Looking Out the Window...Arnie, Ron, Ed, and Bonnie

Looking Out the Window is one of my first college compositions. I had recently been discharged from the service and I was working at Jerrold Electronics while attending Lasalle College at night. I was 23 years old when I wrote it. The theme of the composition was "Looking back". In it, I looked back at my pre-Army life at age 18. This piece was lost for a long time, and I didn't come across it until just recently. I made a few tiny edits from the handwritten original, but otherwise it's accurate. I apologize for its amateur style, but it was, after all, my very first college writing course. "Theme #10" is the actual blue book cover label. (God, how I remember the horror I felt when the professors handed out those blue books by surprise at the beginning of a class.)


LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW

It is Sunday afternoon and somehow it is one of those days that could be any day of my life. Looking out the window, I see myself sitting on the fender of my blue Corvette. Ron, Ed, and Arnie are standing around me. We’re getting ready to drive down to the shore. Or perhaps we’ll be going to the mountains, or the drag races, or the park. Wait…Now it is becoming clear. We are doing all those things today, because today is every day of my post-high school, pre-army youth.

It is a strange person I see outside. He is a ghost of the good old days, and yet he isn’t happy. In remembering, I thought people usually suppress the unhappiness and recall nothing but the pleasantries. Is something wrong with my memory functions, or are there no pleasantries to be remembered? I must have a closer look.

I’m looking out the window again…There was always something to do those days. The Corvette, which I really could not afford, was always able to thrill me when I drove it. The brute acceleration gave me a sense of power and contentment. Maybe it was the only thing that gave me any satisfaction at all. I don’t recall any particularly spectacular relationships at that time. I can only see Bonnie. I think of Bonnie quite often; even in the present. I was with Bonnie very often those days. Perhaps we saw one another off and on for five years. There was so much between us, and yet there was nothing. Maybe I wasn’t ready for her then. Am I now? I felt so much for her, and she for me, yet for all we put into it, all we reaped was misery and dissatisfaction.

Yes, there was always something to do those days. I made things to do. Perhaps I was madly seeking something or someone who could give me just one ounce of happiness. But these reflections puzzle me. Did I have to wait to turn 23 to understand what my life was like at 18? I must have led a life full of unhappiness without even knowing just how unhappy I was.

I’m looking out the window again…I see myself smiling now, even though the smile doesn’t reach inside. The car is pulling away, and this pleases me. Looking at myself was a painful ordeal. I wonder how it will be when I am looking back on 23. But why should I concern myself? Somehow it just doesn’t matter.

Steven Pein
Spring 1969
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The Spirit of Spring

For a birthday present a while back, Wendy and Elliot Dubin had a calligrapher make up a beautiful framed version of a poem I loved and recited for many years. It’s called Spirit of Spring, and although not one of my own, it is one of my all time favorites.


SPIRIT OF SPRING

I woke up in the morning
One bright and sunny day,
A little bird flew on my sill
And began to sing away.

I waited ‘til he silenced,
Until there was a lull,
I gently closed the window
And crushed his fuckin’ skull
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Some things never change...

I've always said that one company was just like another. I found a poem I wrote around 1970 about Jerrold Electronics Corporation. You'll see clearly that my writing style was influenced by Bob Dylan, but I find it particularly interesting that the subject matter is still applicable 40 years later. I've made some parenthetical notes to explain some particular insider terms used in the poem. Enjoy!


JERROLD

Morale’s been going down so fast
Contented employees are a thing of the past
I knew things couldn’t get much worse
So I summed it up in simple verse

Insurance is a problem here
It seems the coverage ain’t too fair
You tell yourself it can’t possibly be
But Aetna only pays you posthumously

MATV is a word of gloom (Master Antenna Television)
Jerrold builds amps that can heat a room
I hear tell an enterprising young lady
Once cooked a meal on a thirty-eight-eighty (Model 3880 got HOT)

A long time ago in a previous year
We sold the Water Works some four-forty gear (Model 440)
System acceptance is going real slow
‘Cause the units won’t work two days in a row

The “Transfer Unit” was an interesting twist
We sold a product that didn’t exist
So each guy worked on a separate portion
And it turned into an engineering abortion

Company growth is hard to conceive
If each guy coming sees three guys leave
Jobs at Jerrold are easily gotten
The benefits are bad and the pay is rotten

Steven Pein
Circa 1970
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Getting priorities straight

For my friend Mike:
When our lunch discussion turned to the topic of people getting their priorities mixed up between family and career, I told you I had written a poem about that very subject. It's called Brian. It was inspired during a conversation I had with my cousin Shari in her New York apartment back in July 1994. I hope you like it.


Brian

Brian never really understood
That his family was on the line
That children need a daddy who works nine to five
But instead he worked from five to nine.

They were sleeping when he left the house
They were sleeping when he returned
The lonely little children never knew their dad
And they didn't care how much he earned.

So his wife became fond of the tennis coach
The children called him uncle Ray
And Brian never saw it coming
Until they packed and drove away.

So Brian went back to working
Trying to forget about the past
His hours stretched to midnight
But he told himself it wouldn't last.

He dreamed how it would be next time
The mistakes he wouldn't make again
He knew he had to cut his hours
But he didn't know exactly when.

And the years passed by too quickly
In five years he made V.P.
It was at a California convention
That he finally met Anna Lee.

And they married only two months later
And in three years had a family
And Brian remembered his vow from long ago
But it wasn't meant to be.

The fighting started shortly later
The divorce hit devastatingly
And Brian lost his second chance
It was really never meant to be.

He looks back now to reminisce
And tears fill up his eyes
He lost his job at age fifty-nine
His success was his demise.

So he drowns his sorrows in alcohol
And he remembers way back then
He swears he'd do better with one more chance
But he'd just do it all again.

Steven Pein
26 July 1994
Copyright 1994
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Crypto-One...Be Careful what you wish for.

Poetry even played a role in "Crypto-One", the companion novel to "The Six". This is a novel that ties to "The Six" and really explains where, why, and how the reincarnations (see my earlier post about "The Six") happened. The title refers to to the lead cryptographer in a team that is trying to discover the key to break a code for symbols they find in an astonishing place. In fact, it holds the key to existence as we know it, and the truth is so troubling that a previously unknown person back in 1968 discovered it and then concealed it. The poem is actually something the cryptographer found scribbled on a hidden piece of paper during his quest to break the code, and it troubled him greatly...

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

Codebreakers, codebreakers, try to conceive,
Of answers so simple they’re hard to believe,
I struggled for years in my home by the sea,
Just trying to figure what code this could be.

I cracked it at last but it soon haunted me,
I wish I had never discovered the key,
For you can’t imagine my sadness unless,
Your efforts also are met with success.

I warn you it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie,
But if you’re compelled to still give it a try,
I’ll give you a clue that will help you succeed,
Solutions are found very simply indeed.

Jonathan Hartford, III
July 1968

Steven Pein
Copyright 1995

So what do you think Jonathan found out?
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Death

This is a really weird one. Let me start off by saying that I'm not, and never have been suicidal. That being said, when I did my self-hypnosis exercises (mentioned in a previous posting) the goal was to figure out what caused the panic attacks. I decided to write "Death" in a different style than I had written my other poetry. This one started with a narrative describing the confusion about panic, an attempt to understand it, a thought that maybe there wasn't anything strange about it at all, and finally a conclusion that fear of death was normal because self-preservation was the only purpose of life. I know it's a really weird concept, but at least try to enjoy the sarcasm.

The narrative leads to a light hearted poem about a very dark thought...suicide. Please take it in the spirit that it was created; warped fun about what life without meaning would be.

DEATH

I feel the butterflies.
Sometimes they take me by surprise.
There is no pattern.
There is no rhyme nor reason.
The butterflies are here, then they are gone.
No!
They are always here.
But sometimes I pay them no attention.
What do they mean?
Living is being afraid.
It's instinctive.
Animals are always watchful for danger.
They do not trust.
They dare not trust.
But, the higher the form of life, the lower the vigilance.
What is the purpose of our being?
Maybe there is no purpose.
But, if not.......

It strikes me as somewhat confusing,
The reason for being alive,
And I find it somewhat amusing,
How strongly we fight to survive.

If life doesn't have any purpose,
Then why this obsession of man,
To stay on this earth's lousy surface,
As long as he possibly can.

If dying were really such horror,
Then no one would ever go through it,
But look at the obits tomorrow,
And tell me why so many do it.

The lesson that's here for the gleaning,
Is simple as black and white,
Since life clearly doesn't have meaning,
Why not just end it tonight?

Steve Pein
26 May 1994
Copyright 1994
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Don't depend on the 2010 election to solve problems.

If there's legislation you oppose that gets passed this year in Washington, don't get lulled into the notion that voting out Democrats is the answer. If you don't stop the legislation now, we'll likely be stuck with it for the remainder of the President's term. A new Congress can pass laws to repeal existing laws, but a Presidential veto can only be overridden by a full 2/3 majority in both the House and Senate. No matter how the 2010 elections turn out, it's a safe bet that Republicans alone won't ever meet that 2/3 requirement.
If you don't like what's happening in Washington, tell your Representatives and Senators. Write, phone, e-mail, and tell some friends to do the same. Attending a Tea Party might be a great idea as well.
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