This is a poem dedicated to a famous eatery in Harvard Square that is long gone from the scene.
How I miss
that hush from the Square
the dark oasis
contemplating my beer
as things come to a head.
The ancient waitresses
their surliness an art
bark the orders
through the swing of doors.
And at the bar
scholars of the academy
and everyday scholars of life
share the same expanse of polished wood.
I use to strain
to hear the bits of wisdom
old man Cardullo spit from
his cigar-studded mouth
the rancorous jokes
the cops told
huddled around him
in an enigmatic cabal.
And now
at this same corner
pretty boys on posters
smile,
with hardened torsos
and I am swept away
to wherever ... the crowd goes.
* Published in the Ibbetson Street Press
Want to review or comment on this poem?
Need a FREE Reader Membership?
Reviews of "Last Night At The Wursthaus..."
Reviewed by Russell Lilly (Reader)
Reviewed on January 12, 2020
I remember Mr. Cardullo as a much more elegant 'Godfather' figure than someone who could stand around chewing on a cigar. The family --sons the late Richard and Frank -- were a class act, from what I saw running the deli nights in the late 1970ies when the place was a beehive of Square activity, moods and excitement. I lived off the corned beef and after I left, living far away in wildest West Virginia and northern Arizona, could have cried for another feed on it. There was a policy you could have a couple beers after work, so I started at one end of the 106 or 109 beers sitting atop the bar and worked my way down. It was my education in imported beer. The girl who managed the deli nights left about halfway through my training after her husband graduated from Harvard, so there were gaps in my education concerning the German cold cuts sold at the deli. A German couple would come by to torment me by ordering by their German names and I would say: please point. There may have been a chart, but the day person was always up to something including cutting massive amounts of these slow moving items, which I would in turn end up giving away to students who showed up to get a sandwich. "Here, let me make up a platter for you.' "Oh, same price.' What a massive, complex place staffed by lifers with young waitresses coming and going. We got off at 1 a.m. but served until then so if you showed up at 12:58 and ordered a sandwich that meant I got to work an extra half hour cleaning up without pay. There were no scheduled days off: you put in for a day off. So obviously if you and a waitress put in for the same day off, the word was out. When I think how the preps crowded in during that time, it is difficult to reconcile that view of the place with the later history when the crowd dwindled and the take went from a reported $3 to a reported $1 million a year, and the bankers came with iron claws. ...In his poem, Holder does capture that transition, from something so rooted to something lost in the new moment,the cultural shifting sands. A vanished landmark, a temple of the excesses of another time, a whatever that timed out after 80 years. Holder was sorry to see it go, and I could feel that: so was I.
Reviewed by ya mama (Reader)
Reviewed on August 10, 2003
aaah. harvard square! is lee's diner still around?
Reviewed by elois Masters (Reader)
Reviewed on June 19, 2003
Ahhh. I remember the Wursthaus. One of the last vestiges of "old Harvard Sq." Nice poem. Why so much space for the words though? Feels disruptive to me. I'm not sure the snap shot imagery works for me. But thanks for the memory and kudos to the ibbson st. press.
Reviewed by na na (Reader)
Reviewed on May 26, 2003
Doug, sounds like a fun place you go. Do you still go? Liked the atmosphere. Bill
Robin Ouzman Hislop's poetry is certainly in dialogue with some of the key architects of the 'poetics of indeterminacy' – both the Modernist strands represented by the likes of Beckett and Stein, and the postmodernist strands represented, initially,
Share
Print
Save
Follow
Peggy