Stew's Poetry - Judy Gumbo

Stew’s Poetry

Slavery Now – Doin’ As I Please – To My Old Flame – Chanukah After All These Years – Happy Birthday: It’s Opening Time – It Was 20 Years Ago – Today – Jessica is 25 – 59 – May Pole – The Judy Flag – Yes You May Day – Birthday Perkday – Hoodoo Land – Seig Howdy – Yippie Café

Slavery Now – 1/18/06 (rediscovered 2014)King’s legacy
dead as doornail
America still run by Plantation
Hillary proclaims,
she
a knowledgeable house slave
who carried Massah George’s lies
all the way to Baghdad
and said it wasn’t even heavy.

Doin’ As I Please – 1/05/06 (rediscovered 2014)

Sharon could break all the rules
and live a happy life.
In a collective farming country
he owned his own land,
could also be involved in cruelty and lies,
corruption and war crimes,
be denounced by his own courts and commissions
and still be cheered as a rough tough
courageous man of peace
who could start his private political party
and create his private country.
But he couldn’t get away eating
everything on the menu.
He was very fat
he got much fatter
and a deadly bomb exploded in his brain
It wasn’t placed there by an Arab.

To My Old Flame – (6/25/92)

Judy was born 49 years ago.
She’s been told that and believes it.
Judy doesn’t remember very much about being alive
until she met me.

I remember more than she does.
But I don’t remember anything better than meeting her.

Judy is my old wife,
my best friend and lover
and the wisest woman I ever knew.

I don’t think life is fair.
Mostly we get cheated out of necessity
but Judy is so good she might cheat fate,
she might get justice, get what she deserves,
get recognition, get appreciation.

Whatever happens

at least Judy will know one true thing.

Judy will know

she was really loved.

By Stewey, June 25, 1992, Happy Birthday.

Chanukah After All These Years – 12/8/93

Judy gave me first Christmas in Toronto.

In the big mean house I played at Joy Noel.

In Brooklyn I grew up jealous

of what was under Willy’s crowded tree

and the happiness of TV specials.

I lit candles on Chanukah, said blessings,

got dimes and socks and underwear.

They told me I was lucky.

Judy gave me Christmas in the Catskills.

I took an axe into the pine forests and felt in my guts

those frozen country winters of fantastic beauty.

Ten below was planting time for true love.

We decorated our tree with anything but angels.

Judy and Stew gave Jessica Christmas in Berkeley.

So she wouldn’t be jealous of what was under her friend’s tree.

We were horribly punished by the plastic greedy pain of Toys R’ Us

for going one generation too far into Christendom.

Judy, Stew and Jessica gave Portland Chanukah to each other.

No longer jealous of Bing Crosby family specials,

taking pleasure in oil-soaked latkes,

stuffing stomachs not stockings, lighting candles, sparking ancient flames.

Happy Birthday: It’s Opening Time (June 25, 1995)

Her 52nd birthday is the third act.
Feeling old, Judy contemplates Jessica leaving the nest of love and purpose.

Judy will still feel young.

Freedom is not another word for senility.

Now Judy won’t have to tell Jessica: read this, do this, believe this, come home by, leave by, get it done by or don’t buy.

Since when does not having to give orders or proofread behavior

put on wrinkles and stiffen joints?

Judy is so much more than a mother hen.

She is half of my soul

a friend, a lover, an idealist, an adventurer, a romantic

my Curious George intellectual companion of 27 years

living under the volcano.

Judy has lived many parts

all played to perfection on the stage of chaos and discovery.

Why should this new role

with biographical loose ends of inspiring potentiality

packed with improvisational possibility, dramatic and comic opportunity

disturb Judy’s hormonal balance, digestion or dreams?

It will be her best act.

Judy will summon the rest of her past and present

and find out something much better about herself and me.

She will have an interesting, great and good time

discovering the ultimate dimension of our love.

It Was 20 Years Ago – Today – By Stew to Judy – the woman I love. May 1, 1997

Marriage May Day May Day
20 years later and our merger outlasts the red holiday of utopian desire.
We have our secret celebration, our own love

a private nation of family sandwiches, a daughter, a cat, stuffed utopian animals, trips, questions, peaceful pleasures.

Marriage May Day May Day

So much has been lost.

Man overboard. May Day May Day

We found each other 20 years ago on a glistening afternoon

a hillside of memories and unforgotten friends.

Amidst chaos and cowardice, remembering, creating out of love and friendship

a soulful union of hope.

Judy Gumbo Albert is 56 (On the Beach) – Love from us both, 6/5/02. Happy Birthday.

These words are feelings of love and amazement for you.

Times are challenging and changing, cosmic decisions being made

by grown-ups for eternal children of the same soul

putting it on-line for hope and rebirth.

Birthday means newness, remembering its roots in your lifetime

courage and bold adventures of self-becoming.

You are always Gumbo’s bold journey into my eternal love.

I remember you young, with bright embracing eyes

drinking happy life energy at the fountain.

Your inviting little nose sniffed and knew something was up.

I touched and was touched.

Now amidst pain and fear, our love still touches braveness in a new way,

a beginning and hope without ending.

I will love you forever. Happy Birthday! 6/25/1999

Jessica is 25

I was the first to see you 25 years ago,

I told Judy moments after you began the journey

“She has the eyes.”

Penetrating power that looks at you and knows.

On your 25th birthday

those same eyes, undiminished and stronger

still look intensely.

Know that you are loved, cherished, respected beyond measure.

A sweet warrior celebrates a new chapter.

She is strong. She is ready.

59 – (6/24/02)

A birthday celebrates the continuing chance we have

to invent happy universes, fantastic accomplishments,

funny jokes, pleasurable moments, great love and happy endings.

Because a birthday counts up life time

and proclaims that much more is on the way.

Considering your Judy energy and capacity for enthusiasm,

I lie back in continuous amazement

that you keep happening.

I am inspired to continue my own twisting road show through life’s possible joys.

Your way proclaims what can be.

Judy, each year adds up my love

59 is more love than 58

I wonder how I got this lucky

that I am seeing you and being with you.

Knowing that your best and most beautiful is now and forever.

By your loving husband 6/24/02

May Pole

Happy May Day Comrades

It’s my wedding anniversary.

I met Judy in 1968 on the Berkeley campus.

It was Stop the Draft Week and she was new in town.

We married on May 1, 1977.

Our marriage outlasted our movement.

Oh Comrades,

If only our communal consciousness and idealistic wisdom

had been as enduring as the love of a man and a woman.

I thought I could count on you, Comrades

but you got absorbed into the great American vacuum cleaner

of lost memory.

Judy makes it possible

to hope that Dubya will walk naked and ashamed.

If we could stick together bound by love, irony and kindness,

then anything good must still be possible.

– Stewey, May 1, 2003

The Judy Flag

Crawling upstairs out of breath

like drowning in sad streams

but with high purpose in my stumbling

knowing that in a room at the top

We are celebrating Judy’s 61st birthday.

I need to give a speech of appreciation, hope and celebration.

Proclaiming limitless love.

We are half way through hell,

holding up to its flame.

Judy keeps going with fullest inspiration.

Her flag of Kavenah proclaiming the struggle continues forever.

And boldly, so does she.

Judy’s flag is why I bother to get out of bed

doing battle in countless wars

her proud banner of one more noble year

her great gift to the stumblers up the stairs.

Let her quiet tears be dried in love and joy.

Happy birthday and all love always, Stewey. 6/25/2003

Yes You May Day

May Day is Married Day

’cause Comrade Judy and I got married 28 years ago

on this ancient red-letter day.

She was eight months pregnant

under a sun shining Woodstock wedding of tie-dye chuppa

with friends and family cheering

Bill Kunstler cracking jokes

secret police skulking for underground Abbie

by blocking roads and reading licenses.

Loving lovers always be trumping lying liars

that’s the story till now.

Except last year was spent in chemotherapeutic hell

accompanied by Dubya’s stealing a second term.

A very bad year for good people.

But roses are budding, the garden awakens, the struggle renews,

the senior marrieds now ride off into western sunset

for bright month of legendary beauty.

Everybody must get renewed by love.

To Judy with undying love, Stewey 5/1/2005

Birthday Perkday

28 years of bright lively spirit

renewing itself in achievement, aspiration

and many new adventures in the life force.

Eyes bright as the day she was born

looking to the future with hope

being great inspiration, love and energy

for her very proud parents.

To Jessica our wonderful daughter on her happy birthday. Love always. 6/5/2005

Hoodoo Land

Hoodoo Land refers to a trip we took to the Utah badlands. Stew died 7 months after he wrote this.

I came crawling out of every layer of Hell

And found her in Hoodoo Land

Waiting in the distance of sadness

Wondering if love does come home again.

We looked into each other’s eyes

Seeing great old times that no longer seemed buried or past.

Judy had the strength of hope

the confidence of cure.

The great mystery

gave Judy back her lover, partner, curly man best pal husband.

We found our soul in Hoodoo Land.

Happy 62nd Birthday Judy, only love of my life. Stewey. 6/25/2005.

Seig Howdy – April 25, 2003

Fascism,
not just mad Marxist-Leninist scientists
using the name in fear and loathing.

Ordinary liberals and libertarians
looking over their shoulders
nervously describing secret courts and prisons

torturous no Constitution terms of confinement.
Of a punishing bullying government
propaganda media thugs scandalizing
even the mildest critics in Bush Town.
Of fixed and future elections
billion dollar brain washing extravaganzas
once called political campaigns.

The conquest of Iraq
signals an ultra right-wing conquest of America.
Powell shuffles or is purged.
Along with all those gay gun control Dixie Chick pro-choice Republicans.

Every one always knew it could happen here.
Not by violence
but by money and the manipulation of minds.

Emperor George has one last task before he’s untouchable.
Convince millions of Americans
that the economy tanked in the toilet
because liberals opposed giving billionaires
everyone’s spare change.

He sells that one
and the goose step
becomes compulsory morning exercise.

Yippie Café

Let me raise a cup to my fallen pals

The empty chairs and tables

At the Yippie Café

To Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Phil Ochs and all the others.

In dreams they come for me.

And say they love me, miss me, want me.

OK, someday I’ll be coming

But not just yet.

I’ve got a few more poems up my sleeve

And a few more Bushies to burn.

Stew wrote this poem on his 63rd birthday, 12/4/2002. I put it on his memorial card.

JudyGumbo

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