Posts tagged ‘published poem’
PUBLISHED POEM
The year was 1986, and my wife was pregnant with our first daughter, Annie. Eighteen months later, we had our second child, Lynn.
Being one who never thought I would marry, having a child was more than a miracle in my life.
That year, New Worlds Unlimited published two of my poems in their anthology, Secrets of the Poetic Vision.
The joy I felt at this time in my life is obvious in this poem.
NEW LIFE
My wife is pregnant
and the joy floods in.
Never expecting another life from mine
I stand amazed
and watch you grow
a love within my love.
I’ll tell you things,
I’ll teach you things,
I’ll show you the past
and stand amazed
as the future unfolds.
And I’ll hold you close
when life threatens.
This second offering is the result of a camping trip I took with my very good friend, Andy Lowe, to Yosemite National Park.
He introduced me to my wife, Joni. I think she has forgiven him.
On that trip I began the beard I now sport. Back then, it was brown. Now it is a dignified white. That is about the only part of me that is dignified, and that is questionable.
My wife and children have never seen me without a beard.
YOSEMITE
Granite faces etched with power,
The power, whispering in silent walks
through the sentinel pine
and those stone giants gaze down
with visages as old as time
and the whispering is there.
The night, a new moon night
with blackness deep and rich
and the power whispers
through pin-prick points of light,
speaking to us of other worlds,
whispering to us of our insignificance.
And the whispering continues
but chance to listen and its roar will deafen.
PUBLISHED POEMS
In 1985 New Worlds Unlimited once again published two of my poems in their anthology, Treasures of the Precious Moments. I’m going to give some background for the poems.
I spent years in the Midwest, in college and then in the air force, and had never seen a tornado. Although, I’d been close to one while I live in Wichita. I remember the sky turning a sickly green. I went outside and the temperature swung back and forth. The wind went from a fierce blow to a deathly calm. Next came the hail – golf ball-sized chunks of ice.
Wouldn’t you know it; I spent two years in Florida during the 1970s and saw a tornado. I was fishing with friends in the Everglades at Flamingo at the southern tip of the park. The sky began to darken – dramatically. We decided to leave and headed north. That’s when I saw it, a delicate finger dipping down from the indigo clouds.
THE TEMPEST
Lost,
In a torrent of storm and power
a delicate finger fondles the earth’s surface.
Extends from a dark gray womb reaching out.
Caressing,
Tearing with the force of a lover lost in ecstasy.
A mighty machine born of cloud and air
spending itself on the unsuspecting earth
I watch,
A distant viewer of a mystical force,
Amazed at the beauty Death’s angel has assumed.
Amazed at the power unleashed before my eyes.
Distance masks the fury, the rage of storms.
Distance masks the horror of life’s reality.
To say I am a loner would be a gross understatement. One cannot observe and participate at the same time. I chose to observe.
The fact that I am married is a minor miracle. Joni saved me from the life of a hermit. She will never know how much I appreciate that.
This poem was written back when I was till in my hermit phase.
WALLS
I’m just marking time
and can’t explain why
when the door opens I kick it shut.
A wall was built some time ago,
the seams mossed over
so that nothing can penetrate.
The walls purpose, lost with the key.
Yet, the prisoner finds the wall insecure,
builds walls within walls,
breaks into himself to find only emptiness.
And the final realization comes too late.
The walls protect nothing
and nothing was saved.
PUBLISHED POEM
Once again, in 1984, I had a poem published by New Worlds Unlimited in their anthology, Voices of the Majestic Sage.
NIGHT RAIN
The darkened hush of an autumn evening,
a distant murmur and a world of sound approaches.
The window sweats great flowing beads
yet in darkness
where colors turn to gray
and reality to hazy contours,
night hides the rain.
As if only the sound exits.
Night does this.
Night, a time for sounds,
a time for memories that have no sounds,
only pictures alive within a darkened mind.
A raindrop blurs a scene unchanged
time, a memory’s life.
PUBLISHED POEMS
In 1983, the year I married Joni, New Worlds Unlimited published two of my poems in Journeys of the Poet Prophet.
RESTORATIONS
The ground trembled and moaned
like some mighty giant stirring from sleep,
like some force gone unnoticed wanting to be known,
And Naples crumbled,
And men died, and women died,
and children would never grow old.
Even dead Pompeii died, died even more that day.
And the earth was changed, and people were changed.
Workmen hurried to rebuild Pompeii
working hard to restore its timeless death.
And people groped in rain filled darkness
trying hard to rebuild shattered life.
And small towns, villages rival Pompeii in their death,
And death is more easily restored than life.
OVERHEAD
Overhead, one by one the light bulbs expire,
Their guts bursting,
And in death their ghosts yield a softer view of life,
Harsh shadows melt away.
Reality fades into the background
and the room’s boundaries sink into infinity.
Another bursts in incandescent death.
Familiar objects take on new shapes
as possessions melt from sight.
A book left open,
the words blur into feelings.
Something calls from the darkness
waiting to be released as the last flame fades.
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