"Fifty Years On" has been selected for inclusion in Words on Fire of Vers Libre:

 https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100551969939319159386/stream/9e496bfe-d783-4e26-adae-989d95970d94  

   They have graciously picked me a few times, and I am with some excellent poets.

My poem is also on Soundcloud

 https://soundcloud.com/arthur-turfa-1/fifty-years-on

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arthur-Turfa-Poems-of-Times-and-Places-Reflected/293732337470677?ref_type=bookmark

Please visit my Facebook writer page and like! Thanks!

Check out my Soundcloud list! https://soundcloud.com/arthur-turfa-1/sets/arthur-turfa

N.B. The Western Pennsylvania accent lives on years after I moved away! But it has been softened!

Published again in Altpoetics!  http://altpoetics.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/two-poems-by-arthur-turfa/
31 May 2014  Thanks so much!

http://altpoetics.wordpress.com/   Two of mine appear here! My second time being published here!

Weekends at Woolworth’s

For $18.49 a week

I got to spend my Weekends at Woolworth’s:

Sundays not included because of the

Blue laws in and around Philadelphia.

Friday nights and all day on Saturday

To avoid a conflict with a school night

And ruin my grades, or so the folks said.

Actually I would have had the choices

Anyway of Penn State, Temple, or Nam.

Mr. Fox, the cool assistant manager,

Told us about his tour of duty there

As we waited for customers to come

And check out so they could beat the traffic.

Heading both ways along Germantown Pike.

Miss Fogg, her frosted blond wig attempting

To disguise her five decades on this earth

Handed out our pay envelopes with cash

And told us where we were supposed to work.

Fridays on the upper level, two men

Regularly bought lots of plastic flowers.

Saturdays spent on the lower level

Talking with Linda from the Ancilla

Domini Academy wondering

If Vatican II would help me date her

And learning men’s wear from suave Mr. Knox.

Friends would stop by sometimes or I would see

Them during my hour-long meal break as

I passed on the 10% lunch counter discount

To head to Sal’s Steaks and Wee Three Records

Who had much cooler albums anyway.

A few weeks after the Mall fire

Water damage closed the lower level

And the upper level became crowded,

A real shambles for the next couple months.

Fully expecting they would lay me off,

On Saturday night a petulant man

Fired me for the inability to remove

Slushy black scuff marks without use of solvent

From the speckled linoleum floor.

Trudging to my Dad’s station wagon as

The first one in the family to be fired,

In adolescent anger I told him.

Dad suggested that the manager

could go to hell; much relieved, I concurred.

Thus ended my last weekend at Woolworth’s.

Reflections on Music

In the center bedroom I sit hunched

over Alfred’s Guitar Method preparing

for Saturday morning with Mr. Picarelli,

school janitor and guitar teacher at Wurlitzer;

his brother was Billy Haley’s bassist,

making him indeed a Comet.

Then on stereo or FM radio listening

to what I aspire to actually play:

Clapton (reading Beano on Bluesbreaker

Album cover), heading to Disraeli Gears.

Grooving on Hendrix, frenetic or mellow

rotating on an axis bold as love, searching

for the Lost Chord with the Moodies,

relishing old songs with Pentangle and Fairport,

entranced as Zappa blended biting social commentary

with riffs fusing jazz and classical tones.

At those times I transcended all my angst.

For a brief time I stood on stage or

sat in studio with them creating masterpieces.

But a warped Woolworth’s electric fret board

only cuts into not-too dexterous fingers which

actually would better suit a bass guitar.

Someone who can learn vocabulary and

conjugations could certainly memorize the rest

of “I Feel Free” or provide a basis for the

six-string players out front.

By bedtime reality hovers over me,

those dreams are blocked by inability

to buy another guitar with Dad unemployed again

and Mom actually earning more than he was.

College costs money, and I would rather not

bet that I could survive a rice paddy to claim

a GI Bill that actually covered everything.

Pounding the keys on the typewriter

we already owned, I created worlds

beyond wildest imagination, easily making

peace with what I wanted once to do.

On my walls hang Zappa’s framed autograph

and a Hendrix poster among degrees and various

distinctions. The notes and chords I eventually

composed are wholly mine and satisfying.

Content with listening, I compose in my own fashion

and I am content with the way it all turned out.