George H. Northrup
George H. Northrup is a poet and psychologist in New Hyde Park, NY. He is the author of You Might Fall In (2014), Wave into Wave, Light into Light: Poems and Places (2019), When Sunset Weeps: Homage to Emily Dickinson (2020), and Old Caterpillar (2021). Six of his poems have been published in The New York Times Metropolitan Diary. He has been President of the Fresh Meadows Poets in Queens, NY since 2006 and is a former Board member of the Nassau County Poet Laureate Society. George was President of the New York State Psychological Association in 2009 and served on the Council of Representatives that governs the American Psychological Association from 2012-2014.
Juliet’s Midtown Lament
Romeo, my Alpha Romeo, I grieve
as I propel thee ’round the city block,
perchance to see another carriage leave
that I may seize the place to park and lock
thee. If I cannot find a spot for free
(though eyes explore like love’s rapacious sight),
the cruel garage will charge me fifty-three
dollars plus tax and tip for just one night.
Still, with thee garaged I’d have no anxious fit
what thief, through yonder window breaking, might
take my EZ Pass, my radio, then slit
the leather seats and canvas roof, for spite.
Good night, good night. Parking is such sweet sorrow
that I may take a bus or cab tomorrow.
The Search
One frantic morning Salvador Dali
could not find his moustache anywhere—
not in the claws of tigers bursting
from a pomegranate,
not fluttering over a melted pocket watch,
not twirling in the disintegration
of persistent memory,
not answering the lobster telephone,
nor rooted in the enigma of desire,
not even in Mona Lisa’s self-portrait.
Exasperated, at last his searches led him
to the very place a lesser genius
might have looked in the beginning—
(Can you imagine?!)—right under his nose.
Why Men Have Nipples
In the beginning, God wanted
to drop a few hints about
male nurturance, gender equality,
and the hazards of binary categories.
So S/He gave men nipples, knowing
that in time someone would question
this design, and an evolving audience
would marvel at the foresight of creation.
Bookends
Facing each other in sleep,
between them a soft blue berm
of rumpled comforter,
they are human bookends,
each with one leg angled
in symmetry toward the other,
as dawn’s languid arms reach
through their bedroom window.
Paused at the doorway,
even a child knows this peaceful scene
will have to end with an awakening
and the rueful dyssynchrony
of their separate ways.
Future Imperfect
An old man eyes the future, and he knows
which dreams dissolve, which nightmares last.
Because he vets the future with the past,
he sees life’s blunders undisguised, and goes
about the day with clear priorities.
His young ambitions and tall hopes were trimmed
by disappointment, and his twilight dimmed
by fading powers, narrowed ecstasies.
This would be tragic, but the elderly
commiserate with one another, so
concur that lifetimes ebb as well as flow.
And though they cannot make their children see
with older eyes, as they might wish to do,
the younger generation ages, too.
At the Mercy of the Triumphant
Thomas Aquinas,
who thought about such things,
believed that souls in heaven
could see the suffering of the damned,
could laugh and jeer at them
in vindication of their own bright faith
in divine justice.
At which point, I suppose,
they themselves were cast down
to be taunted by the next cohort
(soon to join them) and so on
until heaven ran out of mockery
or ran out of souls.
Examining Room
In a small beige room
with four fluorescent tubes
recessed in a dropped ceiling
and Formica cabinets hanging
over a stainless-steel sink—
he will receive
the unexpected diagnosis,
staring straight ahead
at the oak-veneered slab door
now scuffed with age,
its edges spattered with a few
tiny drops of paint.
