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Michael Pedretti Poem
ALEXANDRIA
I came late to Jesus,
Got cancer before my time,
Watched my husband die,
Found my baby drowned.
What did I do wrong?
Followed His church’s way,
Never missed a Sunday mass,
Confessed my sins religiously.
Refused to hear the call
For contraception—
That was not God’s way.
I made Him a dozen babies.
Why’d he punish me?
My faith wasn’t always strong.
Still, I never strayed,
Took communion regularly.
I prepare myself to meet my Maker.
Doctor says I only have a day or two.
Jesus, come to me—
Save me from eternal void.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
It is hard to write
About Dad.
I feared him
As long as he lived,
Still do.
It’s sixty-two years since he died.
He’s still alive in my dreams,
A little shorter,
Just as bald,
Never a smile.
Dad expired when I was nineteen.
His disdain for me outlived him by four.
My fear has abated little,
Terror is a trap that clamps tight—
If you amputate
That part of you dies too.
Failure, anger, and resentment
Not all setbacks make us sour.
You’ve had your share no doubt—
I hear you keep your cheer.
Dad hired on as the church gravedigger
(a job that suited him).
First holiday I came home from boarding school,
He asked me to help dig a grave
For Uncle Joe, his brother-in-law.
Watching me peck away at the ground
Frozen four feet down
He seemed, for the first time, content.
Next time I saw him look
Satisfied was at his wake
The priest mumbling prayers,
Mother wailing, tears in my eyes,
One hundred fifty at his side.
I saw a twinkle in his eye,
Someone else had dug the hole for him.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
Pumpkins are made
For pies
And pies are made
For jack-o-lanterns
To
Please little girls
Who ride swings high over the city on
Cold
Mornings when others
Have found the schoolhouse
Under the ghetto waiting to transform the little leftovers
Into Wallstreetbogeymen scaring the country into
Unwanted
Growth claiming ‘More Pumpkins Are Better.’
The swing's chains are cold in late October
The seat can be wet
She
In her own glory does
Not
Notice the silence. Dreaming of
Dancing at the Met exposing truth to the music of Mendelssohn.
We linger
On the damp cool October morn
She peruses the skyline looking for the
Spot she might run to
As the swing finds a higher plane.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
Some claim at last breath
One’s entire life flashes before you—
No way to know for sure
It happens too late to confirm.
Did Mother see
Fifteen children
Fourteen births
Thirteen first communions
Twelve Marriages
Eleven confirmations
Ten Hail Marys
Nine graduations
Eight siblings
Seven daughters
Six sons
Five homes
Four seminarians
Three divorces
Two deaths
One re-marriage?
Her life was more than her children,
But, by sheer numbers,
They consumed her
Thoughts, deeds, and energy.
When most exhausted, she learned
Love, kindness and caring
Replenished more than they took.
Can’t say that for changing diapers,
Settling fights,
Making breakfast, cooking dinner,
Preparing supper for so many—
No breaks for Sabbath or Sunday
For forty-five years.
She’d tell you family came first
After God and Jesus who coolly demanded to be
First. It was in her garden she felt most
Herself, but herself was family and God.
I studied
Washington, Napoleon, Alexander
Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison
Jesus, Buddha, and Zoroaster—
Not one could have mothered thirteen,
Praised God every day
while raising one hundred
Chickens and an acre or two of garden.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
The oranges came upon the
Reds followed too quickly by golden
Yellow leaves.
Hitting his own autumn the commuter took
One moment to suppose that
Tree had something to do with his own time here but
The metaphysical was beyond grasp.
He understood the sell and the buy
The unstoppable flow of raw goods
To manufacturer to emporium to consumer to junk yard.
He blew his horn anxiously at the gawker in front
And sped down the boulevard toward
Another day—telephone tied to his ear
Retailing and counting exchanges in minute specialty.
Outside, one child
Lays looking through the trees for the day to break
Catching for the first time the mix of redorangeyellow.
The horn breaks his moment.
He too remembers the school bell
And skips off for another repetition
Of yesterday.
I hold on stretching the moment
Out past millenniums opposing the rush
Into eternity proffered by the Wallstreets of America,
Walmarting each of us onto a higher plane of shopper madness.
Shoppers of America, lechers of our time,
Cannot even laugh at me for my leftover
Quixotic operation on the Schuylkill River.
For their stare is lodged at King of Prussia Mall
With its answer to the repetition of changing trees-
Newfangled toys for every day let alone Hanukkah and Christmas.
If they had seen me they could have pointed
To their children an example of
A wasted life without
A patch doll or plastic jack-o-lantern
In the window above the garage door leading into my home.
I kickedaleaf and tried frantically to slow down the trifling time
I had before the parts of my body wanted no more to carry the weight
of my mind digressing or my conceit.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
We were not so poor
To be ungrateful
For what we lacked.
Full plates in a heated house
Made it seem undue to complain
For lack of poetry or a candy cane.
Ne’er a penny in a bush
Nor gift under the tree was for us
With corn, milk and eggs a plenty.
We dared not wish for more.
Each night we knelt in thanks
Before dreaming of a hotdog,
Birthday cake, Christmas
Gift, or a dime to buy
An ice cream cone.
The weeds we kept at bay
The trees chopped expertly
Our toil stayed the rest.
We were not so poor
To be unthankful
For what we lacked
As we hoed the corn
Milked the cows
Feed the chickens.
Starved of play we were
too busy making hay
To be ungrateful.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
The orangutan eats a leaf
As delicately as the
Gazelle poops in the grass.
The black bear, tiger, rhino,
Lion, otter, hippo
Entertain while
The giraffe begs for treats.
You and I stroll carelessly
From cage to cave and back.
The vulture’s back for dinner,
The owl’s asleep,
The keeper’s got his eye on you.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
From the get-go
My brain played games
Making two plus six hard to learn
Denying reaction to music too.
I found solace in the mop
It never argued back
Or said
“Pina can’t get that.”
Yes, I could.
It was just easier to make you think
I could not.
I married late
Birthed two divine girls
Had no regrets
Smiled to all.
In the end a tumor took me
My brain did not
Fight back.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
Failing to be satisfied with safe
He placed his vision before us
And led on to a state
That molded and shaped
Some rebelled
Some criticized
Some followed
Some cared not
Yet his vision
Touched us all
Led us to greater things
Than we knew possible
Having laid his vision
On generous minds
He retreats to the mountains
With Apollo, Pan and Bacchus.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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Michael Pedretti Poem
“He’s the black sheep of our family,”
Said Father speaking of his son
Before him to the Watkins man
Who no doubt forgot it
Before his next customer.
Father liked the line
Repeated it to his son’s favorite uncle,
His mother and a few friends.
Their laughter stung.
Still none seemed to remember.
Father got bored—dropped the line.
Twenty years later denied
He’d said it.
The son, poor fellow, never forgot—
Told me the story as he expired.
Copyright © Michael Pedretti | Year Posted 2025
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