| My love is my love
Posted: 1/18/2008 8:24:31 PM | Nice portrait, Jer...Ialmost love her too... | |
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| These hands have found a home...
Posted: 1/20/2008 3:18:47 PM | For a competition on another site in which one is presented with a photo or illustration & invited to write a poem about it, I wrote the following (the photo was of a pair of very aged, much wrinkled women's hands clasping one another):
These hands have found a home
in one another after plaster, lathe,
brick and the malleable stuff
of which the human heart is made
have failed her.
We go from hand to hand
seeking comfort and refuge
in love, in comradeship, in the hands
of the Creator but, one by one,
each refuge crumbles or is sacked.
The hands that held us, warm
and safe, let go, until we fall, at last,
into our own hands’ clasp. | |
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| A poem without metre
Posted: 1/26/2008 10:33:04 AM | A poem without metre,
rhyme or metaphors,
without God or broken-
hearted lovers, oleander,
the Nile or dawn breaking out
over the horizon;
without the wacked-out rough-hewn
‘wisdom’ of some bar-room philosopher,
without pimps or rough-talking
prostitutes, a poem about
that which we are and
that which we are not.
A poem without rhyme or reason,
without hope or despair.
In short, a poem... | |
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| The World and Its Double
Posted: 2/1/2008 12:26:39 PM | The World and Its Double
“We know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know.”
Donald Rumsfeld
There are the things we think
we know and the things
we are sure that we know
though we may not know
how or why we know them.
There is the world in which
a president presides over
a ‘real’ nation and sends real armies out
to do battle against real others
and there is the double of that world
in which the soldiers only seem
to kill and be killed, the poor
do not actually starve but do
a sort of dumb-show of looking
for a scrap to eat and their children’s
faces are not gaunt but only seem so.
They do not actually die
of malnutrition or despair
but in our minds, if we permit it,
they really seem to do so. | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 5:26:02 AM | At the bank around the corner
you need one more piece of identification
than you ever have.
The tellers are invariably cheerful
(though grotesquely underpaid)
as they explain that the form
you just filled out is the wrong one
and, regrettably, the right one
is not available at that branch.
No one who ever went in there
has, as yet, come out with what they sought
and yet the line-ups, inside and outside the bank,
are long and, for the most part, patient.
* | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 6:47:42 AM | A trip to the bank with my Grandmother
When I was too small to see the narrow brass bars on the cubicles
There was no identification, needed just a smile
And miniature handwritten bankbook for updating
Everyone knew everyone by name and I was lucky if I
Escaped without someone pinching my cheek
Pennies were from heaven in those days
And dollar bills not falling into the same category as dodo birds
Sometimes the tellers had a glass dish of candies
For her customers to sample while waiting in line
Now in this brave new world I drive up to a machine
Smile at the camera as it watches every move I make
Swipe a piece of plastic and money spits out
Loss of village, human interaction, camaraderie
And perhaps dignity. | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 7:16:39 AM |
A trip to the bank with my Grandmother
When I was too small to see the narrow brass bars on the cubicles
There was no identification, needed just a smile
And miniature handwritten bankbook for updating
Everyone knew everyone by name and I was lucky if I
Escaped without someone pinching my cheek
Pennies were from heaven in those days
And dollar bills not falling into the same category as dodo birds
Sometimes the tellers had a glass dish of candies
For her customers to sample while waiting in line
Now in this brave new world I drive up to a machine
Smile at the camera as it watches every move I make
Swipe a piece of plastic and money spits out
Loss of village, human interaction, camaraderie
And perhaps dignity.
Wonderful musings, thanks.
But how do we know
that behind that busy face
of screen and slots and
numbers waiting to be punched
there is not some friendly, smiling teller
--smiling desperately in the hope
that she might at last be seen? | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 7:37:51 AM | I think it is just letting yourself be known
by your smile and a kind greeting
your understanding of the picture behind the screen
compassion
there are ways to break down the loss of empathy
old fashioned kindness, twinkling eyes
reaching out to touch this hurried pace
slow it down even for a second
calling someone by name
make them real
the lines will grow closer
frowns will dissipate
being in the moment
touching it, feeling it
climbing outside of yourself
caring
all is not lost in modernization
we are all fallible
and sincerity inevitably wins. | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 1:53:12 PM | I agree, AF, as I hope I expressed in the following:
Touch
Touch is the noun and verb of the heart.
Not all the words that you or I
can murmur, sing or shout
-–hoarse with eloquence, mad
with truth--words that beseech
or beckon or command,
can equal the touch,
in passing, of a friendly hand.
| |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/9/2008 10:18:44 PM | Jer, long overdue visit, i just wanted to contribute even though i'm here so rarely.
You expected me to be shocked,
scandalized,
disdainful of your actions.
But don't you realize
by now, nothing you do could shock me
unless it was done without love
without thought
without joy
without the artful elegance
your words always employ
may that shocking wonder always hold your heart
for such passion is disdainful
of any judgement we impart. | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/10/2008 5:35:40 AM | | POckets! POckets! Is it you? Does it rain in Wichita, KS? Where HAVE you been! I've tried to skype you! | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/10/2008 7:45:20 PM | | Yep, it's me. And of course it rains in KS, after all, how else do they grow all that corn? (They do grow corn in Kansas don't they?) | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/11/2008 3:54:24 AM | Yup, they shor nuff do (grown corn in KS) and not only that but
Ev'rythin's up to date in Kansas City (Missourah, that is)
They've gone about as fur as they c'n go!
They went and built a skyscraper seven stories high
About as high as a buildin' oughta grow
Ev'rythin's like a dream in Kansas City
It's better than a magic lantern show! | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/12/2008 2:28:55 PM | the traveler
betimes,
shrewd wayfarer,
I go down
on a ramble
through
the tawdry town
where battered souls
clutch paper sacks
and scrounge
their pennies
for the tax
and human life's
held very cheap
they smile
in winey daze
and drift into
a fume filled sleep
newspaper wrapped
and sightless gaze
LS | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/12/2008 2:38:57 PM | Now, those first few lines are reminiscent of something or other ....
The "sightless gaze" reminded me of a poem I wrote ten years ago:
ON EVERY STREET
Saves his pennies but blows his five buck bills
on turpentine and multi-coloured pills.
Creased suit, creased face, blood-soaked shirt and beard,
slumped in an alcove where crossing thugs are feared.
Immobile as a cement slab, a moaning
issues from the rags, meager, atoning.
Self-stricken, a heroic effort to rise;
head up for sun, red rosary beads his eyes. | |
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| At the bank around the corner
Posted: 2/12/2008 2:56:09 PM |
Now, those first few lines are reminiscent of something or other ...
Indeed?  Actually, I'm too sick to keep up with youguys in there...I think you posted four to my one...
I bequeath
these I leave to you
warm breath on your ear
nipples rising in your hand
a drop of longing
on your sex
swollen lips from kissing
lifted hair
bare neck
undersides of breast
hollows of inner thigh
silk stockings
beckoning perfume
thunder hearts
sugar sighs
ragged breath
ease inside
my womb
let erotic spark
consume
LS 12/10/07 | |
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| Sometimes life is all we’ve got
Posted: 2/12/2008 3:01:02 PM | Thanks Brizo & Rory... and in more or less the same vein:
Sometimes life is all we’ve got
Sometimes it’s too much
too much beauty
too much pain
A premature baby
abandoned in a forest glade
too much hope
a fresh, bracing autumn rain
A young hockey player
missing for fourteen years
found at last in a body bag
a message left on your answering-machine
from your grand-daughter
a friend we know only via the internet
beaten within an inch of her last hope
of love
too much ugliness
and the need for revenge
Too much beauty
too much love
too much pain
Sometimes life is all we’ve got
Sometimes it’s too much
© 08Nov06 | |
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| These hands
Posted: 2/13/2008 3:39:38 AM | These hands have found a home
in one another after plaster, lathe,
brick and the malleable stuff
of which the human heart is made
have failed her.
We go from hand to hand
seeking comfort and refuge
in love, in comradeship, in the hands
of the Creator but, one by one,
each refuge crumbles or is sacked.
The hands that held us, warm
and safe, let go, until we fall, at last,
into our own hands’ clasp.
| |
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| Snapshots: 3
Posted: 3/2/2008 6:54:12 AM | Snapshots: 3
An unfamiliar SUV
passes slowly by
as I brush the overnight snow
from my car.
Behind the wheel
an attractive young woman
(but they are all attractive
when they smile)
glances into her rear-view mirror
and flashes a smile
at the passenger behind her.
My day begins. | |
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| Snapshots: 3
Posted: 3/2/2008 8:12:10 AM | washing the dishes at 8 am
perfunctory and trance like
not here in the kitchen
but out there, past the window
herbed and african violeted
the flat silver sky with forks of
branches piercing the clouds
and so aware of the change
to a heavier gray, thick with depth
import
and these bubbles
so insignificant
yet powerful
and suddenly i knew all was as it should be
without evening praying,
god was there | |
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| In some home in Yonkers or in Flatbush
Posted: 3/15/2008 9:58:42 AM | In some home in Yonkers or in Flatbush
a former potentate
stares woefully at his cold porridge
while his wife of twenty years,
age newly etched in her face,
wonders what exactly one gets
for $2,000 an hour,
minimum 2 - 3 hours... | |
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| Labour, my love
Posted: 3/19/2008 8:14:57 AM | Labour, my love, in the vineyard
where the grapes all glisten
with morning dew.
Leave the smog-filled halls
of academia where the lecturers repeat
what was repeated to them that you
in turn may repeat it to others
or the sharp-edged corners
of shadowy corporations
where the business of business is conducted,
sotto voce. | |
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| Labour, my love
Posted: 3/19/2008 11:11:20 PM | | Very nice Alyosha (not muttered). I really like S3! | |
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