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Cold Spring Court Room
They struggled to hang on to their few dollars
workmen parked in wrong places taking fatal chances
what else to do, your honor?
crowd of angry and forlorn in Cold
Spring's Night Court
snow dropping outside like felt on white-crusted streets
winter's splenetic cold seeping into the wood-paneled room
woman more like a girl hauling two frightened children
their streaked faces hunched below torn collars
her
pain-scarred eyes flitting from signal to signal
pouring
out words and looks and lies
in
desperate battle against eviction
wrangling
for just a few days more
after
which would be the next disaster
lawyer
with snow-stained shoes
shuffling
wilted files and papers
thinking
of a warm house waiting in the next village
earning
his grueling fee this cold dark night
weary
white-maned judge struggling to right the crooked world
knowing
he will put her out in the street
knowing his words will cause pain
and suffering
knowing he would do what he had
to do
knowing his heart will murmur again tonight.
Gerald Zipper is the author of the play, "A Little Madness",
produced at New York's Provincetown Playhouse. His other plays have
appeared or are sceduled to appear in
San Diego, Denver, etc. His poetry appears in over 250
literary and poetry magazines in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
He served as Deputy Commissioner of a New York State agency, was hired
as "Consultant on the Arts" to the New York State Senate, and manages a
successful business enterprise. Several of the publications that have published Gerald
Zipper's poetry over the 1997-01 period include: The Pegasus Review, VA; The Pointed
Circle, Portland Community College, WA; The Poet's Pen, GA; Skylark, Purdue University;
AURA, Univ. of Alabama; ICON, Kent State Univ., OH; The Amherst Review,
Amherst College, MA; Piedmont Literary Review, VA; OYEZ REVIEW, Roosevelt Univ.,
Il; NEBO Literary Journal, Arkansas Tech University; Maryland Review, Univ.
of Maryland E.S.; Bay Area Poet's Coalition, CA; Ellipsis, Westminster College;
Sounds Of Poetry, MI; Parnassus Literary Journal, GA; Apropos, PA....)
Email: Via April Amador Gerald Zipper
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