ROBERT FRIEDMAN, Class of '60, the last class to graduate from SIA before it became the School of Art and Design. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and went to SIA for Commercial Art, but switched to major in Architecture. He went on to get his B. Arch. degree from Cooper Union in New York, then served in the Peace Corps in Iran as a Volunteer Architect. Upon returning to the States, he obtained his License as a Registered Architect with national certification from the NCARB.
____He has contributed to such varied projects as The World Trade Center, the expansion of Newark Airport, the NYC World's Fair Pavilion, and nationwide stock brokerage offices. He spent the last ten years of his career as a Consultant to Fortune 500 Corporations on major corporate relocation programs.
____He is now retired and currently enjoys producing ceramics and glassblowing. He developed an appreciation of poetry with Daisy Aldan at SIA and has had eleven poems published in various poetry journals. He has authored a collection of poems titled "Javelinas Ate My Chihuahua".
If Memory Serves ...

Did I actually ride the trolleys
Along Coney Island Avenue
On wintry mornings, with sparks
Snapping overhead red-orange,
Swirly as snowflakes,
Fleeting flare ups,
From birth to death
In the blink of an eye.
Perhaps I remember
The flicker of a newsreel,
Confusing my history
With that of lost Brooklyn.
Or did I simply dream
The trolley of my youth
Rideable now
Only in the Museum
Of my mind:
Coney Island Avenue Room-
Aisle "T".
Mirage

Like the awesome desert
Whose beauty enthralls,
She crawls with venomous things
Beyond imagination.
Her moist oasis sighs
Leave you transfixed;
The fatal sting escaping
Your benumbed senses.
Alive, she entombs you
Beneath her shifting sands
Leaving no warning for others;
No track of the sidewinder.
You entered with thirst
For adventure,
But death
Is the only drink
Served at her
Cocktail party.
That Cat

That cat,
The one
You dislike
So
Intensely,
Is very patient.
He's above
Average
Intelligence; knows
You,
Of
The heavy hand; he
Prefers
To wait
Until you're both
Dead, when
The advantage
Will be
His, when
As a tiger,
He shreds
You to
Ribbons.

(First Published in 'Poetry Motel')
The Assassin

I am the bullet
That killed John Lennon.
I am the bullet
That killed Kennedy.
Either one.
Both.
I am the intent to kill
Made tangible. I do not
Love nor hate.
Neither one.
Both.
The Love Letter

I love you!
I love you, too.

We play roulette
With the toilet paper,
Leaving fewer and fewer sheets
To catch the other,
Paperless.
The coup de grace
Delivered
By the word
"Gotcha!"
Scrawled
On the
Tube.

I love you!
I love you, too.

I empty her
Toothpaste
Refilling it with
Rancid mayonnaise:
She uses it
In my egg salad.

I love your smile,
I love you, too.

I give her
Picture to perverts
Admonishing them not to
Think badly of her
In the morning;
She actually leaves
My underwear on the floor.

Words are not necessary.

(First Published in 'Skylark')
Walk/Don't Walk

Don't walk in measured steps,
Conferring credence
To finite time
By concrete cadence.
Don't live in days, or years,
Creating the expectation of death;
A rational closure
To a rationed journey.
Stutter through space,
Breathing arrhythmically,
Extending existence,
Riding infinity.
Do not carve time;
Swallow the future whole.
For life itself is nothing more than
Future time
Realized,
And the future only
A fading memory.