August 31, 2018

Laszlo Slomovits

STRANGERS

A man is running hard
to catch the bus that just left.

It’s picking up speed but he
pulls even and raps on its side,

and a woman by the window
yells to the driver, who stops

and opens the accordion door.
But the man does not get on—

he points back to an old woman
who has not run a step

in a very long time
shuffling towards the bus.

Nor does he leave until he’s
helped her up both steps

then walks back slowly
still breathing hard

toward us who are
waiting for a different bus.

What can a group of strangers
do at a time like this?

A time in its own tiny way like
when Bob Hayes roared by them all

to bring the relay home,
or when Billy Mills devoured

the last 50 of the 10,000 meters
or when Joan Benoit came striding

into the stadium alone—and all of us
strangers stood up and cheered.

from Rattle #60, Summer 2018
Tribute to Athlete Poets

__________

Laszlo Slomovits: “One of my father’s heroes was Jesse Owens. Perhaps an unusual hero for an Orthodox Jew in 1930s rural Hungary, but you see, in a small way, my father was a ‘chariot of fire’ (to reference the famous movie of two other Olympic sprinters). Though he was a devout and religious man, in his youth my father loved to run and was a pretty good sprinter—not world class, but pretty good. So that was one reason. The other didn’t fully enter my father’s life until a number of years after Jesse’s amazing exploits at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. My father lost his wife, three children, both parents, three sisters, his only brother, and numerous more distant relatives and friends during the Holocaust. Jesse’s victory in the ‘Nazi Olympics’ symbolically took on heroic proportions. I grew up hearing legendary stories of Jesse Owens, and about my father having been a sprinter—which made me want to be one also. And I too was pretty good; definitely not world class, but good enough to be one of the tri-captains of the track team in my senior year at the University of Rochester. Much more importantly, I loved to run. While in college, I moved up from sprints to middle-distance racing and longer distance training, and found that I got my best ideas for writing poetry, song lyrics, and music while out on a long slow run, especially in nature. Now, nearing my seventh decade, I mostly go for walks and slow jogs, but still find inspiration and insight during those times, moving in those ways.” (web)

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December 11, 2017

Laszlo Slomovits

AFTER THE READING BY THE FAMOUS POET

He sat at a table in the bookstore signing autographs.
We stood all around, awkward, clinging, fawning,
and he was kind, quite patient, understanding,
and separate as a sun that keeps its planets in orbit,

until she walked in. Tall, gorgeous, not looking for
our attention nor shielding from it. He stood up, said,
“Excuse me,” and walked to meet her. When they
embraced it was clear they’d once been lovers.
Long ago. Neither of them hid or flaunted it.
They stood pressed together for a long time.

Stepping back, they held each other at arm’s length,
without hunger, regret, or words. Then they both
let go, turned and walked back, she to the door
and he to the table. And we continued standing near,
even more awkward, smiling, warmed throughout,
while he continued signing his name in our books.

from Rattle #57, Fall 2017
Tribute to Rust Belt Poets

__________

Laszlo Slomovits: “Born in Budapest, Hungary, I left after the 1956 Revolution with my twin brother and Holocaust-surviving parents, lived in Israel for three years, then moved to Kingston, New York, at age eleven. I went to college at the University of Rochester in upstate New York, where as a senior, I met my wife. She was accepted to grad school at the University of Michigan, so we moved to Ann Arbor thinking we’d be here a year or two—and never left. Perhaps because of all my traveling as a child, and learning three languages early on, inner regions of memory and imagination have often been more important to me than outer locales and their dialects. I’ve thought often about the effect of living here on my writing; so many writers talk about the value and even necessity of a sense of place. But all I’ve arrived at after 44 years, is that something of the grounded, pragmatic nature of this region and its people has combined with my underlying sense of rootless everywhere-ness. Voices and subjects that attempt to weave the secretly symbolic with the down to earth are what I’m always looking for. Throughout these years, working as a folk musician with my twin brother, I have traveled throughout Michigan, nearby Rust Belt states, and many other regions of the U.S. and Canada. At some point I recognized Ann Arbor as a place I could call home, for which I feel very grateful.” (web)

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