Under this cop’s brawny exterior is the heart of a poet

By Joe Schoenmann

Friday, Dec. 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Metro Police Sgt. Harry Fagel fits the physical stereotype of a cop.

He is 6 feet tall, weighs 235 pounds and looks like he could crush boulders with his hands. He has a broad, toothy smile that exudes the kind of confidence that the best officers strive for. And, of course, he’s an expert marksman.

But unlike most police officers, this 16-year veteran is a poet.

Earlier this year, he put music behind his stanzas on a CD, “Word Murder.” A few poems have titles one might expect from police poetry — “Jaywalker.” “Jay-Sohn’s Deli,” “Tribute to Blood Meridian.” Against a smoky backdrop of beatnik saxophone and drums, Fagel declares in “Heroes Underground”:

“Now atop this lofty perch I see a sea of thugs, pimps and loan sharks, grifters and animals.

They lap at my mask, threatening to drown me in misery and capricious noise.”

Of course, Las Vegas has a presence in his poems too. “Vegas Part 7,” one of his many other poems not on the CD, includes these lines: “I have cried and laughed and sang and danced, and most of all I have loved and I have been loved in this spinning madness of a town.

And in light of all the reasons why I shouldn’t, I have chosen to stay anyway.

After all, I came from the air around here. It’s what fills my lungs and heart and mind.

After awhile you become immune to poison, maybe you even crave it.”

Fagel’s favorite writers, perhaps predictably, include Charles Bukowski and Edgar Allan Poe. But he is also fond of Robert Frost and Dr. Seuss, so the CD is fluid and open in ways a listener wouldn’t expect.

Fagel wrote poetry as a child. He stopped for a while. It returned after he became a cop. He chose the job, in part, after the searing memory of Las Vegas cops standing between him and racist skinheads after an event sponsored by a local Jewish organization.

“I just like the idea of being there for people,” he says.

When he took on the job, the poetry came back. It had to.

“You need some release from the job and the painful things you deal with,” he says. “But you also want to share some of the funny stuff. Because in all the pain and anguish, there’s the kindness of spirit, the goodness of people and the hilarity.”

“You have to remember the world is filled with goodness, and some badness, too,” Fagel says. “But it’s almost like, even at night on the streets, you find kindness. You find people doing incredible deeds for others.”

When asked if he is more cop or poet, Fagel says, “I’m human.”