Watertown man finds his muse and poetic license

They drifted apart.

Such recollections have been collected and turned into poetry by Mr. Catalano in his book, “Musings of a Fractured Mind.” The musing on the art assignment is the short poem titled, “Homework,” which begins, “We were great together/until she asked me to pose nude for her sculpture ...”

Several of the Watertown resident’s poems in the book were written years ago, but most have come out in a flourish from his “fractured mind” ever since he wrote a non-fiction piece for a Jefferson County Historical Society’s fall/2022 “Bulletin.”

“That kind of got my juices going again and my mind started clicking,” Mr. Catalano said. “Over the course of three or four months, I wrote over half of the pieces that appear in the first book.”

His musings are on a roll, and he expects his second book to be out this spring.

“My imagination sometimes gets the better hold of me,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s always for the better or not.”

His historical society piece for the society’s “Bulletin,” was a profile on William S. “Bill” Reardon, Adams Center. Mr. Reardon died at the age of 96 in May. He joined the Merchant Marines and sailed the Great Lakes following his enlistment in the U.S. Navy in 1942. Following his honorable discharge, Mr. Reardon operated a farm in Ellisburg. After farming, he drove bulk milk trucks.

Mr. Reardon was part of a “coffee group” that meets about four days a week at Dunkin’ on Washington Street in Watertown. That’s how he knew Mr. Catalano, also a member of the group.

“It was interesting talking to Bill,” Mr. Catalano said. “His father was a stowaway on a sailing ship that ended up landing in Canada.”

Mr. Reardon’s father, William Reardon Sr., died at the age of 83 in 1967. He was a native of England and as an orphan, first landed in Kingston, Ontario before settling in the Chaumont area, and later, Mannsville.

“He stowed away on a ship, and at night he would sneak raw potatoes and eat them when nobody was looking,” said Thelma Reardon, widow of William S. Reardon.

Mrs. Reardon, also a member of the Dunkin’ coffee group, said that in her husband’s interview with Mr. Catalano, her late spouse talked more about his father than about himself.

“Tom did a wonderful job,” said Mrs. Reardon, who for nearly 40 years was manager of The Cheese Store on outer Arsenal Street, operated by Jefferson Bulk Milk Cooperative. “He came down and interviewed and recorded. I have a couple of CDs where he recorded Bill talking to him.”

The project also added another dimension to their relationship. Mrs. Reardon has become Mr. Catalano’s sounding board.

“When he writes new poetry, he calls me at night and runs it by me — what I think of it,” Mrs. Reardon said. “I like all of them, really. He has such an insight into things that make you stop and think.”

a mind of extremes

The cover of Mr. Catalano’s book, designed by Cooper Uliano, “website therapist” at Coughlin Printing Group, Watertown, is a reflection on the “fracture” in the author’s mind. An outline of a map of Vietnam splits a peaceful scene of flowers in a field and a Vietnam War combat scene.

“My mind is a little fractured, going from one extreme to a different extreme, and what takes place in between,” he said.

Themes of poems in the book include Vietnam combat and the suicide of Mr. Catalano’s father when the author was an infant. The first 10 poems, which includes, the sculpture-inspired “Homework,” are in the chapter titled, “Machias Girl,” about the Cattaraugus County co-ed he met in college. A serious relationship ensued. The other two chapters are “Death of Innocence” and “Fractures.”

“It’s hard to write when you’re bearing your soul, so to speak,” Mr. Catalano, 77, said. “I’ve kind of gotten over that hurdle. I’m of the age where I don’t care. If people don’t like me or like what I write, so be it.”

Mr. Catalano also writes to make people laugh. He said that when he’s out and about, say in a supermarket or a doctor’s office, and he sees someone having a bad day, he will approach that person and ask, ‘You got a minute’”?

If that person says yes, he’ll recite a poem.

“The only ones I remember are the very short ones, and most of them are kind of weird anyway,” he said. “I try to whip them off the top of my head and make people laugh. That feels good — being able to do that to people.”

He also finds inspiration in unusual places and circumstances. For instance, there was the day when his wife, Deborah, asked him if he wanted a salad for dinner. He said he did, but they were out of lettuce, which required a trip to the grocery store. In the produce section, a poem, “The Affectionate Selection” took root:

“I assaulted

the produce

squeezing all the lettuce heads

because my wife wanted

a firm one for salad

The things we do for love”

The poem is not in Mr. Catalano’s “Musings of a Fractured Mind,” nor is another one, “Morning Ritual,” also inspired by his wife.

“She gave me a hard time about it, but I overruled her,” Mr. Catalano said. He said his wife’s morning ritual involves cereal.

“When she has Shredded Wheat in the morning, she counts out the number of pieces of Shredded Wheat she is to eat, because she’s diabetic,” he said. “I wrote this about that.”:

“She always lines up the Mini Wheats

In a double row on the breakfast table

A dozen lemmings

marching silently

Into a cold lake of white”

In addition to inspiration, Mr. Catalano credits his wife, who during the book’s production, “listened, critiqued, offered suggestions and tolerated my mind’s ramblings” in its creation.

She also critiques Mr. Catalano’s new poems, such as “Censored Mail”:

“You left

and promised to write

But now it’s too late

My cat lives in the mailbox

And shreds all the junk mail.”

“I basically write to create emotion,” Mr. Catalano said. “I don’t really care if they like it or don’t like it. But do you feel an emotion? Good, bad indifferent? There’s a certain vitality when you have emotion, and that’s what I try to create, directly or indirectly.”

‘poetic prose’

Mr. Catalano, who describes himself as a “poetic prose writer,” grew up in Hannibal, Oswego County. He served in the Army, with a tour of Vietnam in 1967. He then graduated from the University of Buffalo with a bachelor’s degree in English. A job search brought him to the north country, where he worked in the paper industry for 30 over years, retiring in 2009.

“I’ve always loved to write, even when I was a kid,” he said. “I lived on a farm and would dream up ideas for little stories about rocket ships and spacemen and stuff like that.”

Now, he’s determined to publish those ideas and thoughts. “I write from my own personal perceptions, life experiences, probably 90 percent,” he said.

He then recited a short verse about growing up on his family’s farm:

“Knowing I lived on a farm, my high school biology teacher asked me to collect a half a dozen frogs for class to dissect.

After school, grabbing a small fishing net, I peeled off my clothes and jumped into a roadside pond.

I caught the frogs I needed and stepped out of the water,

just as the late school bus went by with faces glued to the windows.”

True story?

“Yes,” he said. “But I think I had my underwear on.”

n n n

Mr. Catalano’s self-published his book through Coughlin Printing Group, Watertown. Carley Shepherd, design assistant at Coughlin, did the illustrations. Its price is $14.

“I’ve given away a lot of copies,” Mr. Catalano said. “But I’ve sold just under 100 copies. With that modicum of success, I said, ‘Maybe I’ll try to do another book.’”

The tentative title of his next book is “Reflections of a Fractured Mind.”

“Musings of a Fractured Mind” is available at The Little Bookstore shops in Clayton and Watertown, The River’s End in Oswego and Doyle’s Books in Fayetteville.