Richard Fein
Teacher, Poet
Brooklyn, New York
Signing A Song
by Richard Fein
Couldn't really read the
signs being made in the bedroom.
Coats strewn over the bed,
behind me were party sounds,
clinking glasses, loud conversation, controlled laughter,
ahead of me a quieter place,
still there were sounds,
soft music from the bedroom stereo,
and in the subdued light
the green volume indicator light rarely moved to red.
And she danced,
not to the rhythm of the music
but to the flickers of the pulsating lights.
She faced me,
her arms were in a liquid flow,
first crossed over her heart, then slowly
down her sides then up high
when the lights briefly sojourned to red.
She closed her eyes, swayed her head,
then opened them, saw me and smiled
and again crossed her heart.
I had been told that she was deaf.
I knew one sign, the crossed arms over heart
which meant love,
though for whom or what I didn't know.
Her smile was universal.
I couldn't translate her lyrics,
nor could she hear the melody,
but we both held out our arms
and slowly danced across the room
moving to our own common rhythm.
Eidetic Memories
by Richard Fein
It was a whim this ferry
ride.
I had called the office and conjured up
a business deal across the bay
to alibi my empty desk.
This morning:
my tie choked me,
my suit became ridiculous in the July heat,
my briefcase weighed me down with pointless papers.
My tie is off now; my neck can feel a cool breeze.
I seek my late father's memories,
those images he held in his mind
for fifty years after he had sailed into this bay.
That day the sky was heavy,
heavy with broken clouds through which sunlight pierced,
dappling the bay
and spotlighting the pier,
as if God had pointed the way.
He remembered a sailor on a passing ship who had waved to him.
After fifty years he could still sketch that face.
I am trying to enter my father's memories.
But no sailor waves to me now,
and no biblical shaft of light
points the way to a promised land.
I can't feel what he felt, nor see, nor smell, nor hear.
Yet I can relive that singular day at my father's office.
I am twelve; we are eating salami and cheese sandwiches.
Dad is drawing the face of the sailor
who greeted him on his first day here.
About the poet. . .
Richard Fein has written
poetry for the past two decades
and has been widely published in internet e-zines and print journals.
He recalls his first poem written at 12:45 a.m. on January 1, 1972:
"It was a terrible doggerel about a lost love. Since that time
I've written reams
and reams of doggerels and every once in a while a halfway decent
poem. I took one workshop from a poet named Bill, at least that's
what he called himself, about 22 years ago. He said, "The beauty
is in the details." (Which is a variant of "no ideas but
in things.") I spent six weeks describing an object with extreme
specificity. Then he'd force us to turn these details into metaphors.
I never worked so hard, but his lessons are now ingrained in my writing."
Fein's publication credits include the Birmingham Poetry Review,
Zuzu's Petals, Touchstone, Windsor Review, Sonoma Mandala Literary
Review, Ellipsis,
Roanoke Review, Sulphur River Literary Review, Small Pond, Blue Unicorn,
Soundings East,
the Macguffin, Miscellaneous, Orphic Lute Oregon East, and others.
A high school biology instructor, Fein has written science articles
for educational journals and also performs at various poetry readings
throughout
the New York area. Fein is a resident of Brooklyn, New York.
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