The Book of Life

Charles Rammelkamp


Glasscutter

I

At the age of nineteen I was circumcised,
the summer before my sophomore year.
Tender red warts had puckered the flesh
where the shaft meets the head.
They secreted pus, and they bled.
I was ashamed to tell my parents,
so my brother did instead.

My father looked at my penis.
A grim expression contorted his face.
Embarrassed as I was, I guess,
he saw it might be something serious.
So we consulted several doctors.
The family surgeon suggested circumcision.
My father told me it was my decision.

I had always secretly coveted one.
They were easier to keep clean.
The gunk that ringed the collar
under the skin like sewage in a drainpipe,
known by the playground names,
cheese or smegma,
did not clot the necks
around those dry, circumcised glandes.
Mine was purple and slick to the touch
like a jellyfish or some sort of slug.

Along with hygiene went the social stigma.
Skinovers were definitely lower middle class:
the unarticulated prejudice saw them
as an atavism from the dim ancestral past,
a leapfrogging back past centuries of civilization
when primitive people lived in unsanitary conditions,
dying by the thousands in cholera plagues.

In the locker room in junior high school
my merciless classmates singled out a boy
with a skin hood coming down over his dick,
a freckle-faced kid named Teddy Benway.
They called him “Glasscutter”
because of the way the skin
hooked over at the edge of his penis
in a needle-sharp point.

By contrast the muscular black kids,
like Waverly “The Whip” Mohead,
had these thick, long, snake-like dongs
bouncing off their thighs like pythons.
Their pricks stood out
as objects of whispered awe and admiration
among the newly pubescent white kids.
My dick basically went unnoticed,
a garden variety uncircumcised phallus.

II
A dozen years later I converted to Judaism.
Part of the process, the covenant of Abraham.
If I hadn’t had the operation as a teenager,
I would have been required to have it then.
The sign of a man’s inclusion in the chosen people.

I had a “token” circumcision instead.
The mohel sprayed a local anesthetic
on the ruffled skin collar
and lanced the loose flesh
while other rabbis muttered the prayers.

After the conversion ceremony,
the immersion in a ritual mikva,
the rainwater bath in which
women cleanse themselves
after monthly menstruation,
my future in-laws took me to lunch
at a kosher restaurant.
I had converted because
I was marrying their daughter.

I felt no pain, no passage
through fire to another shore,
only a little disoriented,
self-conscious, maybe, like Teddy Benway,
and later in the evening
when I went to bed,
I was surprised to see
the bloodstain that darkened my underwear,
a dull and lifeless shade of red.


isbn 1-59661-063-8
106 pages/$15

Brilliant

Brilliant! You tell the story, exactly what poetry should do—you say it, right out. You tell what we need to know. The poems are classy, witty, and fun.
—Ed Field, author of The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag and Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era

A Wonderful Gift

The Book of Life is a wonderful gift for the lover of fine poetry. In clear, honest poem after poem Rammelkamp takes us through the journey from wild, exuberant youth to the indignities of age and the shabby terrors of death. This is a book for anyone who loves accessible, but poignant and funny poetry that touches and portrays the real lives of real people.
—Robert Cooperman, author of The Long Black Veil and In the Colorado Gold Fever Mountains (winner of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry)

Scintillating

Charles Rammelkamp’s poetry speaks from the grit and grist of life. This is not dry, academic verse; Rammelkamp’s carefully honed work details actual, lived experience. The Book of Life is a scintillating collection of poetry which revitalizes the notion that poetry can address the human experience itself, in all its glory.
—Nathan Leslie, author of Reverse Negative, Drivers, Believers, A Cold Glass Of Milk, and Rants and Raves

Terse and Vivid

Charles Rammelkamp possesses a quality common in novelists but rare in poets: curiosity. This is the source of his prodigious breadth. He peoples his gallery with individuals tersely, yet vividly sketched. The Book of Life is anchored by Rammelkamp’s rueful lyricism, candid, humorous, and fair, but pitiless. Who today gives better value in print, or livelier company?
—Roger Netzer, author of 1959 and Other Poems

Extraordinary

I’ve always loved Charles Rammelkamp’s work, and this book exemplifies why. His poems are populated with characters whose longings, fears and faults are revealed with astonishing clarity. You’ll find here no esoteric murkiness that leaves you to ponder the meaning of the poet; rather, with a gasp, a laugh or maybe even an epiphany, you will discover ordinary truths delivered in extraordinary ways.
—Susan Montag, author of Finding the Way, a Tao for Down-to-Earth People

Astonishing Clarity

Contents:
Immortal and Ready to Die

Immortal and Ready to Die 3

First Orgasm

First Orgasm 7
Pussy 8
A Sad Song 10
Baby Doll 12
Glasscutter 13
Dodger 16

A Need to Settle Down

Blindsided 19
Learning the Names of Flowers 21
Butterflies 23
Assassin 25
A Need to Settle Down 27
The Snake 28

A Desire for Providence

Road Rage 31
A Desire for Providence 32
Snow Day 33
A Spike in the Heart 35
Fare 37
Annoyed 38
Shakira 40
My Daughter’s Make-Up 42
The Exorcist 44

Portraits

Eavesdropping 47
Portraits 48
A Shanda 50

Middle Age

Tied Up in Knots 53
45 rpm 55
Middle Age 57
Never Old Enough 58
At Fifty 59
Bite 60
Invisible to the Young 61

The Price Tag of My Shame

The Suicide Pact 65
The Price Tag of My Shame 66
Commanding Respect 68
They Call It Dehumanizing 70

Office Gossip

Busted 73
Protection 74
Office Gossip 76
Suspicion 78
A Casual Remark 79
Bull’s-Eye 81
Heroes 82

Mishebarach

Walker 87
Mishebarach 89
Lullabies 91
Tribute to Steve 92
Requiem for the Loneliest Man in the World 94
Riddle of the Sphinx 95
The Dowager’s Hump 96
Making the Most of It 97
Fast Break on the Garden State 99
After My Brother’s Funeral 100

The Book of Life

A Speck in the Universe 103
The Book of Life 105