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  A Statue Speaks to Me. Conversations with Roscoe Conkling, PART 2

  Jan 27, 2023

  The campaign was over, I had to roam.
  On the way to Stein Center I passed Roscoe at home.
  Hello again, Roscoe, Can I give you an update?
  “I’m not going anywhere,” he looked down and replied,
  “What’s been transpiring in my city and state?”
  I have to say your GOP is fit to be tied.
  “I’m not surprised,” he said and then quizzed me
  “But how did you do with your campaign?
  As a first-time candidate, you had me worried.”
  I got quite some votes though my legs were in pain.”
  There’ll be another round (the old boxer said) -
  A decent showing when all’s said and done
  And I believe the Freedom Party is far from dead.”
  I had to agree, that the fun has just begun.
  Then I begged his leave to hear the verse
  I wrote right after our election “trouncing”
  When things appeared getting worse;
  Though now my spirits were bouncing.

   

  Robert Bobrick
  Stein Center Poetry
  Professor Frank Craven
  November 14, 2022

  There’s an end to the months-long campaign
  So I try to focus, though mostly in vain,
  As Time falls to its knees, crawls at a slow pace.
  Do I even know the next lap in the race?
  The city conglomerates all aroundDoes it have a heart and is it breathing?
  My thoughts are strangely unwound
  And my spirit is painfully musing
  What’s coming could be bane to the bone
  And what happens, happens to me alone.

  Roscoe looked down and spoke in level tone:
  “I’m touched by such venting of emotion.
  For a campaign is like a trip upon the ocean,
  And Byron wrote about a rapture on a lonely shore
  But then you tread land again newly aware,
  And I sense you want to even the score.
  Are you thinking of a City Council chair?”
  Daylight Saving Time had come and it was dark;
  Shadows flitted about in Madison Square Park.
  Roscoe cleared his throat, and waving his hand
  Asked if I might vacation far from home?
  My passport says I can visit every land.
  I want to be a tourist in Naples and Rome.
  He requested for next time tobacco and paper.
  And so I left; and the curtain came down on this caper.

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