Alte Issue #2 SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

Thirsting

by Alicia Ostriker

It is not that the old are wise

But that we thirst for the wisdom

we had at twenty

when we understood everything

when our brains bubbled

with tingling insights

percolating up from

our brilliant genitals

when our music rang like a global siege

shooting down all the lies in the world

oh then we knew the truth

then we sparkled like mica in granite

and now we stand on the shore

of an ocean that rises and rises

but is too salt to drink

When We All Took Drugs

by Zev Shanken

When we all took drugs we took them to escape

our true selves I mean into our true selves

 When we all took drugs our only problem was

others did not take drugs I mean the same drugs

 When we all took drugs we understood the horror

of needing medicine to be normal I mean to be normal

Vietnam

by Norman Riesman

The one thing that overwhelmingly defined much of the ’60’s and ’70’s for me was the Vietnam War, and the person I think of the most when I think about that was my friend from home, Bob Piazza.  

I first met him when he joined my 5th grade class at Camp Avenue School, Merrick, New York, in the late Fifties. He was the first-born son of recent immigrants from Italy and he proudly pronounced his name Roberto Piazza, complete with rolling R’s, etc. Over the years he became Robert, Bob, Bobbie, and — to a select few — Pizza Pie. 

He lived a little beyond my house and we used to walk home together. Many times on a nice day we’d stop and play in my yard. Both of us being TV wrestling fans (and he being a chubby kid), he usually played a fat wrestler, like Haystacks Calhoun, while I pretended to be a good guy, like Antonino Rocca. For a heavy kid, Bob had a very contagious but high-pitched laugh.  

By high school, we were on different paths. I was college-bound and he was going to join the service and learn a trade. He also became one of the school tough guys. His whole persona changed. He was physically large with a tough demeanor, and I’d be remiss if I left out his leather jacket and greased hair. But having known me as a kid, when he saw me it was all, “Hey Reisie,” to which I’d respond, “Hey Pizza Pie,” and lots of hugs and laughs. (My peers couldn’t believe I could get away with that.) He was Fonzie years before Fonzie was created.

I remember hearing the news of his death (and many other local boys’ deaths) while I was still in college. I recently Googled him and found his name, a picture, etc. on a Virtual Vietnam Memorial Wall. He died a marine in Quang Tri on April 6, 1968, at age 19. It’s appropriate on this 50th year anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, that we remember the full title of that masterpiece, Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade, A Duty Dance With Death.

So it goes.

Anthony Wallace 

Vietnam, U.S. Army, 1st Calvary Division, 2nd 

Battalion, 7th Cavalry, Bravo Company, 1969-70 

“What do you want me to do now, God?” —Anthony Wallace

“I was an Infantryman stationed in Tay Ninh Province, close to the Cambodian border in Vietnam, from 1969 until 1970. I was wounded at Firebase Atkinson near the city of Dong Xoai when a mortar hit my bunker. I had flashbacks with various scenes: getting a glass of water from the fridge, my funeral with a draped coffin with family members sitting in the front row, playing ball outside the projects, going to church, my school classroom. 

“Three of my buddies didn’t make it. I was medivaced to the 24th Evacuation Hospital, then to a Japanese hospital, and finally taken back home to the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Queens.

“It never goes away, it’s imprinted on you. You don’t forget what you went through. The smell of jet fuel at an airport, sounds of a helicopter — all trigger Vietnam.”

Dear Doctor

by Esther Cohen

Thank you for my OFFICIAL BLOOD REPORT from you my new endocrinologist who I am seeing for Hashimoto’s.  Which I’ve had for years. Would it be possible to make these reports more human?We are all receive confusing numbers GOOGLE always a mistake B 12 a little high don’t google that. All patients are anxious and maybe you could replace the bold faced sentence:  ALL TESTS ARE NORMAL AS EXPECTEDEXCEPT THE FOLLOWING ABNORMAL RESULTS and say YOU ARE FINE instead and then, maybe NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT TODAY and then, a friendly goodbye.

Entry from the Handbook of General Regrets

by Jessica de Koninck

When was the last time someone

asked what you would like 

for breakfast or woke you

with the scent of scones baking

or buttermilk biscuits and read

you the headlines, while

you were already engrossed

reading something else,

and poured you a second cup

of coffee and said, rushing out

the door, See you later, love you, bye?

Postscript to the Brandeis University Chronicles

by Jessica de Koninck

Benny emails to say he’s getting a chair.

I mean a university chair

not a chair with arms and legs,

I imagine it a Windsor chair, not

a comfy chair like the one in my

second floor office where I sit and read

novels and collections of poetry

when it is too cold to sit outside

on the porch. I didn’t ask in my reply

whether getting a chair includes

an actual chair or just a way to know 

the name of the donor responsible

for the paycheck and to speculate 

what the donor, if living, might expect

in return. Back in the 70’s, Benny

barricaded himself in the office

of the university president along

with a bunch of other young

radicals in yet another protest, 

When, decades later, that president

died in a Cairo hotel bombing,

Ben regretted his failure 

to apologize. Even international

economists engage in magical thinking. 

He plans to discuss the Green New Deal

in his inaugural lecture. I’m not going.

Too long a trip to make alone. Ben says

he thinks about my late husband, Paul,

a lot when he’s writing. Me too, I say,

and how proud Paul would be. 

I suppose having a socialist, Curaçaoan, 

Sephardic Jew as an economics chair 

gives the college some leftist caché,

but now Ben can’t retire anytime soon.

Late Sixties

by Joel Schechter

I arrived in Paris too early

To occupy the Sorbonne, or sit in the street

And hear Sartre’s recital (de Beauvoir’s too)/

It was 1967. I met Beckett that year.

The beach had not yet been discovered

under the paving stones when I left Paris.

I wasn’t there to demand the impossible in 1968.

But I’m ready now.