The HyperTexts
Richard Merelman
Richard Merelman is Professor of Political Science, (Emeritus) University of
Wisconsin, Madison. He has published four volumes of poetry, of which the
most recent, A Door Opens (Fireweed, 2020), received an Outstanding
Achievement Award in 2021 from the Wisconsin Library Association. His poems
have appeared in many journals. Two recent poems are forthcoming from the
Loch Raven Review. A further poem appears in THINK, Winter/Spring,
2024.
Holding On/Losing Hold
(Amache: Internment camp for
Japanese-Americans, 1942-45)
Kie’s mother packed their dance kimonos. Amache
Was hell in summer; winter turned it polar.
Kie learned in school the Union ended slavery.
Kie’s mother learned to scrub latrines. Her anger
Fermented: she and Kie would dance together
In Bon Odori through the War. Tradition
Her mother said. Embrace it. When a tumor
Orphaned Kie, her mother’s admonition
Flickered, like a migraine aura. Habit
Prodded Kie to dance in half the Bon
Odori. Listless, Kie succumbed to a tepid
Suitor; she wed the pensive Owen Vaughn
Who rarely danced. As for their daughter, Denise,
Talk of dance would surface, sputter, cease.
Garland’s Film Debut: Love Finds Andy Hardy, 1938
(for Judy Garland, 1922-1969)
She’s in between: fifteen. For love, unsuitable,
Old enough to keep the lid on Andy’s struggle
With truth. He humors her until he hears her sing
And even he can tell she summons her everything
For song. When Louis Mayer listens, she’s sensational
And up to play the lead in Wizard. Unpredictable?
Amphetamines may help. And stardom beckons. Hell,
She marries badly, drinks, believes—from fling to fling—
She’s in between
True loves. Her voice survives. Her breakdowns imperil
Her scenes, her bank account. Pills and booze—her staples—
Infuse her sound with rue. The blues restores her bling:
The Man That Got Away. At twenty-nine, her string
Of hits is past. She tours. From great to risible
She’s in between.
The HyperTexts