WHAT'S LEFT

light blue to dark blue

the curtain fell on water

rocks remained so strong

© Marjorie J. Levine 2023

THE YELLOW HORIZON

In summer, or fall, winter, or spring 

That dusty road delivered no brass ring.

Nothing ever changed and in the twilight

There was no difference between day or night.

The green faded to a sunset so yellow

When winter came, the whites were mellow.

Spring beckoned: a path different, eternal, muted and refined

She was lifted from the sedentary because a stranger passed so kind.

© Marjorie J. Levine 2023

 

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

HAIKU

After the good deeds

The blue sky blended with clouds

Ennui filled the cup

© Marjorie J. Levine 2023

WISCONSIN DELLS

The huge movie screen

Sits behind the red flowers

In Wisconsin Dells

Marjorie J. Levine © 2023

CAROL HEBALD and THE HEART TOO LONG SUPPRESSED

This was in 2016, the pics are from my night at the Cornelia Street Cafe during a reading by Carol Hebald from her book:

2023 update:  Carol is now in a wheelchair and has dementia and is being looked after by a neighbor in the building where she lives.

ONE THING IS CERTAIN

ONE THING IS CERTAIN

It’s hard to end any journey

Especially after so much has 

Been left unsaid,

Unsaid like a guest who stays 

For rainy days and summer nights 

And forgets the particulars 

Of all the small yesterdays. 

So many empty spaces remain

So many holes are ripped within the 

Pieces and answers just fall away 

Like orange leaves in autumn under a

Dim night street lamp.

Of this I am certain: men 

Shared my bed for decades…

They of many different mercurial 

Faces and I was loved,

Defined in bittersweet murky ways

Within truths I concealed

In my own particular brand of 

Hidden unfolding dark celluloid.  

Every part of me was loved.

I was loved within the inside 

Of the truest part of me. 

In almost old age, I peel off my layers

And shed my lizard skin

And let who I was supposed to be 

Be me and let a facade fall away…

To deserted playgrounds, and moldy theaters, 

And haunted highways.

During long ago pasts and in deeper pasts and 

Into a present I was loved as a man by men…

Men loved me and I was their man.

I of the she, born a she who grew to wear

Velvet dresses and frilly dresses and false eyelashes

Was loved as a man by men. 

The significant details are not even important.

The specifics will be buried with the ashes and dust.

Because everything gets buried and eventually

It all fades away like the songs from long ago 

Not heard in now deserted houses.

Eventually it will hardly matter when today’s 

Grandchildren give birth to new babies. 

But one thing now in this time is certain. 

I was a man loved by men. 

That much is true.

Marjorie J. Levine 

© 2023

SLIPPING AWAY

 

SLIPPING AWAY

After passing a high crooked junk pile 

And moving further down the road

There is a small wooden house with

A porch with three empty seats

And a blue bicycle with no wheels.

In an open broken box, mail sits

Waiting to be opened and read.

Across the street there is another house

With a large green lawn and a swing set

And two small dogs run around

While a lion sits locked in a cage.

There is another tiny old house

With one grey chair on a bent patio

And a Christmas wreath on the door

Although it is sunny in June.

Then there is a house with red roses 

And white tulips that hang high 

Over the top of dusty windows.

All of this slips away and falls away 

And eventually can be seen only

In rear view mirrors.

But then there is an old church

And this must be the place where 

All those who live on this road

Go to pray.

Marjorie J. LevIne 

© September 2023

THE MURALS OF ASHLAND WI

 

NONO AND AUNT MARJ

Here is a Nono Lebasque and my nephew's portrait of me from 1995:

SUE

 

I received sad news. My old friend from my teaching days, Sue, has passed away. After one disagreement, over a very serious matter which I do not want to even get into, our friendship took a turn. We were never able to restore the closeness we had when we were colleagues and always seemed to be at cross purposes since the 1990s. She sent me a card, I sent her a gift, she reached out and we met for lunch, and then she let the relationship fall away. I thought we would create a more permanent fix. I tried every way to bring it back to where it was, to not let her go. I tried to make it right. I was trying until almost her death. We spoke last April on the phone and now it is all too late. 

I am heartbroken... a whole era of my life is gone. The people I spent every day with for almost 20 years: had lunch with every day at The Market Diner, spoke with every night on the phone and even traveled with. I miss Nell, Bernie, Jack, and now will miss Sue. 

This is Sue dancing during the school's dance festival (1976?).

And this is Sue with Jack (who passed away in 2020) in that playground. I visited Jack every summer when he lived on the beach in  Long Branch, NJ. Those days were part of the best years of my life. 

THE CAR RAT... AND ME

I park my car in the garage under my building. In 2017, my car, a Galant, had a really funky weird smell. 

Everybody told me it was because I had an oil change... which I knew was absurd. I drove around the city with the windows wide open to air out the car, put in scent spheres, sprayed the interior, and nothing helped. 

Actually, I had seen a few strange oily brown balls on the passenger seat but thought nothing of it. I just picked them up with a tissue and threw them away. And that faint sound I heard or thought I heard behind me as I drove a few days before that smell? I thought it was my umbrella which had been shuffled when I hit a bump on the road.

I finally brought it in to a mechanic I have known for decades on West 46th Street and he got in and right away said: 

“There is a dead animal in here and I will find it.” 

He pulled apart the dash and found this big stinking dead rat behind the radio! I never got in that car again. 

End of rat story. I hope. 

  

ALL I HAVE EVER BEEN AND ALL I WILL NEVER BE

I began teaching in 1968 and it was probably in 1991 when my thoughts turned to becoming serious about stand-up comedy, which had been a night time hobby. I wanted to try to get work on TV or in film. I even considered leaving teaching to pursue my dream of becoming a Hollywood movie star.  

So I took another scene study class at HB Studio with Bill Hickey and I enrolled in Weist-Barron and took a few classes in acting for commercials and soap operas. When those sessions ended, I was an energizer bunny. I began a class at The Comic Strip with Rob Weinstein, took a comedy class at The Manhattan Punchline with Gabe Abelson and then a class at The New School with Scott Blakeman. And years later, I was in a class at The Gotham Comedy Club with Dan Vitale. I was a professional student. I was happy. I even won a major contest at Stand up NY Comedy Club to find NYC's funniest teacher. 

I was on a roll...  I bought my way into AFTRA and got some shitty head shots taken. Trust me, they were horrendous. I never worked in anything where belonging to AFTRA even mattered or was even necessary, but I liked being in AFTRA. It made me feel I was making progress. After paying many years of high dues for totally nothing, I asked for an Honorary Withdrawal and received it. 

That was before AFTRA merged with SAG. If the merge was in place, I don't think I would have asked for an honorary withdrawal. I was a stickler for details that would fuel my dream of becoming a movie star and being in SAG would have enhanced my delusions. My fantasy world needed layers down a defined rabbit hole. 

I had written an episode for SEINFELD and sent it for consideration in representation to a talent agency. ICM must have liked it because after they received it from me instead of tossing it into the circular file they sent it to the producers and I received a kind reply from Tim Kaiser! I later did the entire episode on my own internet broadcast. It is up on YouTube, and it is amazing! 

I had to get real. I had taken two Sabbaticals from teaching and completed my second Masters degree. I moved up in the Board of Education pay scale and was moving closer to a point where I could retire. I could not leave my day job. My eye was on the prize at that point: the almighty pension.

And that probably was a good thing because since my retirement in 2002 I have not needed to work. For fun, I volunteered at The Museum of Television and Radio. I loved that little gig: helping visitors in the museum locate on tapes TV shows from long ago for which they had fond memories. But I was fired from that volunteer job! I was never on time and that got on their last nerve. 

My dream was to become a movie star. That never happened. I was not a risk taker and stayed with that day job for almost 35 years. I feel I was hiding under the bed. In many ways, I feel I disappointed my younger self who had so many hopes and dreams. 

I retired shortly after 9/11, in February 2002, from this school. On my last day at PS 134, the view to the west side of Manhattan was very different. 

On my last day of teaching, it was here that I waited for the bus that would take me back home and into my new future. 

I was in a play called Mishkin's Paradise shortly after I retired. We did it at The Producer's Club. It did not make me famous but we had a good time doing it. 

I had a chance to have a major role in Robert Siegel's film BIG FAN, but during a dinner with Robert at The Chelsea Gallery Diner, I recommended another actor for the part: Marcia Jean Kurtz, and he hired her. Why did I do that? Read ROAD TRIPS and understand how my obstacles sabotage my own life. But, it is what it is and was what it was. 

photo credit: Marjorie J. Levine © 2009

Now I am internet famous. I do a daily broadcast as Yetta Telebenda. I have many fans, I make them laugh.... so maybe in some small scale way I actually did "make it."