Posts tagged ‘published poem’
PUBLISHED POEM
My poetry readers,
In my last PUBLISHED POEM article I indicated that that was going to be it. But I found another old poem, and there is a more recently published poem which I shall share at a later date.
The following poem was published in the Clover Collection of Verse Vol. XII, edited by Evelyn Petry, in 1976.
I distinctly remember the birth of this poem. I once had a job in The Bronx while living in Newark. I would drive the New Jersey Turnpike every day, through the meadowlands and onward to New York. The meadowlands are not a particularly beautiful area. However, during my journey, I would pass a small dock with a moored sailboat. I began to realize that if I focused on only that gentle area, surrounded by saw grass, I could block out the rest of the world surrounding the scene. I could pick out points of beauty from a world of corruption. This is the poem that resulted.
CAMERA’S EYE
Camera’s eye catches delicate flowers,
Views the graceful of bee in pollination flight,
Spies the brushing of pollen – laden stamens,
Holds in time a scene most tranquil;
Yet does not discover the roadside trash,
The flower’s home amid mud and mire;
Does not smell the exhaust raining acid
On delicate flowers.
Camera’s eye gazes upon a child framed in a window,
Beholds the easy lean of chin in palm, elbow on windowsill,
Wide eyes looking out at the world in wonder,
Knows the innocent child – wisdom;
Yet ignores the window’s building,
Screens out the ghetto of rotted houses and dreams;
Undetected is the garbage – urine hallway
As the child sits framed in a window.
Camera’s eye seeks the tall dignified pine,
Witnesses early – morning dew set needles sparkling,
Inspects wildlife in arbor home,
Beholds sunlight filtering to needle – soft ground;
Yet neglects the smell and diesel smoke machines
Sumping and gouging the earth of its riches;
Does not display the bulldozer’s approach,
Turns away as the stately pine topples.
I am the camera’s eye
Seeing what pains me not,
Grasping flowers from mud and mire,
Rescuing the child from a rotted tenement,
Preserving the pine in dignified splendor;
All safe and secure in a scrapbook world
As the real world lays waste.
I was so tempted to change this poem, but all these published poems are presented exactly as they were published.
Once a work is published, the writer must step back and hope his work is appreciated for what it is, not what it might have been.
PUBLISHED POEM
My poetry friends,
This is the last of my oldies but, you decide what comes next.
Although I now live in a small town, I have lived in many large cities. I have witnessed the subject of this poem time and time again. I’m sure you have too.
This poem was published in Quality American Poetry, 1975-1976, Book III.
The anthology was published by Valley Publications and edited by William Lloyd Griffin.
SUNDAY PARK BENCH
Alone,
Rumpled newspaper in hand
Sits the old man,
Cold morning air sends a chill
Through a heavy overcoat,
Sunday morning light filtering
Through burnished leaves of autumn
Kindling thoughts of Sundays long gone,
Waking next to his wife,
The sound of children filling the house;
Now children grown – wife gone,
Sunday mornings bring only rumpled papers
On a park bench,
Alone.
PUBLISHED POEM
For some reason I have always had a fascination with Easter Island.
I’ve read about the island and became caught up with the struggles of two distinct populations and their undying need to build monuments. They decimated their forests to transport these magnificent structures.
I find it haunting that all this effort was going on while they had no idea that anyone else, outside their society, would see or appreciate this magnificent effort. Did they have the concept that there was more of the world?
I wrote a poem about these feeling which was published in 1975. The poem was published in the anthology, Best Poets of the 20th Century (another magnificent title and an awesome stretch), by Winston – Paramount Books, edited by B. Winston – Paramount.
EASTER ISLAND
Constructing sightless eyes no
one will see
They toil;
Probing rock with human fingers
They grope;
One – minded their effort approaches
uniqueness,
Years past witness human fingers to
dust,
Monuments remain to visit their labor;
Solemn stone faces looking out,
Pumice minds knowing an age of men
Possessing greatness long gone –
Deaf ears formed with stone axes,
Blood and sweat transformed
To monumental greatness;
Waiting on Easter Island.
PUBLISHED POEM
I offer to you another old poem published in 1974. It was published by New Dawn Publications in their anthology, At Heaven’s Gate, edited by Noel Alvin Gardner.
WHAT IS DEATH?
One journeys through life stumbling – blind,
Never knowing what he may find;
He seeks for himself a place in the sun,
But much to his sorrow often finds none.
He asks himself what life is about,
What will happen when his flame flickers out?
Will he have the courage to face the day – –
The day he knows he must go his way,
And leave the world behind?
What will he find?
Will he miss the life he had here on earth?
For then he will know what his life was worth,
Is death really the end of living,
Or for some, is it just the beginning?
As a writer gaining age, I sometimes cringe at my poems and want to change them before I present them to you, but I resist. What you see is what was published.
I’ll have a few more poetic entries to make, and then I’ll have to produce new stuff to keep your attention.
PUBLISHED POEM
In 1974 I published a few poems in different anthologies. This is a very early poem, which I think, shows. Some of the titles of the anthologies were quite a stretch.
This poem was published in the anthology, Notable American Poets, edited by Linda Nash.
SUNSET
I stand here looking into the west,
At the time of day I can stop and
rest,
When the day slows down its hectic
pace,
When peace and tranquility the
world does embrace,
I face the sunset.
The sky is aflame with orange and
red,
It makes one pause and lift up his
head,
Stare up into the golden sky,
Gaze with awe, and say with a sigh,
Thank You for the sunset.
But soon night will blacken the sky,
And sunset’s beauty bids the earth
good-bye,
So now I wait until tomorrow,
When once again I can lose my sorrow
And look to the sunset.
PUBLISHED POEM
I offer to you another poem written in my youth. This poem was published in 1974 in the anthology, Expressive Arts Review, edited by Robert Alexander.
CITY MORN
Sunlight filtering through elevated
roadways,
Dawn, finding its way through twilight
As the sleeping city greets another
day;
Delicate steel webs vaulting gray
rivers,
Ribbons of concrete conveying
sleepy-eyed travelers,
The hush of night giving way to
din of traffic;
Morning-sky reds lost to haze,
Another day begins.
PUBLISHED POEM
As promised, I’m going to share more of my published poems with you. These poems were published in very small anthologies from 1973 – 1976.
What follows is my first published poem, published by The Shore Publishing Co. in their anthology, Shore Poetry Anthology, in 1973.
THE WANDERER
Hair matted and long
Face overgrown with mustache and beard
He walks down the city streets alone
A broken man,
He stumbles about in the dead of night
With only a ragged coat to keep out the cold
And cheap wine his only refuge.
Perhaps he once dreamt
A dreamer of dreams
And a victim of fate,
For the greatest and lowliest man are of the same stock
Dreamers all,
The only difference being God’s frown
Or smile.
God smiled on me when I met my wife, Joni.
PUBLISHED POEMS
In 1988, New Worlds Unlimited published two of my poems in their anthology, Mysteries of the Lyric World. They were the last of my poems they would publish for the folded shortly after the anthology was released.
Here is a poem I wrote when Joni was pregnant with my daughter, Lynn, born in the spring.
SPRING’S PROMISE
My breath frosts the winter scene from my eyes
as I peer out the bedroom window.
Trees bend their naked arms
as a cold north wind gives them life.
The lawn, the hue of hay
bristles with the wind.
I look to the future
when my world will once again fill with life.
I look to my wife round with life herself
and the sound of the promise of spring
rings in my ears.
It’s a little ironic that this was the last poem published in this fourteen year series.
I know you writers out there will savor its meaning.
WAITING TOOL
A pencil sits poised
waiting to give life.
As a sculptor creates form
from the essence of marble
So the words await
Needing a sculptor of thought.
That is the end of the poems published by New Worlds Unlimited.
But my readers, there is more to come. I also published, during this period, with various publishers. I will share those with you next.
Thanks to all who read these poems.
Walt Trizna
PUBLISHED POEMS
My first daughter, Annie, was born in 1986 and I began writing poems about her. Lynn followed in 1988.
I sent two of my ‘father’ poems to New Worlds Unlimited and they published them in 1987 in their anthology, Memories of the Halcyon Days.
Since each of my girls was about two, I wrote them a poem for their birthdays reflecting on the past year. That tradition continues.
MY CHILD SMILES
My child smiles
and I look into her eyes
and she knows nothing of the world.
And that is good.
My child cries
and she knows nothing of the sorrow
the world can give.
And that is good.
My child laughs.
And that is good for the world.
HOPE
I looked the Lord full-faced
and saw my daughter
and I knew there was
something greater than I.
I saw my daughter discovering the world,
feeling new textures, wondering at new sounds
and I wished she could know
all I know and more.
I hold her close and feel the future,
Feel my past having purpose.
I feel new life.
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