paid for by the blood of our military heroes in war and by the efforts of our civilian heroes in peace. They are the creed of our political faith. They are our touchstone. Our foundation. Our hope.

We are so used to enjoying our freedoms that sometimes we forget what they have cost us to protect and preserve. We forget until they are under threat. We forget until we are asked to defend them again. As we are asked to do today.

Today we honor the veterans of the wars that were fought to get these freedoms, to protect these freedoms, and to ensure these freedoms. From the brave young men who froze with Washington at Valley Forge, the men and women who fought in Europe and Asia in two World Wars, in the hills and valleys of Korea and the jungles of Viet-Nam, the men and women of Desert Storm who braved heat and fire in an unforgiving desert, to the young men and women who are now traveling to the mountains of Afghanistan to insure that we are never attacked again as we were on September 11 of this year – we honor them, and the country that produced them every day when we Pledge Allegiance to our flag and when we sing our National Anthem.

Each time you look at a flag, know that the seven red stripes stand for the blood of these men and women who have defended us in the past, and will continue to do so in the future, making us safe. Know that when you see the six white stripes, they stand for the purity of our intentions to guarantee freedom to our own citizens and to the world. Know that the fifty white stars in the blue night’s sky stand for the fifty states of the United States of America. Thirteen stripes for the thirteen original colonies. Fifty stars for the fifty states. And out of those fifty states – one nation. Out of many faiths, many cultures, many regions – one people.

Panis Angelicus

Panis Angelicus
Christopher Bogart

Introate ad altare dei.
Approach the altar of God.

Understand the history.
Seek the mystery
Of the Word made Flesh –
Et verbum caro factus est.

Filium Dei, uni genitum.
He is the only begotten Son
Of the sons of God.
The Only One.

Et homo factus est.

And from the town of bread
Came the Bread of our Salvation.
Hoc est enim
Corpus meum.

His est enim
Sanguinis mei.

He is the Vine,
Bleeding rich wine,
Red rills for your redemption.

Red rain falls
Within wheaten walls,
For He was crucified in strife
To win for us eternal life.

The forces of the darkness fight,
Grasping from eternal night,
Swirling ‘round in Red and White,
Reaching for the Son of Light.

Cherubim and Seraphim,
Raise their voices
O’er battle’s din,
To one great voice
Compelled from within:


Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.
Lord God of Hosts.
Dominus deus
Sabaoth.

Fill heaven and earth
With all Your Glory.
Fill life’s canvas
With this story.

Do these things in memory of Him.
Come and let Him dwell within,
For in Him there is peace from strife –
In Him is Eternal Life.

Now the Angels’ voice depletes.
Now the mystery is complete.
Give your deo gratias.
For now the Bread belongs to us.

Thanks be to God.

The Price of Silence

“Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent
about things that matter.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up." (Pastor Martin Niemöller)


The Price of Silence
Christopher Bogart

Silence is always profound,
No matter the message.

It rarely chatters,
Sometimes punctuates,
So often communicates
Not in pages, but
In volumes.

It speaks
When our voices
Can no longer be heard;
It cries from the darkness
Of our frailties,
Our fears.

It speaks
To what we wish
We had the courage to say
But were unwilling,
Or unable,
To find the words to say it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer broke
That silence which maintains
Itself in fear, and fear alone,
Until no voices
Can be heard.

He died
In a stripped suit
In the mud
Of Flossenburg.

Ave America

This is the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend. This is the time when we remember those that gave their lives so that we could live ours. So in tonight's post, I wax patriotic. The poem I have posted is one that I wrote many years ago, but one whose message still feels right to me. I dedicate this posting to all of the men and women in uniform who have died so that we may live in peace, to those who once wore the uniform and defended our freedoms (including my father, Christoper A. Bogart, Sr., who passed away over ten years ago and who served in the U.S. Navy on a minesweeper on D Day at the Invasion of Normandy) and to those who defend us today all over the world. While most of us enjoy a weekend of the beach, barbecues and parties, we do so because of you. Thank you. Happy Memorial Day!

Ave America
Christopher A. Bogart, Jr.

I see verdant fields,
Seas of grass,
Waving to the will of the wind,
As they stretch
Endlessly,
Over the land.

Golden wheat, I see,
Flowing submissively,
Pleading proudly
To the deep blue sky
To be one with the sun.

I hear leafy stalks of corn,
Rustling together
As they wait
By yesterday’s faded split rail fence:
Silent sentries
Of the dusty roads and meandering lanes,
Of the streets and highways –
Enter into
Antique towns of Georgian brick and cedar shake,
And retreating past colonial barns,
Venerable monoliths
Of the soil’s productivity –
Forming a patch quilt,
Thrown out to the west,
From its stitching and seaming
On New England’s rocky shores.

I smell the acrid,
Crisp, dry smell of burning leaves,
Carried by the brisk, cool flow
Of late autumnal breezes.

In a warm and fire lit room,
Snug against the lightly drifting snow,
I smell the fresh ancestral smell
Of dampened pine.

I am this soil’s son.
My ancestors sleep peacefully
Beneath its barren and its bounty.
My heritage is woven thick,
Like a multicolored tapestry,
With sound, and smell,
And sight, and feel, and taste –
And Freedom.

Gloucester Green

Gloucester Green
Christopher Bogart

I really don’t remember my arrival
At Gloucester Green.

From the moment I arrived,
It felt I had been there forever.

As I walked the streets,
So everyday,
I felt in every single way
That I had always been there.

I walked those same streets,
Passed those same ancient buildings
Nodding to passersby.

It felt that way
For ten days,
Day after day.

I walked those honey-stone streets
Of Oxford town.

Natives like me don’t need to enter
For a first time.

No maps,
No charts
Get me ‘round.
I’ve found I know
Where I will go,
Not slow,
Like a tourist,
A newcomer
With eyes darting around.

I already found my landmarks,
My bearings.

Signs tend to hide,
But not me,
For I
Am the American native
Of Oxford town.

I am continually amazed

I am continually amazed
Christopher Bogart

I am continually amazed by beauty
in nature each day.
I am fascinated by variety,
by variability, by complexity,
by simplicity,
the depth of visible attributes
of movement
within the continued flux of time.

Like looking at the sky, lined with
linen white clouds that glide
over surfaces of pale blue seas,
new green leaves that seem to shimmer,
to move in unison, to rustle
independently
in the slightest of winds.

I am amazed at the very sound of rustle,
like the sound of leaves,
suspended from slender stems,
that twist and turn
but never break,
sway to an almost arbitrary rhythm within
the wind, equally arbitrary, that
blows them about.

And as I watch,
I think now
of that word and
I look up,
beyond the dancing leaves,
to clouds that have reformed, again
now, a new terrain
of billowy white
moves across the sky,
the impossibly blue backdrop
which my brain knows is atmosphere
but my heart feels the feeling atmosphere
and hope, I, my soul
is the backdrop of familiar forevers.

I wish that I could join those new green leaves
and dance with them to the slightest of tunes.
I wish that I could stare as time ticks by.
I wish that I could fly with each and every cloud
and capture them within my arms, my mind,
to wrap them deep within the sleeping of my dreams.

Where Am I Going?

Where am I going?
Christopher Bogart

Where am I going?

I don’t seem to know.

I was tasked with a life of purpose,
Of commitment,
Of work,
But when work is done
What then?

Is there life after work?

There certainly should be.

We are raised as Puritans,
With the ethic of the job,
Of the title,
Of the paycheck.

We have spent a life of worry,
Of bills,
Of boundaries between
Office and home,
Of factory and farm,
Of Sunday nights and Monday mornings,
Of summers and of falls,
Of Hump Day Wednesday,
Of TGIF Fridays,
Of finite beginnings
And finite endings.

When one life ends,
Where does the other,
More infinite life,
Begin?

When, One Day, I Wear Long Pants

Parochial school was an interesting experience. I went to St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Jamaica, Queens from the second grade until the seventh grade, when, right before we moved to New Jersey, I got to wear long pants.

When, One Day, I Wear Long Pants
Christopher Bogart

When I went to parochial school, I lived in a world of
casement windows and wooden window poles,
of high sculpted tin ceilings painted white, over and over,
and of walk-in cloak rooms.

I learned to walk straight lines,
to know my catechism by heart,
to read Ideals magazine and placed its pictures on walls,
in halls, and on bulletin boards.

I wrote with a fountain pen,
a green one, the same as all the others in my class,
to trace the swirls and loops of the Palmer Method
pinned to the cork above the chalk boards.

And I wore knickers,
not the silk or cotton ones that George Washington wore,
but thick navy blue woolen knickers, and long blue woolen socks,
held in place by rubber bands, wrapped around my knees
and left red rings deep in the flesh of my calves.

When it rained or snowed,
I stuffed an extra pair of blue woolen socks in my knickers pocket
to exchange with the wet ones I had to hang over the bathroom stalls
to dry during the day, so I could roll them up, stiff and dry
at the end of the day to bring them home with me.

I rubbed red rings,
from around my calves, angry red rings, made by tight
white elastic that held my long socks up, I tucked
my knickers in my socks, and swore that I’d not forget
the day I entered seventh grade, and earned the right
to wear long blue pants, and to become a young man.

Pemberley

When you read Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, you can't help but be struck by Elizabeth Bennett's first view of Mr. Darcy's ancestral home, Pemberley. In Chapter 43 of the book, she describes it this way.

They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.

Pemberley has always struck me as a metaphor for a hope, an aspiration, a dream life.

Pemberley
Christopher Bogart

All of us have our Pemberleys.
We dreams of stately mansions in our minds,
Lofty visions filled with imaginary landscapes,
Panoramas of rolling green hills,
Pleasant pastures where birds drift
Continuously overhead as they head
Toward their rendezvous with a setting sun.

These visions are idyllic, ethereal, transitory,
Metaphoric representations of a time we wish
We lived, a place that has no name,
No form, no boundaries except within
The boundaries of our own imagination.

Our Pemberely is pure fantasy,
Ready-made with everything that we wish
We were, or could yet be.
We see our grey lives like a fixed point
That disappears by distance
As our sight fixes on a new point,
On a new journey,
A new destination.

And the dreamer,
Deep within his dream,
Arrives with each rising sun,
At a place that has no name,
But waits in anticipation
Never quite the same.

I Should Have Loved You More

A few nights ago, I posted a poem called "Let the Frog Jump." The poem had a relatively simple point: throughout most of my life, I have tried to use logic rather than feeling. It has always seemed safer. Recently I was put into a situation that gave me the same ago-old choice. And I almost made that same choice again.

When I was younger, much younger actually, I set the pattern for this choice. The following sonnet commemorates that first choice. It was a stupid one. But, on the bright side, I seem to be learning, however slowly.

I usually select a picture to accompany my writings. I have this time, as well. However, on what the connection is, I have no comment. Only the "other" would know.

Sonnet 10
Christopher Bogart

Had I but used my heart, and not my head -
Had I but felt instead of understood -
Had I but led my heart to breathe instead
Of smothering its life because I could.
Had I not hid love’s hand inside the glove
Of insecurity and endless doubt -
Had thinking made less sense to me than love –
I’d not have feared to let each feeling out.
You spoke to me of love, but I ignored
The words and actions that my sense perceived.
I thought that if I thought a little more,
My senses could at last make me believe.
It felt so right to me those years before,
But I was wrong. I should have loved you more.

My Father and my Brother

My Father and my Brother
Christopher Bogart

My earliest of memories were
At my Brother’s knee.

He was not all that much
Older than was I,
But the experiences we shared
Gave color,
And shape,
And form
To a world that seemed
Full of possibilities,
Shot toward
A life to soar,
Far above the roar
Of millions of beating hearts.

We were young, both
Lions, roaming the plains.
Our manes
Grew
As we grew,
Together
In a life aimed,
I thought,
At an endless
Forever
Until…
One day I met
My Father.

He breathed Life into
My life until
His breath became
My very Dreams.

And then I dreamed
Of distant lands,
Of distant shores.
I bore the promise of the Sword.
I grasped the hilt,
I ripped,
I tore the stone apart.
The shards,
His words,
Culled from wealth of
Ancient runes and rhymes,
Became my tongue.
My young thoughts
Fresh, expanded forms
Of lions and of unicorns,
And how and when
I came to be,
How free I was to see
All that he had laid out
Before me.

And when my Brother saw
Of my delight on distant shores,
His claws, straining out beyond his lair,
Reached out to tear
Into the air
With deft aggressive art.

He clawed
At seams
Of thoughts at once brought
Forth on errant dreams,
Of nights birth borne
With glinting light -
A ricocheting wonderland,
Brimmed with damask and with gold,
He reached to hold,
To claw
My world apart.

And when his claws slipped,
He roared
A deafening and defiant roar,
In deaf rebellion
Armed,
Against his Father
And my own.

And when he failed
He cursed and swore,
My Brother swam across the ford
To stand on the opposing shore,
His back full-hunched
Against my Father’s reign.

Their separation
Caused me pain.
I would not live
Through this
Again,
For forced to choose,
I feared to loose them both.

For I desire for the best
Of each of them,
And so I choose them both again,
I know now that I am,
At the same,
Brother to my Brother.
But, when the day is done,
I am my Father’s son.

Just Let the Frog Jump

Just Let the Frog Jump
Christopher Bogart

Someone once told me
That if you take a frog apart
To see how it jumps,
It will not jump again.

I’ve always been the kind of guy
Who relies upon his wits.
I think a situation out.
And, if that doesn’t work,
I think about it more.

I’ve always found logic
To give me more security
Than to invest emotion
To figure out what works.

But sometime thinking
Is very over rated.
Sometimes it’s just best
To leave the thinking cap
In the drawer –

Sometimes feeling,
Not thinking
Works more.

Sometimes it’s best
Just to let
The frog jump.

Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne’s Lace
Christopher Bogart

Tiny white and shiny stars
Wink from a bright green firmament,
Each one perched on a web-like net,
Each one set against the sorrow
Of a deep blue sky.
They wave, ever so gently, over my head.
Are they mourning the soon to be death of this day?
I want to learn how
Their growth affects mine.
I pray
To know what they know
Of a life so very green
To me.
I want to see.

I want to hear.
I strain my ears for the tinkling of their laughter
As they play with the breeze.
Do they pray with the breeze?
If only I could know,
Then I too could grow.
I too
Who am so very green,
Can I play and sway?
Can I bend as they?

Whose will will win
When I seek
Beyond the great greenness of their webs,
Beyond their bright and whited heads,
To view the truth
In the deep blue
Sky?

Don't Do That Again!

Strange as it may seem, this poem contains real incidents from my childhood. How could someone who puts a picture of himself on his blog sitting in the Goodwin Library at the Oxford Union have been so stupid as a kid? I don't know. But I learned not to do it again.

Don’t Do That Again!
Christopher Bogart

Do you remember the day when you were three
and you pushed your little finger
into the light socket to see
what turned the lights on?
Shocking, wasn’t it?
Don’t do that again!

You remember, at four, when you thought
mothballs smelled so great
that you put them up your nose
to get a better whiff,
and you sniffed?
Don’t sniff that again!

Do you remember at five,
when the kid down the street
suggesting you quench your thirst
with a glass of kerosene?
And you drank it?
Don’t drink it again!

Do you remember when you were six,
when you decided to pet
the cute little organ grinder’s monkey
on Flatbush Avenue…
and he bit you?
Don’t pet him again!

Do you remember when you were seven
and you loved the smell of DDT so much
that you jumped on the back of the truck
for a ride?
Were you crazy?
Don’t do that again!

And one lonely night, when you were eight,
and you thought you heard something so very strange
come creeping out
from under your bed…?
Take my advice.
Cover your head.
Don’t look, like you did then.
Don’t do that again!

Universitas Oxoniensis

On occasion, I have posted writing pieces that referred to my trip to Oxford University in the summer of 2005. Most of them were about how I got there or what I learned from the experience. Some would say that I have looked at this unique experience "ad nausea." I prefer to think of it as "reminiscing." However you look at it, it was a remarkable experience. That is probably because Oxford is a remarkable place. It is the oldest university in the English speaking world, founded only a few years after the Norman Invasion of England in 1066. There are 38 separate and distinct colleges in the university. Oxford also contains a world-class museum in the Ashmolean and a world-class library in the Bodleian, as well as the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of Natural History. It is also the home of arguably the most famous debating society in the world, the Oxford Union.

The Harry Potter movies have been filmed there (Hogwarts Dining Hall is actually Christ Church Dining Hall). The Golden Compass is another movie with scenes from Oxford, and the Inspector Morse mysteries as well as the Inspector Lewis mysteries have all been filmed in Oxford, as well. As a matter of fact, I watched the filming of the first Inspector Lewis mystery at Waldham College while I was there.

But beyond all of this, there is an atmosphere in the place. It is hard to describe. It might be its age, its beauty, all of the famous authors, scholars, scientists and politicians that have gone there, or any number of other factors that make Oxford a magical place, and not just to wizards but to muggles as well. Tolkien and C.S.Lewis sat in the Eagle and Child and read to each other. Tolkien read The Lord of the Rings and Lewis, the tales of Narnia.

Oxford is just an amazing place. I know that there are those who feel that Cambridge is too; but, as for me, I choose Oxford.

"I'm Bad. I'm Nationwide."

Yesterday, I posted an album review I wrote in 1984 for Backstage Pass on the Bruce Springsteen album, Born in the USA. Today I am posting the concert review for the same album. It has been a long time since I wrote these reviews but I wanted to post them for two reasons. The first reason has to do with a conversation I had with a coworker on Springsteen's music. The second reason is Springsteen's recent acceptance of the Kennedy Center Award, and the reception he received that night.

It was an interesting time in my life and it was nice to have these two motivations for me to go back and look at what I had written all those years ago. And to remember those experiences.

Bruce Springsteen: “I’m Nationwide”
… the sense of celebration hasn’t changed, only more of it.

By Chris Bogart


Two nights after his ten sold out performances in New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne Arena, Bruce Springsteen returned to where he had started, The Stone Pony, an Asbury Park boardwalk bar. He stood in the corner, his body (now quite strong from working out) shifted back and forth as his feet kept time with the music. He seemed calm as his eyes gazed at the bandstand while the strains of Creedance Clearwater Revival’s Travelin’ Band filled the room. “They don’t write music like that anymore,” he said.

Around him, young people milled. Some identified him and whispered “Bruce is here,” while others accepted his presence quietly and respected his privacy. But the anticipation that maybe, just maybe, he would sing was everywhere. He remained at the bar, actively involved in conversation that ranged from cars to music to the local happenings which he handled as a true resident. He listened, too, to comic stories and responded with his distinctly guttural chuckle and his famous grin. Always the storyteller, Springsteen told of how he was locked out of his home, a tale of comic opera proportions, to the amusement of those around him. But the gentle, yet inevitable, request for autographs raised a humorous “Oh, no.” from Bruce. “I’d better change positions quickly.”

Three years ago, on a similar hot summer night, Bruce had just finished his six day opening performances at the Byrne arena and returned to his Jersey Shore bar. He was hyper, excited and darting through the crowds to hear the music of a hot local band. His clothes seemed to hang from his tour-weary body but his laughter remained quick and his smile ever-present. He motioned me to the back office where once settled in a folding chair, he reviewed guitar cord structures with a member of the band. He would check to see us watching, only to make a series of comic faces, trying to keep all of us entertained, while he prepared to perform on the small stage with the band. Now, he was a hot ticket and was enjoying every minute of it.

Bruce Springsteen’s 1981 performances in the newly-built New Jersey arena was filled with all the electricity and energy that has become his legend. Time after time, he tossed his hair and the perspiration sprayed out into the light. Song after song, some old and cherished, some new from The River and some borrowed was uniformly met with choruses of “Bruuce, Bruuce,Bruuce.”

Backstage, in 1981, in a small room off the main hall, the singer sat soaked in his own perspiration. But, through the exhausted look on his face, that smile appeared and remained throughout the long night and probable remained long after everyone was gone.

Those with back stage passes gathered in groups outside the room. The air was filled with the low clipped accents of New York and New Jersey. Most were followers and diehard fans dressed in blue jeans and tour tee shirts. Some were musicians, radio personalities or friends. In one doorway, drummer Max Weinberg was introducing his parents to a small gathering. At a buffet table covered in white paper and flanked with trash cans filled with beer, guitarist Steve Van Zandt was attaching a packaged crumb cake. “This is great stuff,” he said. The mood was one of celebration; the singer, the band and the management appeared amazed as they attempted to comprehend a success that appeared larger than life.

Some wondered if a three year absence would have its effect on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s popularity. The 1984 tour with ten shows sold out in 48 hours and the release of his new album Born in the USA hitting number one on the charts coupled with a top ten single, Dancing in the Dark quickly quieted the skeptics. But the real proof came when Bruce Springsteen took center stage at the Brendan Byrne arena for ten nights as the fans in unison seemed to scream “Tell us a story!” And tell them, he did.

With seemingly endless energy, he sang some after song, again some old, some new from both his quiet, introspective album, Nebraska, and his new release, Born in the USA, and some borrowed (The Detroit Medley, Travelin’ Band, Twist and Shout and Do You Love Me comprised his second encore). The effects and lighting were more sophisticated and there were other changes too. Steve Van Zandt had left the band ans has been replaced by Nils Lofgrin and a woman, Patti Scialfa, has joined the boys in the band. But the magic and the sense of celebration hasn’t changed at all, only more of it.

Beginning with the brash anthem like Born in the USA, he sang songs to remember (Thunder Road, Rosalita and Jungleland), songs to think about from Nebraska, songs and skits to laugh (Glory Days and Sherry Darling) and songs to dance to (nearly every one). He spoke of his father and sang Used Cars in tribute to him. He dedicated No Surrender to “Little Steven, wherever you are.” Plus 21 more. “Will you surrender?” he asked his audience. “Nooo,” they replied in ear-shattering unison. And there was no surrender.

Backstage, after his show, the differences between 1981 and 1984 were apparent. Confidence born from success replaced the amazed bewilderment of three years ago. The electricity and excitement was there but the people and atmosphere resembled an impromptu cocktail party rather than a beer bash. Friends and well-wishers were everywhere. Actor Vincent Spano (Baby, It’s You) was truly satisfied that Bruce Springsteen had seen his film that also used some Springsteen music. Rob Lowe (Oxford Blues) related his filming experiences to a group of excited young girls and waited in turn to meet the exhausted singer. The accents, this time around, mixed with the usual clipped accents of the East were the broad sounds of the Midwest, the casual cadence of California and a British accent or two. It seemed that Bruce had arrived.

But two nights later, Bruce Springsteen is back where he started and now, nearly 2:00 a.m., he is preparing to take over the stage at the small club. La Bamba and the Hubcaps (a New Jersey band that also sang backup on the Born in the U.S.A album were ending their last set. The dancing dissipated and the crowd moved closer to the stage. Richie “La Bamba” announced “We have a guest performer” and the crowd reacted with the now infamous “Bruuce.” The stage lights came up on the figure in a wrinkled white tee shirt and blue jeans, who seemed to be saying, “I’ve wanted to do this all night.” Singing Travelin’ Band, he and bass guitarist, Gene Boccia, faced each other as their fingers moved quickly over the frets and the two pounded out relentless melody.

He paused only briefly before beginning his version of ZZ Top’s I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide. Facing the crowd of friends and neighbors, his smile illuminating his face, the created combustion of his union of music, melody and the addition of his own brand of magic resulted in an unspeakable joy in the eyes and face of Bruce Springsteen. The small crowd felt it too. As he repeated the refrain “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” there is no doubt that this singer takes great pride in having never surrendered.

Published in Back Stage Pass, Volume 2, Issue no. 13 (August, ’84)

Springsteen: Hindsight: 20 / 20 Vision

Springsteen: Hindsight: 20 / 20 Vision
By Chris Bogart

In the summer of ’81, I received a phone call from a 19 year old girl in West Virginia. She was calling from the factory she had worked at since she dropped out of high school. I was sitting in my cubicle office at the YMCA in Asbury Park. I could hardly hear her voice; the noise of the heavy machinery in the background and the timid hazy quality of her voice forced me, on occasion, to ask her to speak a little louder. In fact, I could hear the operator far more clearly as she punctuated the conversation with requests for more coins to continue the call.

She had called, she said, just to talk to me. She had no money to buy the concert tee shirts that Bruce Springsteen had donated through WNEW-FM Radio in order to raise money for the strickened Asbury Park “Y”. But the newspapers in West Virginia had said that I had spoken with Bruce at the Meadowlands Arena, after one of the nights of his concert. “What is he like?” she asked me. I tried to relate some of what that conversation was like; and she hung on every word. She finally said she called because she had told her friend at the factory how great she thought Springsteen was; but, because his records were not very available, she felt as if her dedication to the singer and his songs was a lone crusade. After the news of his donation to the Asbury Park “Y” was published, she felt the exultation of vindication. That’s all she wanted to tell me. That, and how lucky I was to have met him. She thanked me for listening to her and hung up.

I have spent considerable time in the last few weeks, reading the reviews of Springsteen’s new and long-awaited album, Born in the U.S.A. There seems to be an almost childish obsession in these reviews with externals, and an almost total lack of concern with the value of the album itself. So, let me dispel any illusions and address all these externals quickly. No, nobody in NJ considers Bruce Springsteen a “god”, just a very effective songwriter (if “just” is the proper word to use). After all, New Jersey isn’t Mars. Not by a long shot. In many ways, it is very representative of areas and subcultures that predominate throughout the nation. And no, Born in the U.S.A. is not about NJ. To slip a hint, I refer one to the large mass of red, white and blue on the album cover behind his behind (or whoever’s it is).

As a matter of fact, one of the many strengths of this album is that it is not really regional at all. Born in the U.S.A begins with the title song as an all inclusive statement about a character that gets in a little trouble in his hometown, enlists in the army and goes to Vietnam. It is upon his return that this album really begins. Throughout all of the ensuing songs, Springsteen takes up through a myriad of places and experiences. Each of these songs has its own distinct style, and yet retains the unique quality that separates Springsteen from other singer/songwriters.

To describe this uniqueness, one has to examine a number of elements that has made Bruce Springsteen an elusive commodity to pin a title to. He has been called a phenomenon; and that is what I believe he is. Many reviewers have referred to his ability to side step one of the cardinal rules of the music industry: loosely translated to “publish or perish.” No one takes three years away from the public to produce a new album. Nobody dare. He does.

Many performers are remarkably adept at expressing one particular aspect of life in the U.S.A. This ability becomes their triumph – it also becomes their trap. Yet, the characters in Springsteen’s lyrics find the ability to feel the constriction, but have the ability to escape the trap. It is this unorthodox combination of “fight” and “flight” that has made songs like Thunder Road, Born to Run, and now Born in the U.S.A. poignant yet exhilarating.

The construction of this album is, in fact, like an inverted pyramid or a funnel. From the universal condition described in Born in the U.S.A to the retrospective feeling expressed, as the character, now 35 instructs his son in the lesson he learned, in My Hometown, the listener is led on a journey from the general to the particular. The album begins with a song that has all of the “gut” feeling and sound of the best of Springsteen’s music; and ends with a quiet, subtle ballad of experience and home, similar to his work in last year’s solo album Nebraska.

Don’t look for lyrics with big words that are pregnant with meaning; the lyrics in this album are admittedly simply. They are spoken by the common man. And it is the plight of the common man that Springsteen excels. His albums are populated with characters that, while never deeply defined, are real only as they pass before our eyes. For example, we know that he and “Wayne” drove down to Darlington County because of a “union connection” of an uncle of Wayne’s. We can presume that they both were looking for work. But who is Wayne? For the songwriter gives us just as much as we have to know about Wayne to give us the intimacy of the situation, without involving us to distraction. In this respect, Wayne joins the Magic Rat of Jungleland and others that Springsteen has developed to populate his (and our) world.

However, there are flaws in the world he creates. And one of those flaws is his characterizations of women. While very representative of prevailing perceptions of a large grouping of people, particularly those who live well outside the major urban centers of this country, they are far from flattering, somewhat archaic and submissive elements all but gone from today’s perception. Yet, my phone friend from West Virginia might fit this image to a tee.

If Springsteen has become a phenomenon, he has achieved that status by producing a number of exceptional albums. He is one of the few rock artists that can claim the ability to pack large local arenas as well as other halls throughout the country. And anyone who has been a part of those audiences can attest to the gentle control he has over his audiences, and devotion of his fans. Yes, devotion – not deification! Far from being a man hooked on his own hype, he possesses a remarkable amount of energy and exuberance for his music, and a quiet concern for any who have crossed his way, from the immense setting of the Meadowlands Arena to the intimate atmosphere of a Jersey Shore cabaret.

And that is what I told the 19 year old girl from West Virginia.

Ed. Note: The author, former Director of Planning of the Asbury Park YMCA, writes from New Jersey, of course!


Published in Back Stage Pass, Volume 2, Issue no. 12 (July ’84)

Why Don’t You Listen to Me?

Why Don’t You Listen to Me?
Christopher Bogart

Why is your colonial a house
And mine, a hacienda?

We both call them home.

When I listen to you
I don’t hear Brooklyn,
Atlanta,
Dallas,
Or Maine.

When I speak,
Why do you always seem to hear
Guadalajara or San Juan?

We were both born in the same hospital,
In the same town,
In the same state,
In the same country.

So

When you can look at me
And not see
lettuce pickers,
Field hands,
House cleaners,
Landscape workers,
Or hired help
You pick up at the train station
At the crack of dawn;

then

Then I won’t look at you
And think of Wall Street brokers,
Ponzi schemes,
The INS,
The KKK, or
Country clubs you would never let me join.

Every day I listen to you,
I hear you loud and clear.

Why don’t you listen to me?

Dead Angels

Dead Angels
Christopher Bogart

Brief bursts of frosted wind
Whip through these fields,
And dries the weeds
To a brittle brown.

Launched from crumbling pods,
Their seeds sprout wings,
And with brief abandon,
Fling themselves
Upward
To populate the pale gray sky
Of a fading sun.

They rise
In alien formation,
Committed to the fight
For a chance at future life.

The victors fall
Far beyond the call,
The death rattle
Of their parents past.

There they burrow
Deep into the ground
In a winter repose,
Until warm replaces cold.
When some will rise
Through new and fertile ground
To await the new sun’s reign
Over better days.

Their fellows in the fall
Lie in dryer ground
As dead angels,
There to fertilize the soil,
For the royal of green sprouts,
And new wings,
Grown for the promise of
A new life of flight.

But I will not die
On this dry ground
As some dead angel.
I will fly to fertile ground,
to grow,
to dance
In the warmth of new suns.

The Bet

The Bet
Christopher Bogart

How can you bargain with One
Who holds all the chips?
I’ve looked under my cards,
Under my chair,
Under the table.
I’ve even turned my pockets
Inside out
In search of just one
Chip to bargain with,
And, I’ll be damned,
Literally,
If I can find one.

It seems to me
That the game is just a little
Lopsided
If you can’t get up
The bet.

Masterwords

Masterwords
Christopher Bogart

Poetry paints
with broad brush strokes,
cover canvas with concept.

Fine lines delineate rhymes,
divide thought,
delineate nuance
left in shadow.

The palette of sounds
abound around hues,
find clues to feeling,
motive,
message
best left
to the reader of verbs.

Our words,
like humming birds,
flitter from flower to flower,
captured on canvas,
hour by hour -
little seen,
and rarely heard.

One Door Closes ...

I have only five more weeks before I end a 42 year career in education and retire. They say that writers draw most from what they know, what they have experienced. What they are experiencing. I guess that this is true. I find that I can think of almost nothing else these days. I wish that I could just jot off a poem or two about the myriad of thoughts that have crossed my mind over these last few weeks. And I know that this will only get worse as the day draws near. There is a retirement dinner on June 10th and graduation on June 18th. I have an office to empty out, final projects to complete, goodbyes to say. I am working on re-landscaping the front of my house, a sprinkler system install on my property, a new fence to surround my backyard. I am having new front and back doors to put on this 120 year old house, a kitchen to completely renovate, all the white trim in the house to paint, and the carpet and furniture to have steam-cleaned. And I don’t even want to think about cleaning out the basement and the attic. That will have to be a retirement project.

What can I write about? Renovated kitchens? Sprinkler systems? Fences? One of the great things about this blog is that it forced me to look at a lot of my older writing, and either renovate or dispose. I was also able to bang out a few new poems as well. However, one of the main purposes of the blog was to get me to write every day, something that I really wanted to get into the habit of when I retired, but something that is becoming increasingly more difficult to do as a 42 year old door closes, and a brand new door opens. But to what? I have ideas. Lots of ideas. But no clear vision as of yet.

The other purpose was to enter into a conversation about my writing and the writing of others. So far, that is not going so well. I appreciate the few comments I have received so far, but, so far, that is all I have gotten. Well, I am determined to continue to write. And, if you feel so inclined, write back. I will listen.

The Stoop

I had an old picture that someone found in a garage sale recently, and I used it as a prompt to write this poem. I could not upload the picture onto the blog, so I used one I found online that was similar. I don't have a brother, but when I lived in New York City growing up, we did have a stoop.

The Stoop
Christopher Bogart

There was a stone stoop
At the entrance to the New York City apartment building
In which we grew up.
My brother and I used it as our private front porch on which
We lounged on summer mornings, waiting for friends,
Played stoop ball on summer afternoons with a bright pink Spauldeene ball,
Or sat and talked with friends on cool evenings
Until our mother shouted “Bedtime!”
Through the fly-specked screen of the living room window.

Yet the times I most remember
Are the Sunday mornings before church
When Master Young and Master Younger,
All dressed up in their “Sunday, going to Church” best,
Sat on the stoop and waited for their parents to come out and
Pack them in the black and chrome Chevrolet with the duck tapped back handle
To go to fulfill their Sunday Obligation.

“I call the front seat.” My brother would crow
As he adjusted his brown felt fedora, just like Dad’s.
He in his long grown up pants, long enough to cover the elastic of his socks
But not the scuffs on his shoes from forbidden Sunday play,
And me in my little boy shorts and baby white shoes.

He was the eldest. The heir.
And I, the spare.
“Why do you always get the front seat?” I whined in mock resentment.
“Because Mom and Dad like me best.” Was his arrogant reply.

Mom and Dad did like him best,
I thought later from the back seat of the Chevy.
But then,
So did I.

There is a sadness certain in the leaving.

I have mentioned many times on this blog that I will be retiring from teaching after 42 years this June. Since 1968, when I first stepped into a classroom, I have taught thousands of children. Many of these children went on to lead successful and productive lives. As a matter of fact, my first class turns 60 years old this year. Many of the children I have taught were "challenges," coming from dysfunctional families, and had difficult lives. And some, for whatever reason, had lives cut short by violence, drunk driving accidents or health problems. I have been to a lot of proms and graduations over the years. I have also been to more funerals than I had ever cared to. There never seems to be a believable justification for a young death. Poets have written about such deaths over the history of literature in a vain attempt to make sense out of such a loss.

Two days ago, one of my former students, Terry Paul, passed away at the age of 21. He was in a college classroom, taking a test when he had a seizure and his heart stopped. He was a gifted student, a talented young man who excelled in track and in oil painting,and a kind and generous soul, more mature and wise than most high school seniors. One of his paintings hangs in my office opposite my desk, a gift he gave me when he graduated from our high school three years ago. It is a reminder of his talent as well as our loss.

I am posting two poems today. One, by A.E. Housman, is a well-known poem called "To an Athlete Dying Young." The other, one of my own, written as a poem about autumn; but one that, at this time, speaks of how I feel today.

To an Athlete Dying Young
A. E. Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.




The Leaving
Christopher Bogart

There is a sadness certain in the leaving.

In the falling,
Sad flight begins
As slow, mournful drift

Down.

It is there
I sit
on cold, damp ground

Below.

I speak
in somber distant sounds,

While through the bright
And leaving drift

I sift
Through sad stories
of the deaths
of petty princes
and of dying kings.

In Manibus Tui

In Manibus Tui
Christopher Bogart

It is rotting like a decayed corpse,
Stagnating as a quiet pool,
Bathed in the oppressive heat
And humidity of the stale air.

It renders no sign, no feel
That it feels or has the power to feel;
Is moved or has the power to move;
To sense, or to command its senses.

Its eyes stare upward, transfixed
On layer after layer of empty air.
Its visage belies a curious smile
That relates, unknown to it, a curious satisfaction.

It breathes not.
The air has long since left its lungs.
No sign of warmth emanates from it.
No moisture clouds the mirrored blade.

It cares not,
For in caring, it cannot care.
It demands nothing,
And receives nothing in its turn.

And yet,
All elements of life hover ‘round it,
Like angels ‘round a sacred form,
Waiting for it to need a need to survive.

Beware

Cave
Christopher Bogart

Within a form so full of life, it sleeps,
Unaware of the power that it holds.
It sleeps in restless fearful solitude
Inside the chaos of its loneliness.

Outside, the world awaits the golden morn.

Within, its eyes see through
The heavy lids of their own darkness.

One day, one ray of light must truly come
And raise the heavy lids to see the sun,
Dissolving darkness, filling it with light.

For it can never
Sleep forever.

Of Chemicals and Chemistry

Of Chemicals and Chemistry
Christopher Bogart

Escaping with a slip
By placing on the lip
Something in a clip
Produced by E.R. Squibb,
Releasing just a bit
Of chemical fits
And archetypal trips,
Involving just a dip,
Or a sip,
Or a nip
Is nothing but a rip-
Off.

"Nearer My God to Thee"

Carpathia
Christopher Bogart

We are foundering, Carpathia.
We are foundering in the sea.
We are drifting from our charted course
In confused reverie.

We’ve struck and iceberg, Carpethia,
And it’s ripped into our holds.
It’s the ice of bleak indifference,
And it’s freezing us with its cold.

There’s California, Carpathia.
She’s only forty miles away,
But she doesn’t seem to hear us.
Why? Her wireless doesn’t say.

We were unsinkable, Carpathia,
Unsinkable – or so we thought.
We were unaware of peril,
Yet with peril we were fraught.

It’s our children, brave Carpathia.
It is them we chose to leave.
We have lowered down their lifeboats,
And they drift without reprieve.

It’s getting dark now, Carpathia,
And though you’re just two hours away,
We are nearer to God than thee.
Our only course now is to pray.

Tutankhaten

When I first started writing poetry in my late teens, I was into "angst" poetry, chronicling the trials and tribulations of being young. Once I started teaching, in my twenties, my poetry took a more romantic turn. I don't mean romantic in terms of romance, but more in terms of an historical romanticism. Looking more closely at historical figures, I was touched by some of their lives as well as their deaths.

I recently found a book of this poetry, and have tried to see whether any of it was worth salvaging, or whether it should remain as a road sign to my youth. The poem I posted last night, I felt, with a little revision, still had something to say. I feel the same way about the poem I am posting tonight. The last time there was a major Tutankhamun exhibit was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in the 1970's I visited that exhibition, then later on, researched some of the prayers that Tutankhamun's father, Amenophis IV (Akhnaten) wrote to the sun disc, Aten. He had, for a few years, changed the face of ancient Egyptian religion, moving the capital to Tell el-Amarna. The priests of Amun Ra rebelled, and when Akhnaten died, forced Tutankhamun (originally named Tutankaten) to bring the capital back to Luxor, the city sacred to Amun.

I wrote this poem in the spirit of the prayers Akhnaten wrote to Aten. Some historians believe that Tut's lapse into his father's religion cost him his life.

Tutankhamun
Christopher Bogart

Still the softly sweeping sands.
Harness Ra within the sky.
Turn back Hapi’s gentle flow.
Re-teach Horus how to fly.

Take a child, nine tender years.
Place on his head the Double Crown.
Cloak him in two thousand years.
Try not to let it weigh him down.

Smother all his boyish dreams
Of Aten’s rays of living love.
Amun’s hawks in swiftest flight
Soon will outstrip and crush the dove.

Let him shiver through the nights.
Give him cause to quake in fear.
Challenge him to be a god,
Yet keep his manhood from drawing near.

Still the softly sweeping sands.
Reteach Horus how to fly.
Place poison on a needle’s tip;
And teach a pharaoh how to die.

Beyond the Bus Window

I spent the summers of 1965 to 1967 working in New York City as a social worker for the New York City Housing Authority's Anti-Poverty Unit. In that capacity, I saw first-hand the disparity between the "uptown" of Broadway, Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue and the "downtown" of the Bronx, Harlem, the Lower East Side, the West Side and parts of Brooklyn. Every night, as I boarded the bus at the Port of New York Authority to go back to my home in New Jersey, as the bus winded around the ramps to leave the terminal, I could look into the tenements that surrounded the terminal. It typified the kind of poverty I was seeing each day at my job, a grinding poverty and a simple despair that seemed to have no boundaries. And I wrote about it.

Beyond the Bus Window, Leaving Port Authority on December 5, 1964
Christopher Bogart

It is a city, a bleeding city,
A deep running sore it is,
Amid the tumult of ever-moving feet,
Between the rubber of ever-moving wheels.

It moves and yet it mourns.
It dribbles the saliva
Of every drunk that lies
On each of its unnamed byways.

It cries, and yet it laughs,
Through crooked, gritted teeth.
Its echoes rebound from story to story
Up and down the cold grey sentries of its streets.

It is a city whose pulse
Is entirely composed
Of the nervous twitching of its ever-moving populace,
A pulse that never ceases.

You can’t touch it, you can’t,
But it is there.
It filters through the granite and the steel.
It runs along the walkways and the roads.

But it can be destroyed.
Pity will kill it.
Love, love will purge it.
But do we want it purged?

What will be left when it dies?
A big city, a thriving city,
Or a shell,
Cleansed of its filthy ugliness.

Steel girders, stone and glass
Will not move for love;
But the city will be destroyed.
The city will be destroyed.

In My Life

In My Life
Christopher Bogart

If you could live
My last sixty years
In one single day
In time,
Then you would know
The ebb and flow
Of thoughts upon
My mind.

You would know
About Howdy Doody,
Viet-Nam, Selma
And Rootie Kazootie,
Kent State,
And state
The Dream Speech
By heart.

You would have danced
To the Blues Magoos,
Saw Woodstock,
Little Rock,
The Asiatic Flu –
And saw social issues
Tear the land
Apart.

You’d have felt
The warmth
Of puppy love,
The thrill of crush,
The flight of doves –
Raising your emotions
To the sky.

And in time you’d learn
Of loss, despair,
Retreating youth,
Receding hair,
Split seams,
Lost dreams,
The value of a lie.

For then you’d know
The highs and lows
Of one small life –
My life;
And know
That through
Experience
You’d learned
Just this:

Life’s a long, long journey
Through the years –
Filled with days of wonder,
And nights of tears –
All glued together,
Somehow,
With just one kiss.

For man is not
A lone creation,
But destined
To achieve salvation
By loving one another:
This is his bliss.