Posts filed under ‘poem’
PUBLISHED POEM
This effort was published in 1979 by New Worlds Unlimited in their anthology, Visions of the Enchanted Spirit.
THE WIND HOWLS
The wind howls a mournful tune,
The winter is deep and the night long,
Frost paints a lacey scene
on darkened windows
as we lay here
with only a single wavering candle
mellowing the room,
We touch, Caress
fighting off the winter chill,
Fighting off life’s hard cold,
Next to you life is summer
on this December night.
The sun grows,
A flame burns on.
We are one.
PUBLISHED POEM
My reluctant readers,
Here is another poem from my distant past. It was published by New Worlds Unlimited in an anthology entitled, Whispers of the Unchained Heart, in 1977. God, I love their titles.
Enjoy.
CITY DEATH
Gone-
Murdered by concrete
and polluted air,
Witness to city’s growth.
Yielding shade to sultry summers,
Forming crystalline sculptures in winter,
Morning droned with saws
A barren stump your marker
Death your reward.
PUBLISHED POEMS
My reluctant readers,
Another ‘blast from the past’.
Published by New Worlds Unlimited in 1976. The title of the anthology was, and still is, Reflections of the Inward Silence. They could pick good titles.
JUNKYARD
Lying amongst mud and decay
Spent heaps discarded,
Side by side the mean and misused
Elegant and cherished share the same epitaph,
Pampered and treasured rot alike
In the end measure equal,
Parts torn and corrupted,
Scavengers pick clean
That others survive.
PUBLISHED POEMS
My reluctant readers,
Here is another poem from my past. It was published by New Worlds Unlimited out of Saddle Brook, New Jersey in their anthology entitled, Shadows of the Elusive Dreams, in 1975.
I must tell you, although the urge is great, none of these poems have been altered after publication. As every writer knows, a work is never done, but you have to walk away.
PARK RESIDENT
Winding thru city parks,
Stumbling from a park-bench sleep,
In the uncertain light of dawn
He wanders;
Eyes brimmed with despair-
Blessed with yet another day
His mind recalls vague dreams,
The dreams of his youth
Gone to mist;
Less often now come dreams
Unknown to park-bench beds,
Night brings only cold,
Thoughts void of future.
PUBLISHED POEMS
My reluctant readers,
As promised, here is the first of my ancient published poems. This piece was published in The Clover Collection of Verse, 1976.
This poem has the distinction of being the only work for which I earned money. Not here, but published in another poetry periodical, someone liked the poem and sent me a dollar. Somewhere in our attic storage area, along with over twenty years of accumulated ‘stuff’ that dollar resides. It keeps company with a mound of rejection letters.
I hope you enjoy this effort of my ‘relative youth’.
THE WHEAT FIELD REVIELED
Friendless you toiled with palette and brush,
Forlorn amidst wheat fields with only mad rush
Of flying crows to mark the day,
Crossed paths unite yet yield no safe way,
Fulfillment pursued beneath sorrowful skies
Painting with troubled soul that once cries
Out for love yet finds only torment,
Thus your life spent.
Tramping through fields of cypress and corn
With stars and suns swirled in a morn,
Hatband-held candles yield flickering light
Sustaining your soul one last starry night,
Rooks swirled in violet a soul hungers still,
Standing alone – the wheat field revielded.
JUMPERS A 9/11 POEM
9/11
I wrote this poem seven years ago.
Who alive on that beautiful September morning, other than the tiniest child spared the memory, could forget that day.
The vast majority of us carry the images of that fateful day. The one I remember most is the jumpers. Those desperate people, approximately fifty, who joined hands or made makeshift parachutes, only to meet the same fate.
This poem is dedicated to them.
JUMPERS
They were like birds flying,
Leaping from flaming windows,
No wings to purchase air,
No hope of flying home.
They were like birds flying,
Tumbling in twos, alone,
Flashing by in a smoke-filled sky
While crowds watched in horror.
They were like birds flying
Flights, imprinting the nation’s memory.
They were like omens flying,
Carrying us into a world of fear.
UNPUBLISHED WORKS
Dear reluctant readers,
I have not visited my blog for some time now. I have been busy revising my novel, The Beast Awaits, and hope to, by the end of the year, start seeking a home for this work.
In the meantime, I thought I’d post some of my work that no one felt worthy of publication.
This offering is a poem, written some time ago. Now that my daughters are both adults, I feel a special kinship to this poem that was written when they were children.
TRANSITIONS
The years, they march forever,
Dreams flare, then fade away,
Some reach, some corner of my mind
Still plays with yesterday.
The years, they take their toll,
Hopes dim, then fade away,
My youth, now past now spent
Has abandoned me this day.
I pause, I catch the sound
Of small children, my children at play,
The world comes slowly full circle,
I pause, nothing what to say.
Their years, the grow they flourish,
Their dreams, they seize the day,
I retreat, then yield and vanish,
Hope fills their world today.
THE SNOW
As a resident of Pennsylvania, I can safely say we have experienced the winter from hell (if that makes any sense). With a beautiful spring upon us, I felt it safe to submit this poem to Necrology Shorts. They chose to publish this effort.
This poem was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Bells.
THE SNOW
See the delicate snowflakes fall,
Falling, falling, falling.
Whitening the earth, awaiting below,
Falling, falling, falling.
See the mounds of glittering white,
Building, building, building.
As they hide the ground from sight,
Building, building, building.
See the ceaseless falling snow,
Falling, falling, falling.
Will it stop, no one quite knows,
Falling, falling, falling.
See the drifts accumulate,
Building, building, building.
My longing for spring will no longer wait,
Building, building, building.
SEE THE DAMNED WHITE BLANKET GROW,
HIDING, HIDING, HIDING.
MY CAR, MY LAWN, ALL I KNOW,
HIDING, HIDING, HIDING.
SEE MY MADNESS, MY URGE TO KILL,
GROWING, GROWING, GROWING,
CROSS MY PATH, AND I’LL DO YOU ILL,
SMILING, SMILING, SMILING.