Beginnings and Endings Poetry Theme - Page 3
Over 30 poets contributed to this project. Read their varied interpretations and expressions on the theme of beginnings and endings below:
On this page: Johnmichael Simon, Michael Mirolla, Donna Langevin, Alex Skovron, Rifkah Goldberg, Michael Stone, Patricia McGoldrick, Donna Bechar, Birgit Talmon, Iris Dan, Michael Lee Johnson
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Johnmichael Simon
Johnmichael Simon was born in England, grew up in South Africa and has lived in Israel since 1963. He has published two solo books of poems: ‘Sonatina’ – largely on musical subjects and ‘Bordwinot’ – a mix of ballads balderdash and other strange ingredients, as well as two collections in collaboration with partner Helen Bar-Lev: ‘Cyclamens and Swords’ – poems and illustrations about the land of Israel and ‘Silly Wishes’ – an illustrated collection of fun poems for children of all ages. Johnmichael has been awarded several prizes in international poetry competitions: first and third places in the Reuben Rose, first place in the Margaret Reid, third place in the Tom Howard plus numerous honorable mentions in other contests.
end game or beginning
it was end game
between man and computer
battlefield strewn with corpses
failed strategies, beheadings
behind them hop skip
and pounce, thrust
and foil of cannon fodder
he had been bred for this task
genes selected from
sperm banks of grand masters
with intergalactic sounding names
the robot was a forest of entangled
wires, laser pod eye stalks
chromium bracketed finger joints
quadrillion terabyte memory
they were down to two kings
two pawns a bishop and a knight
stalemates carefully avoided
they both wanted clear cut victory
it was time for psychological warfare
the robot grew a million bloodshot eyes
spread vanadium vaned wings
over sixty four light years, it was
stretched to its thin hinged limits
the chess genius grimaced
a gnat had just flown into his nostril
and was tickling him uncontrollably
the grandmaster sneezed - the hugest
sneeze in history, the robot stretched
to its limits exploded, flew apart
in billions of flying particles
gases, quanta, electrons, building block
nuts and bolts spreading through
the space of time
future students would scoff in disbelief
but some called it the big bang theory
In the Beginning
Before the beginnings of rules
there was no order, no form,
no words, no notes, no colors,
someone took a thing and said
“look a ball, a red ball”
and then there was a sun
Someone smiled and said “coo coo”
and then there was a bird
and the bird flew across the sun
the red sun shone on the bird
the cuckoo bird flew into the smile
The smile shone into the sun
the sun laughed at the bird
the red bird
cuckoo, cuckoo
one day
On Popsicles and Intimacy
Commitment is like a popsicle,
it seems so large and cold,
and after each taste it slowly loses its sweetness,
until, when finished we throw away the stick
and think they don’t make popsicles like they used to.
Intimacy has neither beginning nor end,
Its simply here and now...two people tasting each other.
The more we taste the sweeter it is
We dip together into the sweetness
No yesterdays, no tomorrows, no regrets.
Pulling the Threads Together
She sits there in her rocker
wise as a walnut shell
watching her wrinkled days go quietly by
two plain, two purl
Stitch by stitch the knitting nears completion
neat rows of ribs, white windblown columns
running down the shaded fields of yarn
two plain, two purl
Wooly cardigan for a grandson’s infant
swaddling blanket for an unborn wish
patient needles click past the years inside
two plain, two purl
The rows grow, unfold
queues of mothers and children
alternating in laughter and tears
to the beginning when those first soft fingers
held her’s, guiding stitch by studious stitch
two plain, two purl
Endings flowing into beginnings
she hooks the loops into each other
enmeshed with herself now
she puts the needles down
smiles satisfied,
quickly packs her satchel
tucks the blanket around the sleeping woman
skips up the hill to school, still counting
two plain, two purl
Michael Mirolla
Michael Mirolla is a Montreal-Toronto corridor novelist, short story writer, poet and playwright. His latest publications include a novel, Berlin, and two collections of poetry: a bilingual English-Italian collection Interstellar Distances/Distanze Interstellari and an English collection Light And Time. Aside from two collections of short stories, he has had poetry and short stories published in various magazines in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.
Trompe-l’œil & The Mother
I watch her dark back, arched into a question mark,
as she stands before the adipose stove. She is
stirring jaundiced soup flakes into a roiling pot
coated in blue-white shades of chipped porcelain.
The steam rises, dappling the space around her.
It settles in her socketed eyes, smoothing out
the interstices of a mapped out face.
Sometimes, it takes my fancy to imagine
she’s been standing there before that stove
since … since the beginning of … rhyme … really …
stirring the chipped pot with its limp noodles.
Shredded bits of pasta floating in a yellow sea.
It’s either that or stepping off that ship
across more than half a century … across
a rotted gangplank that smelled of finality
even then … waves far below signalling the last
transmitted message from the generations
left behind … shards of pottery half-swallowed
in the over-burdened earth. Skin severe
over chrysalis cheek bones, she steps into
the corollary world, gripping a child
in each hand like some logical conclusion.
A proof to be presented … continuity
amid the sudden ripping away of roots.
Or maybe the right approach is to crease
the two images into each other …
to a place where, negating all that came
between (from onyx silences to flashing knives),
they can touch and co-exist without fear
of contradiction. Like a sullen trick one does
by folding back the designs on twin pieces
of paper to create a third. But what
would such a joining look like? Perhaps
the cameo of an old woman holding
a shiny porcelain pot, straight out of the box.
Hand reaching out to coax the gas flame to life.
On Coming To The End of M. Proust
Towards the final pages of Le temps retrouvé,
my father stands scarecrow to the wind,
purblind, ragged, duct-taped walking stick impaled
quivering in the ground beside him,
and leans his quasi centenarian foot
on the head of the pitch-fork. In slow motion,
the rusty tines slide into the stitch of earth,
to prise open its rich, constricted smile,
to dredge a chain of rictal memories.
In the canting afternoon, sky in patches
behind him, he feels the old burdens lift
for a moment, raising him up to where
the sod, unable to get a firm enough hold,
and lacking the reach to pull him back down,
is left to nip idly at his mud-packed heels.
Easing the fork once more into the heart
of friable loam, he escapes yet again
to await the turning of some final leaf.
Coffee & Caresses
Amid the shadow debris
that floats breezily
through the house
bouncing from afterglow
and foreheads alike
my out-dated mother
stares at the wall calendar
and asks what day it is
what day it might be.
The glass percolator
hiccups dryly
on the stovetop.
She reaches out
but I’ve come to fear
her touch of ice
the blood not quite
making it to the whorls
of those fingertips.
Thus I steel myself
and tense in anticipation
preparing to allow
the coolness to slowly
shudder through me.
The bits and pieces freeze
for a moment
in her chilled stare
before resuming
their entropic journey.
Again, she asks
what day it is
what day it might be.
Before I can respond
the coffee pot
shatters.
Donna Langevin
Donna Langevin lives in Toronto and works part-time as an ESL teacher. She is the co-author of four texts in her field and her poems have appeared in Arc (1998 third prize, Poem of the Year contest), the Antigonish Review, Descant, Event and many other Canadian and American Journals. In 2004, she won the Ray Burrell Award for Poetry, second prize, and in the fall of 2008 she won first prize in the Ontario Poetry Society Contest. Her third book of poems, In the Cafe du Monde, was published by Hidden Brook Press in 2008, and a chapbook of poems about Cuba will be published by Lyrical Miracle Press in 2009.
Old Stripper Snow
is wearing
black lace
and torn fishnet stockings
She’s baring herself
on Toronto’s streets
and there’s nothing
this sooty old girl
won’t reveal as she sheds
hair and teeth
her once perfect skin
leaving behind
our cigarette butts
chocolate bar wrappers
a coat hanger
gum-wads and globs of snot
we once horked at her
Yes Old Stripper Snow
is doing her damnest
to leave showbiz
She’s dancing her worst
then slinking away
to melt
off-scene in some urban park
where she hopes
spring will stab her
with blades of green
Looking for Yesterday
A tuft
of tawny feathers
at the end of
two knock-kneed wands.
A body light as fluff
I could breeze into the sky.
A gait awkward as Icabod’s
the colt Sandhill Crane
grazing between his parents
is not to be found today
Is he hiding from predators?
Are his bones
too fragile for wind?
Is the rattle
of cabbage palm fronds
too much like a storm?
Did he move to a juicier
feeding ground
on someone else’s pond?
Or is this just one
of life’s moments with wings?
The Old Math
is the sum
of two brown eggs
scrolled with
darker markings hatching
in a nest moored
to the reeds
It is the sum
of two sandhill-colts
and their six strong-boned weeks
as they danced
in different directions
or wove between
their parents’ legs
and threads
of tall marsh-grass
It is the moment of subtraction –
the old math young as the morning
minus one swimming colt
who hadn’t yet learned to fly
snapped up by an alligator
while the savanna sang and shrilled
without pausing
to mourn
And it is my helpless after-math
as I long for the other colt
to balance that equation
stitching together the stars
named for the spirit of cranes
and imprinted
on those fossils
feathered
with their wings
Constellation Gruis
When you gaze down at the world
do you remember your life
nine million years ago
when Nebraska was a savanna
inhabited by
camels, rhinos and elephants?
Were you ever nostalgic
as you watched
yourself on the prairies
soaring above a sea of grass
as bison, pronghorn
and wapiti evolved?
And do you wish
you could fly away
or hide your stars like eyes
when in the last hundred years
the landscape turns to
cattle, corn and concrete,
its sands are riddled
with oil wells
and your feathers are tarred
in slag ponds?
When you’re lost in manmade clouds
do you weep for the children
who can no longer
connect your stars
except in colouring books?
Alex Skovron
Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel as a boy, and emigrated to Australia in 1958, aged nearly ten. His family settled in Sydney, where he grew up and completed his studies. Since the early 1970s he has worked as a book editor for various publishers; he now lives in Melbourne, is married with two children, and works as a freelance editor. Alex’s poetry has been published widely and five collections have appeared to date, most recently The Man and the Map (2003) and Autographs (2008), a book of prose-poems. Awards have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry (twice), the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (twice), the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2007), and, for his first collection, the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His prose novella, The Poet (2005), was joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for fiction. A book of short stories is in preparation.
What Matters
The old roof creaking in the rain
A moth fussing about under the light
A mug of gold steam on a windy night
The impermanence of tunnels, a line of type
And the face inspecting itself
Like a stranger, bitterness
When it slants across the blade of the years
Love of course
Uninvited tears, a letter
From a faraway friend long thought lapsed
The stars in a child's eyes
The trust in its hand, music, sharp apples
The rent, a miniature wooden box given
As a memento, in which nothing is kept
Paper, wine, the mobius mystery of sex
Flaws forgiven yourself, a good bed slept
In, several books waiting patiently
Twenty years, a pen quietly leaking
Old pain, the old fears creaking
From "Sleeve Notes" 1992
The Fool
(An allegory)
There was a fool with a virtue.
A fool because he knew
Nothing nor intended to know
But sat. A virtue
Since he rested silent saying nothing
But sat. A virtue.
Before long some having watched
And waited for a fool
To speak began to think indeed this
May be no such fool
Who sat. Who watched and sat soft
Eye steady as time. Now
And then he would smile a secret
Till the knowledge grew
That this could be no fool thus
To smile. So the fool
Sat and smiled and said nothing
Still. He began to grow
A venue for wise men of all corners.
When he turned these men
Nodded and when he nodded the wise
Grew deeper learning deep
Secrets and writing
Much. When he died ancient
They came in soft pomp and black
Glitter for burial. Those
Who saw him in his last
Silence loved the fool even more.
They sat in the still room
Loving and growing and waiting
In silence. Little by little less
And less they said
But sat. A virtue
Since they were readying to teach
As they sat. This itself
A virtue. (To teach
The virtue of sitting
In silence soft eye steady as
Time.) So too
The foolish sun daily slowly nodding
Sat in the sky. Smiled. Said
Nothing but sat.
And every night soft
Pomp and black glitter for burial.
A virtue.
From "Sleeve Notes" 1992
The Mask
'I always dream of labyrinths or of mirrors,'
Borges explained. 'The two are not distinct,
because it only takes two facing mirrors
to make a labyrinth.' And he remembered seeing
in a house in the Belgrano district, 'a circular room
whose walls and doors were mirrored ...
whoever entered the room found himself
at the centre of a truly infinite labyrinth.'
His nightmare: 'I see myself reflected in a mirror,
but the reflection is wearing a mask.'
From "Infinite City" 1999
Narcissus
In the end, of course, he got married
to himself. A civil ceremony, nothing too glib, a friend
or two, a reporter from the Mirror, the odd flame
from the past, a waiter with icy water;
his watery parents, a little perplexed, looking around,
confused because no engagement had been announced.
The celebrant was vague, her words left an eerie
echo, she quickly left. Nobody spoke. At last, he escorted
himself into the Bridal Suite: nervous, a little beery,
he sat there blushing on the edge of a single bed.
From "Infinite City" 1999
Village
Rifkah Goldberg
Rifkah Goldberg, born in London 1950, educated at London and Cambridge Universities, has been living in Jerusalem since 1975. She has two sons and is married to the writer Shalom Freedman. A member of Voices Israel and the Israel Association of Writers in English, she has been published in prestigious journals in the USA and the UK. Also an artist, her oil paintings have been shown in Israel and overseas, most recently at the Israel Museum and the Jerusalem Theatre. She works as a freelance writer and editor.
Last Times
Wheeled you to friends
Up and down steep windy streets
Back-to-back black-stoned houses
Around local shopping mall
To buy toys for my grand-children
You can now never know and share
Both bought same shawls
Black-and-white tweed skirts
To wear in different parts of the world
Brought you weak and wasted
For week-end out of hospital
To your beloved little home
Your protruding eyes
Gleefully dancing over
Your lifetime's treasures
Took two-toned pink roses
Hastily plucked from
Your lovingly planted tree
To stand in simple vase
On nursing-home sill looking out
On to panorama of your town
Sent you rose-trimmed card
Small tulip-shaped brooch
For your summer-time birthday
Gave you drops of water
From small-lipped beaker
Dribbled down your hospital gown
Listened to your final pleas
To ease your excruciating pain
And take you home again
Tightly held on to your violated
Swollen hand as very slowly
You breathed out your last breath
Nora
Could not fathom
Your androgynous stocky frame
Rudimentary stilted pigeon English
But saw your unbelievable capacity to care
Attending my friend’s mother’s
Drawn-out three-year dying
Spent your days responding
Even to her slightest needs
Breathing last drops of life into her
At first cooked her favourite foods
Then had to feed her by mouthful
Then prepared purees
Patiently stood by her walking frame
As she made small slow steps
Hoisted wheelchair up and down steep stairs
Kept her immaculately clean
Put on her pretty print dresses
Until almost her last days
Came to love her great grandsons
Often wheeling her over to their home
Carefully arranging their photos in albums
Looked after all the paintings
Delicate ornaments and plants
Her beloved piano and music scores
But when her final closing of eyes came
Not allowed by law to linger even for a single day
Not even to take leave of her at the funeral
Cast out as if you had never been
Went no one knows where
To seek someone else who needs to die
Spotting a Survivor
Homage to Jan Rauchwerger
Identify with so much
In photograph of you
Surrounded by your studio
Same chairs as in mine
Same easel but in darker wood
Crowded whitish plaster walls
Small single-bar heater
Improvised shelves stood on paint tins
Tall art books with some titles I know
Collage of postcards decorating door
Flower-patterned tiles I would love
Vases and plants peeping out
Called your exhibition
At the Israel Museum
“Shades of Feeling”
Dreamy concerned mother
As your children look outward
Expression of wonder on face
Of your amply red-haired wife
White toilet roll dominating still-life
Leaping black-and-white cat
Poetry of everyday objects
On slightly slanting blue shelf
Kind-faced aging mother
Old woman on a green bench
Aunt Clara getting older
Sitting on chairs
Leafless branches
Varieties of greens and blues
Sharp light on buildings
Gently portrayed
And my delight in this display
Spotting someone who will survive
In the jungle of multitudes striving to create
Michael Stone
Michael Edward Stone was born in Leeds, UK in 1938. He grew up in Australia and moved to Israel in 1960. He was educated at Melbourne University (BA), Hebrew University and Harvard University (PhD). He taught at the Hebrew University from 1966 2007 and is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Religion and Professor of Armenian Studies. He translates medieval Armenian religious and lyric poetry into English. His major translation, Adamgirk': The Adam Epic of Arakel Siwnec'i, the first English translation of an Armenian biblical epic, appeared with Oxford University Press last year.
Walking the Wire
A boy was walking the highwire,
A long pole in his hands,
Moving daintily along,
Gracefully hoarding balance.
Brown face, dark hair, smiling,
High up, a fall would hurt,
But steady, surely, stepping,
From start to end, post to post.
Jasmine Jewels
Late afternoon,
patio's stones still
give off hoarded heat,
like a brick oven baking.
On the white oval table
a bowl of summer fruit
spreads rainbow fragrance,
yellow peaches, purple grapes,
and green red watermelon.
Leaves dance a shadow theatre,
moved by the western breeze.
Fainting flowers stir,
light fades away and
jasmine jewels twinkle
whiter, more fragrant.
Beneath the table
a sleeping cat awakes,
shakes itself,
and stalks off proudly
on its own private business.
Patricia A. McGoldrick
Patricia A. McGoldrick’s poems, essays and reviews have been published in various works: The Irish American Post (online); Verse Afire; The Grand Table Anthology; Love and Longing in the Near North; Ice: New Writing on Hockey; WaterWell; Cross Cultures; Textshop; 2learn.ca; The Record newspaper; Wellington County History; Lives of the Saints newsletter. Patricia is a member of The Ontario Society of Poets (TOPS) and the Canadian Federation of Poets (CFP). Patricia lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Neighbourhoods
It seems to me that neighbourhoods
Are kind of like pumpkin fields
Sprouting through clay soil
Growing up
Spurting outwards with sprawling green vines
Budding and blossoming in orange sherbet blooms
Folding frequently at the tip of new creations
Freckle-faced green growth
Bigger and rounder segmented appendages
Turning to orange Carotene taking over
Vines shrivelling to brown
The autumn field neighbourhood is dotted with
Orange pumpkin balls of all sizes and shades
‘Til harvest arrives, then, here come the pickers--
Some of the pumpkins are gone to new homes already
But, for those who are able,
A few more orange globes are captured
The carving begins
Designers of all ages plot a unique face
For their autumn gold and soon
Moist seeds are roasted, then salted, not sold
The promise of next year’s crop rests in the field
With the leftover seedlings
Continuing from the remainder of old neighbourhoods.
Donna Bechar
Donna Bechar, originally a Long Island girl, resides in Israel and is a long-time member of the poetry group Voices Israel. Donna's poetry has appeared in such publications as Ibbetson Street, Poesy, Full Circle, Voices From Israel, Determinations 2, Firm Noncommital, as well as in numerous volumes of the Voices Anthology. In 2005, her poem "Sneak Thief" won Second Prize in the Rueben Rose Poetry Competition, and other poems have won Honorable Mention, including last year's "My Father's Ankles". Donna is also involved in pottery and theater.
Bouquet
It's the yellows that die first
with delicate pointed petals
radiant as sun-soaked windows
they turn in on themselves -
Narcissus cringing
Then the roses
at first, bashful babes
then puffy and proud
spraying their blood about
heads drooping and weary
after their glamorous life
But the white pom-poms
they stand up straight, still
all giggling girlish defiance
All together, in their youth
they embraced you
on your sixtieth birthday
They waved their wand
sunning a cloudy day
resplendent with family and friends
a marina view and good food -
my triumph and gift to your husbandry
Now overripe
with fragrance becoming odor
those buds still center our table
their post-mortem long past due
but their spirit
still breathing the life of that perfect day
keeps me from their funeral
In the Throes
The leaves of Fall
Hold fast for dear life
Their last breaths exhaled in
Splendorous colors
Death dressed as beauty
In sunset hues they perform
Fluttering butterfly wings
Graceful, glamorous and forlorn
Like a silent film star
Death dressed as drama
Turned brown, the ground wears them
As spots on the back of an aged hand
Crackling like fallen old bones
Trampled, kicked and brushed away
Death naked
Bending Rules
These days, I leave the words alone
But no amount of pictures
Can complete my thoughts
Like a slow drip, it's
The words that give me
Sustenance
Into the night, feelings and
Songs make their peace with
Each other, bending rules
To create new lines
That push each other
Until new forms are born
The Cry Just Under the Skin
There is a trick to it
a way of handling it
low-impact but certainly aerobic
there's a way of
not getting beaten down
a way of managing
that cry just under the skin
I have thought hard about this
mind contorting as I wipe
at spills on the kitchen counter
heart doing backbends as I sink
deep into a stretch, clearing the
tiled floor of crumbs and shed hair
I've thought of blood seeping under skin
its accretion forming a perfect bruise
green plus purple equal black
mud water sucking me down
equal crawling night creatures creeping into day
equal sun shining on a graveyard of goals
The pores of my skin open mouths
intoning the wail of a mother's death
notes of crippled dreams, rhythms of half a life
laid to rest in the acetate caskets of
shelved photo albums
Names
You call me
Unpleasant
Complainer
Inhuman
You call me
Abnormal
Stupid
Nag
You've said more than once
That you hate me
Numerous times
How you hate me
Then, when it's over
An arm around and a kiss
Should be all needed
To forget
But these words are worms
Burrowing to the center
To feed at my core
Whoever thought I'd be
An abused woman
Battered, but not with
Fists
I never thought I'd stand
At Masada
Waiting and watching while
Layer upon layer
Building your dirty pile
You break down my door
Birgit Talmon
Birgit Talmon is Danish-born, married, mother of three, in Israel since 1962. She worked as a licensed desert guide while living in Beer-Sheva, now is a translator: Danish, English and Hebrew. She has for many years studied prose and poetry with eminent writers in Israel and writes in the above mentioned languages. She writes a column in the Danish Newsletter, lectures for English speaking groups in Israel on the subject: The rescue of Jews in Denmark during II World War. (The boat people). A soprano, she has participated in operas such as: Aida, La Boheme, Nabucco and Turandot, with the Philharmonic Choir.
Your D-Day
To Eilon December 08
It was
A long touch
Or go
To Eternity.
Each time
I held my breath
Until the day
You compelled me to
Add that dreaded d
To 'I love you'.
Void
In the narrow void
Bereft of traditions
On either side
In unique unison
The two nestle
With fragile respect
For each other's heritage.
Iris Dan
Iris Dan was born in Bukowina, Romania, in a family of Holocaust survivors. She grew up bilingual (German and Romanian), then studied Romance languages at the University of Bucharest, graduating with an M.A. in linguistics. She has been living in Israel since 1980. She is married, has a grown daughter, and works (quite happily) as a translator from and into a number of languages. From her (existential and professional) Babel Tower she sees the Mediterranean. She has written poetry for as long as she can remember, never publishing any, in the last 15 or 20 years in English only. Recently she has begun to send her poems on their own way and has been published or is forthcoming in the Voices Israel Anthology, Magnapoets, Poetic Portal, Subtletea, and Poetic Diversity.
Introduction
On my way to school
there was the widow with three children
cursing because once again
the neighbors had poisoned her geese
(introduction to the banality of evil)
then the railway, where often
I waited for hour-long trains
loaded with coal, timber and wheat
to pass towards the Soviet border
(introduction to geopolitics)
and finally the hospital
with the morgue door open, revealing
the last bloated corpse
flanked by cabaggey paper flowers
drenched in cheap perfume
while from the windows
corpses in making
spat on the pavement blobs of soul
mixed with sputum and tobacco
(introduction to death and dying)
I imagine I was so eager for love
(introduction to love)
because I needed something
to attach my thoughts to
on my way to school
Burial of the Father
Then his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, facing Mamre, the field which Abraham purchased from the sons of Heth; there Abraham was buried with Sarah his wife.
Genesis 25:9-10
The burial of the father was a simple procedure,
entirely regulated by custom:
descending into the cave,
laying him out of the reach of scavenger beasts,
putting heavy stones above him;
then a number of familiar acts,
involving garment rending and sheep slaughtering
And then – two middle-aged men
not much gifted for improvisation –
they had to talk to each other
It’s fortunate, Isaac began,
that he purchased this place.
Indeed, Ishmael replied, he has saved us
a lot of trouble and expense.
My mother is buried here too, said Isaac
immediately wishing he hadn’t.
Mine should also be buried with him, Ishmael said.
If only your mother and you had been more tactful,
thought Isaac, and Ishmael said, he sent us both away
to perish in the desert. Ishmael, Isaac said,
me he tied to the altar stone and held the knife above me.
I wouldn’t have let him do this to you, said Ishmael,
and Isaac said, what could you have done?
I was the first born, after all, said Ishmael.
Do you have sons? asked Ishmael. Twins,
Isaac replied, one a bully, one a cheat.
Apart from this – excellently turned out.
I have many, Ishmael said, all waiting for me to die.
I had a baby boy once, said Ishmael,
who reminded me of you. He, too, had curly hair.
I can’t even remember you, Isaac said, and cried.
Remember me now, said Ishmael, and embraced his brother,
and cried with him, and they kissed.
Will I see you again? asked Isaac. Of course, laughed Ishmael,
we are joint heirs of the cave.
The Moving Class
Hardly balancing herself
at the end of the bus, she shouts
from the top of her lungs
the names of the continents
(how many of them are there?
She isn’t sure anymore)
As always the grown-ups look away
the children jeer, saying that
her slip is showing,
her hair looks like rotten straw
What can you expect, she thinks
from this mindless generation,
but as long as she can help it
she’ll have them memorize
the seven wonders of the world
The bus takes a sharp turn
and the Colossus tumbles
crushing under its weight
the statue that is all breasts,
the Pharos burns (or is it a library?)
and who, in God’s name,
is buried in the Mausoleum?
Has only the Great Pyramid remained
where they bore a hole in your head
squeeze your brains out
and leave you alone in the endless dark
with all that gold and those roaches
and a ball of dirt symbolizing the sun?
All disintegrates into bits of snow
turn into mud – and behold –
the Zebu ox incarnates before her.
She cannot remember anymore
whether he’s a deity or a beast of burden,
but triumphantly shouts his name
pats his head, kisses his eyes
and holds on to his horns
as long as she can.
Geranium
suddenly -
here and now
a plant flowering
getting its fill
of water and sun
sounds vibrating
body opening
to let them in
you do not
understand
you see
you hear
you know
then you describe
you say red geranium
classical concert
early spring breeze
then parents teachers
ancestors gods
children born and unborn
put their fingerprints
on petals and leaves
mingle their voices
with music and wind
eternity comes to a halt
time resumes
Gift-wrapped
What cannot be stored is shredded.
We go about stirring faded paper petals
patterned with beheaded,
amputated letters
at most letting us guess
typeface or ink quality
yet carrying intact the smell
of pain, humiliation, or shame
And when we offer our heart
as a (usually unsolicited) gift,
we put these shreds to use,
make them into a presentation layer
on which the heart sits,
like a paper-weight,
pounding with the effort
of keeping them in place.
Michael Lee Johnson
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer, author of "The Lost American: From Freedom to Exile": http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. He has also published two poetry chapbooks and has been published in over 16 different countries. Michael publishes and edits several poetry sites: http://poetryman.mysite.com/. He lives in Itasca, Illinois. He lived in exile during the Vietnam era for10 years.
I Am Old Frustrated Thought
I am old frustrated thought
I look into my once eagle eyes
and find them dim before my dead mother,
I see through clouded egg whites with days
passing by like fog feathers.
I trip over old experiences and expressions,
try hard to suppress them or revisit them;
I’m a fool in my damn recollections,
not knowing what to keep and what to toss out--
but the dreams flow like white flour and deceive
me till they capture the nightmare of the past images
in a black blanket wrapped up
and wake me before my psychiatrist.
I only see this nut once every three months.
It is at times like these I know not where I walk
or venture. I trip over my piety and spill my coffee cup.
I seek sanctuary in the common place of my nowhere life.
It is here the days pass and the years slip like ice cubes--
solid footing is a struggle in the socks of depression.
I am old frustrated thought;
passing by like fog feathers.
Rose Petals in a Dark Room
I walk in a mastery of the night and light
my money changers walk behind me
they are fools like clowns in a shadow of sin,
they’re busy as bees as drunken lovers,
Sodom and Gomorrah before the salt pillar falls.
In a shadow of red rose petals
drunken lovers walk changing Greek and Roman
currency to Jewish or Tyrian money−
they are fools, all fools, at what they do.
Everyone’s life is a conflict.
They are my lovers and my sinners
I can’t sleep at night without them
by my bed or the sea of Galilee.
Fish in cloth nets are my friends and my converts.
I pray in my garden alone; while all the rest
who love beside me sleep behind their innocence.
The rose is a tender thorn compared to my arrest.
and soon crucifixion.
It is here the morning and the night come together,
where the sea and the land part;
where the building crumbles
and I trust not myself to them.
I am but a poet of the ministry,
rose petals in a dark room fall.
Everyone’s life is a conflict.
But mine is mastery of light and night
and I walk behind the footsteps of no one.
Phil and Betsy: Illinois Farmers
Illinois writer in the land of Lincoln
new harvest without words
plenty of sugar pie plum, peach cobbler pie,
buried in grandma sugar;
factory sweets and low flowing river nearby─
transports of soy bean, corn, and cattle feed
into the wide bass mouth of the Kishwakee River.
It is the moment of reunion,
when friends and economy come together─
hotdogs, marshmallows, tents scattered,
playing kick ball with that black farm dog.
It’s a simple act, a farmer gone blind with the night pink sky,
desolate farmer, simple flat land, DeKalb, Illinois.
Betsy and Phil, invite us all to the camp and fireside.
But Phil is still in the field, pushing sunset to dusk.
He is raking dry the farm soil of salvation, moisture has its own religious quirks,
dead seed from weed hurls up to the metal lips of the cultivator pitting.
The full moon is undressing, pink florescent hints of blue, pajamas, turned
inward near midnight sky against the moon naked and embarrassed.
Hayrides for strangers go down dark squared off roads with lights hanging, dangling,
children humming school tunes, long farmhouse lights lost in the near distance.
Hums till dawn, Christian songs repeat, over God’s earth, till dead sounds the tractor
pulls itself down, down to the dusk, and off the road edge.
It is the moment of reunion.
