Penfield, New York, USA

Gary Lehman

 

Public and Private Visions

 

Gary Lehmann teaches writing and poetry at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is also the director of the Athenaeum Poetry group which recently published its second chapbook, Poetic Visions.

His essays, poetry and short stories are widely published -- about 60 pieces a year.

Gary’s latest book, American Sponsored Torture (2007) is  about the decision in 2006 of the Congress to permit testimony obtained by torture to be admitted as evidence in the secret tribunals held against detainees in unknown locations around the world.

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First in Flight

 

 

Castle Green had a festival atmosphere as 25,000 to 30,000

people gathered to see a young aeronaut risk his life in a hot air balloon.

Manhattan has been deemed too windy and wet previously.

 

At the center of this hub-bub, a giant cotton balloon

was being inflated by maneuvering alternate fire pots close to its cavernous mouth.

As the heat accumulated, the bag began to rise, slump on its side, then stand tall.

 

People were amazed as the giant bag began to move like a sleeping beast.

A well-dressed youth was handing out broadsides

containing a poem about the joys of flight penned by one Charles Ferson Durant.

 

It was this same youth, styling himself also an inventor and astronomer,

who climbed confidently into the wicker basket attached precariously

to the rising balloon by a multitude of thin lines of braided twine.

 

Bags of sand were dropped and the unstable contraption

arose with many bumps and shutters from the Battery Green.

It headed out over New York harbor in a generally westerly direction.

 

Ferry boat passengers crowded the rails cheering and

holding their hats and parasols to shade their eyes from the sunny sky.

Thursday, September 9, 1830 in the afternoon something extraordinary happened.

 

A man rose off the ground, the first in North America,

waving his beaver hat and dropping the rest of his poetry onto the multitudes below

as he sedately drifted toward the west bank of the Hudson River and beyond.

 

 

 

Doctor’s Statement

 

 

 

“There are relatively few side-effects associated with this progress of treatments,”

the doctor explained, speaking ex-cathedra

from the swivelly throne of his consulting room.

 

“That’s alright,” replied Mrs. Murphy, knowing, as he could not,

that her life wasn’t worth much now that her husband had died

and her children had all gone off

to establish lives of their own in far away places.

They sent flowers on Mother’s Day still.

 

That’s something.

 

The doctor had his secrets as well.

He knew that given the rest of her profile,

she was precisely the sort of person

who would likely have trouble with these treatments

and that her prognosis was not good.

 

50/50 she’d be dead by Christmas,

but why tell her that?

in these days when talk is the only placebo

left in the doctor’s arsenal.

A member since July 2006.

 

All text © Gary Lehmann

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced without written permission from Gary Lehmann.

Contests:

 

The Notebooks of Theodore Roethke. (1st Place Essay). Summer 2006 Premiere Issue: Big Pond Rumours.

 

Reporting from Fallujah. (2006, poem) Nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

 

Books:

 

American Sponsored Torture (2007, non-fiction) FootHills Publishing.

 

Public Lives and Private Secrets. (2005, poetry) Foothills Press.

 

The Span I Will Cross. ( ?, poetry) Co-author and Editor.

 

Plays:

 

My Health Care Worker Stole My Jewelry. 2006, January. Selected for professional production at Geva Theatre, Rochester, NY.