A Selection of Doggerel on the Path to Making Peace with Retirement
Published in Clio’s Psyche, 13:3, December 2006 (Paul Elovitz, ed).
I don’t recall any specific moment of change, though I do remember being amused upon waking one morning with the thought in my mind that I was old enough to be my father and it was about that time that I began writing doggerel – initially, quite depressive:
On the Fullness of Ink
The bottle of ink
Was but half-full.
Missing
Were all the words
That once filled
The fullness
Of the empty top half of
The bottle of ink.
I had, indeed, come to understand that as I aged I had to choose between a multiplicity of tasks, each of which were individually doable, perhaps, in the years that I had left but that could not likely all be done in that time:
Choices
How did that honeysuckle get there?
In, amidst, and all around the azaleas.
The blooms of spring or the surprizes of summer?
The one choking, the other standing firm.
I guess I’m not much of a gardener!
Gardeners, they all seem to know
Which to pull and which to let grow
On these the first days of Summer.
Among my first reactions was terror. Someday, I would need to leave my office that had begun not only to look like me but maybe even to smell as I did. The alternative was to wait until the long session, that three hour marathon when my last patient finally realizes that this three-hour session could well last forever. . . . And I slowly recognized that I was becoming personified in my ditties; I had acquired a new name, Abe Isaacs. Alas, Abe was depressed, too:
Thoughts of Leaving Someday
From ditties et lettre
du Abe Isaacs
Six bookcases lining the wall and filled on the inside with jacketed books and above with two philodendrons (one split-leafed), two senseveria that bloom every third year or so, an old microscope, test tubes on a rack, an oak bowling pin, a bulb that he found on the beach. On another wall is a glazed bookcase from his grandfather — a shaman of a different ilk — that one filled with sacred books. Hanging are diplomas and certificates and pictures of der Alte Hexenmeister from Vienna. There are, as well, five chairs, a desk, a couch and an awareness that he will and must leave this office some day.
Oh, my gosh, had I grown old? Did I need “meds”? Wasn’t I still just pretending to be old and wise? I quickly became even more maudlin:
Witnesses
On the bottom of his closet, like two soldiers they stood
A layer of dust demanded “You’ve seen these before”.
Witnesses for what he now couldn’t and once could
When he bought them.
Was it nineteen sixty four?
One at a time, he picked each up, turned it around,
“Look! The pattern on the toes is just the same,
The leather’s still good, the color still brown,
And inside
The author hadn’t changed his name.
Yet they spoke of different times and of a different man
Who wore them then more than a quarter century ago.
These shoes were now witnesses to god’s sinister plan,
That from vibrant forms,
Takes man and transforms him to Lore.
Anger followed quickly on the heels of those shoes. Anger at my mother or was it Abe Isaac’s mother:
A Fig to Thee, Oh Thanksgiving
Giving thanks for what he held,
Had he forgotten what he’d lost?
The tears were there but never fell …
The price he paid and what it cost.
To school he went when Abe was three
A wax whistle and a book in hand.
To study some obscure scatology
To be exiled from maternal lands.
Alas! the whistle it was never found,
The book was filled and thrown away.
Mother’s lullaby would no longer resound
Replaced by some paternal “duty-bound”
Promise of a better day
That might never come.
I (now Abe and I) was angry that my wife couldn’t make it all better and still I had begun to find some humor in this Divine Comedy:
Being that No One Writes Verse
for Abe Isaacs Anymore
“A mere piss in the ocean, all these years,”
Said Abe, as he trailed down birthday stairs,
To serve birthday kibble to waiting dog and cats,
To fetch birthday coffee, alas! No more birthday cigarettes.
“A day for all to revel with middle-aged me,
How much more pleased could any man be?”
“A cosmic fleck on the Milky Way”
Aside, said he, his fears to stay.
Then appeared in his throat the telltale knot
When noticing the cat’s favorite spot
To shit upon when puss is feeling bitter
That no one had bothered to change her litter.
And while feeding the dog, the wish to run
Realizing that decisions are never made as one
But rather by the rule: my will be done.
“Didn’t we agree on a uniform ban
on inuring the cats to eat meat from a can!?”
Abe found a solution, a tad-bit rash
Abe pulled out his sprinkler and make his own splash.
“I piss on the world! Why the hell not?
Who gives the pussy dominion on that spot?
A day for all to revel with middle-aged me
Please … save your sighs and no sympathy.”
“For I’m no zit on the Lord’s six day creation
Having arrived after all other failed experimentation.
Now, getting’ on, know what I ought’a do”
Abe barks at the rising Sun, “Hey Sun, Hey you!
Most years gone but some remain
Of vigor and charm and hearty refrain
Let all who’ve tasted their own felicity
Come and revel … Mine lives, too!
Inside this protesting but vigorous,
Middle-aged me!”
The moral of Abe’s story is plain;
I explain:
Many will scoff when you’re pissed off
And laugh at you if you run off
But if you seek pets or missus to be cooperatively compliant
rather than covertly and silently defiant
then the rule is:
He who pisses never misses.
I was angered at other writers, too …. Melanie Klein and her all-knowingness got to me – as did some of the newer folk.
Abe Isaac’s Ode to Melanie Klein’s Breast
‘Twas a year ago, replete with curiosity and stress,
That I arrived to suckle from das Kleine breast.
I chewed and bit, and gnawed and clawed
At her Paranoid Position that others laud.
I attempted to transcend my inclination
To focus so heavily on maternal deprivation
But still I sought with analytic precision
To discredit her thinking on the Depressive Position
As I sinned … and continued to value less and less
Mrs. Klein’s chilly and empty breast.
Chorus:
Worshipper of Logos, Slave of Eidos
Why find ye no rest at Mrs. Klein’s Breast?
Truth be said and truth be told
Your theories belong to the brave and bold.
Those, as I, who eschew divine inspiration
Find no joy in Splitting lactation
Between Bad and Good Mamalian glands
Alas! We see with eyes and not with hands
That can feel their way from breast to breast
Are you kidding? Perhaps, you jest?
From Projecting In, I need a vacation
And a simpler model of Projective Identification.
‘Tis true, Mel, I find no rest
Against your chilly and empty breast.
Chorus:
Worshipper of Logos, Slave of Eidos
Why suffer ye duress at Mrs. Klein’s sumptuous Breast.
Mea Maxima Culpa! I admit my guilt
I’ve had it up to here! right to the hilt!
With Breasts, Penises and Feces aloft in the air
Which move me to seek shelter behind any chair.
Less fearful am I of a room-full of mace
Than being slapped by a Bad Breast across my face.
So, I wish you success and posthumous joys
And offer these last thoughts to serve as counterpoise:
If one Breast is good and the other we detest
Where is there room in your theories, Mrs. Klein,
For a Good-Enough Breast?
Chorus:
(chanted, this time, to cadence of football cheer)
Worshipper of Logos, Slave of Eidos
Let it go! Give it a rest! Schizoid thinking is the best!
And, as I railed against one and all, I found that still and all Abe was finding his humor-groove and some solace at laughing into the face of the future; at the same time that he pissed and moaned, the collection developed a full name: ditties et lettres du abe isaacs: doggerel from an analyst with too many years behind the couch and, some say, too few upon it. Still, Abe barked and with any luck will continue to for some time to come:
Fingers on the Harp
When young in training, Abe was told
To do surgery “You must need be bold.
You must not fear viscera nor fear blood
If you’re to abate the awesome flood
Of those who come to seek your care
Whether on the couch or in the chair.”
So Dr. Abe Isaacs trained in that fine art
Of the demons and devils that posess the heart.
He studied Sigmund and Carl and Stekel the Wierd,
He smoked cigars and grew the right beard
So that
Neither Ego nor Id would induce in Abe fear
For those who came to seek his care
In the dimmed office that was Abe’s lair.
Then one day …
There came a rapping on Old Abe’s door.
He’d never heard this one before!
Managed Care said “Nevermore!
Will we pay for your ten year habit
Not a dime to hares, we only pay rabbits
Who treat those who come to seek their care.
No Psychoanalysis! Au contraire, mon frere!
Or you’ll have no friends in Managed Care.”
So Abe went off to Seminars and
Studied the lore of others,
Malan, Davenloo, and Dr. Joyce Brothers,
Who advised against ever digging deep
“You’ll actually make your poor patients weep!
Don’t do that, dear Abey,
You say you really care.
Don’t end up in that nasty snare
Of transference! Trouble beyond compare!
For one who says he really cares.”
“There’s a new method for you to know
Developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro
Who with her ever-wagging finger
Can rid one of memories,
They never more linger!
Once they meet up with Francine’s
Wonderful finger!”
Now Abe does no more stable mucking
He’s discovered Francine’s finger-fucking!
And no one now doubts that Abe really cares
And Abe’s the Sweetheart of all Managed Cares!
So what to say. I look Retirement and even Death in the eye, for the time being, cock my beret a bit to the left and continue to write for my folk hero, Abe Isaacs. Abe has seen what the world has to offer from behind the couch and is both fascinated and amused by it all:
And so, to my patients:
The Mending Office
It was late
And he was in his room now quite alone
Visitors had come, visitors had gone.
Could Isaacs now return to his life?
The kids were now gone and his wife
She was still home
In her room … and quite alone.
It had been a day, just like the others
Milton tiraded against father and brothers.
Sheila assailed herself, she could no longer write,
Isaacs muttered something … father, envy, spite.
John wanted succor from his lover, Caruthers,
Isaacs would be swimming, if he had his druthers.
Barbara opined “My mother was perverse,
She hand-served each diner, a manipulating nurse.”
Her friends’ mothers indulged in congenial pratter
And left each to serve themselves from the platter.
Charlie hated mother too, she did exactly the reverse
And it was … her fault that he carried a purse.
“Bonnie” thought Isaacs “I wish she were mute.
I wish she weren’t so god-awful cute.”
Bonnie droned on and spoke of her pain
Why did her love for good Isaacs need be contained.
“What’s with you Abe? You some kind of fruit?
Make love to me Isaacs or there’ll be a suit.”
He knew of what she spoke, malpractice in court
“At least it’s a day off” was Abe Isaacs’ thought.
“Screwed if I don’t and assuredly screwed if I do”
Abe smiled, his own joke or two he need not eschew.
“Twenty five years, sought, bought, caught, and fraught
Started with nothing, ended with naught.”
He was bothered. Abe assuredly had enough
Of the demanding, argumentative, threatening and gruff
Visitors and all their “is this session over?” nay-saying,
Tired of the backs of heads balding and graying.
Fatigued by years of listening to deep psychic stuff,
And fifty hours a week sitting on his duff.
It was late and anyway
“Who are they to think me some Mad Hatter
As they restrict their talk to obsequious flatter.”
Alas! These visitors missed the point, lost and erroneous
Never discovered the core of Abe Isaac’s felonious
Exclusive attention to a most compelling matter,
Abe Isaacs was born with a fifty minute bladder.
To others who feel troubled:
The Peripatetic Animal Phobe Home Alone
Yesterday, I jumped up on my bed
And heard a scratching overhead.
Had I heard this sound before
Perhaps a’scratching on my door?
Ghosts of road-kills from the past?
I got down from my bed real fast.
I fell upon a cold hard floor
And scurried fast right outside my door.
There they were six feet or more
Rockie Raccoon and his sister Lenore.
Coons you’d never chance to feed last
Whether in the attic or on your grass.
So now I’ll sleep a’standing on my head
While Rockie and Lenore scratch in my bed.
And to the rest of you, Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah and a hearty Retirement:
Abe Isaac’s and Santa’s Retirement: An Interpretation
It wouldn’t be the first Christmas
Abe arose more than a’might listless.
Could it be that he was Jewish
That had Old Abe both tired and bluish?
Nah!
If Irv Berlin could celebrate a White morn,
Why need Abe Isaacs be so very forlorn?
“Neurosis, must be! Nothing less
That has me in this frightful mess.
If I could see a patient, maybe two,
I’d feel more involved, less the Jew.
A conference or meeting, maybe Grand Rounds
Would rid me of these perennial frowns
That visit me each Christmas Day
And last through the Feast of Circumcision,
New Year’s Day, a week away.”
Zo!
Abe fed the dogs and when he built a fire,
To warm his heart and still desire,
He heard a voice from just behind
Somewhere in his office, not in his mind.
He turned to make a quick inspection
Reality testing was his predilection!
And there he was, big, fat, and furry
Santa C. and in no big hurry
Sitting in Abe’s analytic chair
Flowing beard, long white hair:
“Abe. I’ve decided this morning to retire
Warm my frosted toes here by your fire.”
And Zo! Santa C. continued:
“I considered chilling out in Saskatoon
And thought for a moment — maybe Cancun.
One too warm; the other too cold
I need it just right. Like you, I’m getting old.
So I’m taking up residence in temperate climes
Your office is fine, if you don’t mind.
In exchange, I’ll share with you the truth
Of my reindeer friends and silly red suit.
I’m on the run …
There are those who think me a common loon
And want me ensconced in some padded room.”
And Zo! Abe agreed to tell no one
About his friend now on the run.
And Santa agreed to tell his history,
Anamnesis full, leaving no mystery.
“I used to sell some pots” the story began
An incredible story for an incredible man.
“I’d travel about from Shtetl to Shtetl,
Mein vife vas Channah, I vas called Herschel.
Mein Life vas OK. Some taking, some giving.
Fifty Kopeks a’veek, not such a bad living.
For vone mit a nomen like Herschel Levy
Maybe not enuff fur Miniver Cheevey.
But dose Kepitalists are locked into visions of Gold
And vorry retirement vhen dey get old.
Vee Yiddin, vee make it on a little bit love,
Mit Challah und Chicken on Shabbos,
A little vood fur der stove”
“Zo! It vent on for many a year
Until problems mit Channah!
Oy! Vey es mir! ”
“Fur der keeds left home
Und Channah began to mutcher ,
I saw her tru der vindow mit Leibl der butcher.
Didn’t look like aerobics, vhat I saw in mein bed
A Qvick “Zai Gezundt ” I offered
Outa der Shtetl I did head
To get me a new life, maybe a good German name,
Buy me a Prussian suit, get me some fame.
I grew der big belly und a zavtig grosse taches
Und I chose a shayna nomen, Santa Kleine Naches .
Den I bought couple reindeer, sold meine horse
Und abbreviated mein name to Santa Claus.”
“But mit’out a job, no vife, no pots, no pans
I needed to carefully voik out a ten year plan.
I couldn’t forget Channah, und der Butcher Leibl
Not mit’out cholent on mein Shabbos table,
Zo! I became a schnorer , collected many donations
Said I’d give them to kinder in der emoiging nations.
I had more den I could use and before very long
Kleine industrialists came to voik, I paid dem mit a song.
Dey called demselves elves, dey had funny little ears
Und seemed to get along fine mit mein friendly reindeer.
Dey didn’t vorry, mein elves, vhat vas false or true
Vedder I vas Herschel der Shaygitz or Santa der Jew.”
“Life vas pretty good though occasionally I got noivous
About der Tax-men. Zo I opened a seasonal delivery soivice.
But somevhere I knew inside of mein head,
My noives hed to do mit Channah und Leibl in bed
And somehow to do mit mein suit dat was red,
Und der odd “Ho! Ho! Ho! that I every stop said.
Zo! I decided if ever I’d retire from dis occupation
Und give up der drink, celebration und libation,
I’d come to an analyst fur a gutte explanation.
Zo! tell me Abe, you got an intoipretation?”
Abe knew immediately, just what to say
And was thrilled to have a patient on Christmas Day.
“Herschel, or Santa, it’s really much the same
Though sometimes there’s much to learn from a name.
For Hersch means “deer” in Yiddish as you know
And Herschel is “little deer”, a deer that must grow.
Combined with your little elves, an hallucination
Bespeaks organ envy and red fears of castration.
For reindeer are known best by their horn
Something akin to what it is that you mourn.
Embrace your gifts, your fine Yiddische soul!
Not everyone was meant for a splendid Norse Pole.
Big bellies and bottoms will offer no compensation
Nor will you feel better from either seasonal libation
Or what I must say, now, in my interpretation.”
“You tell yourself you give each child a gift,
On Christmas morn, their spirits to lift.
But if truth be told and truth be said,
You’re preoccupied with what goes on
In their parents’ bed.
You steal down the chimney while the kids are asleep,
Crack the bedroom door, just one little peep.
Hoping to learn that it was with force
That Leibl brought Channah to intercourse.
Herschel! You’re welcome to choose my office in which to retire
To warm your frostbitten toes, to hang your stockings by my fire.
But I will offer no proffer,
Can’t let you go
Before you accept the meaning of “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
For when you first said “Zai Gezundt” to Channah that night,
When through the window came that Primal Scene fright,
In truth, you wanted to say very much more …
You had wanted to scream “Whore! Whore! Whore”.
My interpretation is near complete, just one more thought to say
Before we settle down, two Jews on Christmas day.
Mein tiere , Herschel, it takes neither psychoanalyst nor lawyer
To know that you’ve become a travelling voyeur.
But recall what male Jews say each morn first
And Socrates said it,too, in Diogenes Laertius,
Blessed are you God for not making me female
Blessed for not making me a roo or a snail.
Afterall!
Retiring here? You could have it worse.
And being a Peeping Herschel? It’s not such a curse.
That sack on your back? It could’ve been a purse.
And homophobia of that ilk
is multiculturally-speaking perverse.”
1. Oh! Woe unto me (and everyone else, too)
2. Mess around
3. Go in Good Health!
4. A Big and Meaty Buttocks.
5. Santa of Preciously Small Good Fortunes.
6. Eastern European Jewish Cassoulet.
7. A Sacred Beggar.
8. An Endearing though Broadly Anti-Multicultural term for Non-Jewish Males.
9. Roughly Sweety or My Dear!
Howard H. Covitz, PhD, ABPP, NCPsyA is a middle-aged retiring analyst who practices near Philadelphia. For many years he was director of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies. He teaches Mathematics in Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Biblical Characterology at Gratz College. His 1998 Oedipal Paradigms in Collision was nominated for the Gradiva Book of the Year Award. His wife of 41 years, Marsha, aware of his penchant for doggerel sleeps with one eye open.