Lake Ice [Lyric Poem]

Sun-sparkles on the lake’s far end
look icy cool beneath blue skies,
but Winter shivers, I suspend,
because late Spring is telling lies.

Garden Lanterns [Haiku]

legs in leaf litter,
garden lanterns catch light
that pierces bare woods.

Winter Woods [Haiku]

bare branches,
in the Winter forest,
look frost-covered.

Ripples [Haiku]

through a window:
first ripples of a Spring rain
seen on a pond.

Passing Buddha [Lyric Poem]

The train is speeding down the line.
Gold Buddha glints in the sunshine.
Jarring is the train whistle’s whine,
we plunge into a dark tunnel.

Green Hills [Lyric Poem]

So many hills I have seen
That grow so soft and thick and green.
Though jagged rocks sit down below
The grass and shrubs and weeds that grow
Through cracks and gaps, in mud patches --
Sprawling wide from tight-knit batches
That stone cannot constrain or kill.

Rushed [Haiku]

through the Autumn,
one tree holds leaves longer,
then drops them faster.

Rain Splotch[Haiku]

chilly winter day,
prismatic splotch in sky—
no bow, no ring.

Long Shadow [Haiku]

Winter sun
casts long shadows
through dead grass.

BOOKS: “The Suppressed Poems of Ernest Hemingway”

The suppressed poemsThe suppressed poems by Ernest Hemingway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Available online – Public Domain

I read this book because my curiosity was piqued by a reference to poems Hemingway published in Der Querschnitt, a reference that was made in a biography of Hemingway I’ve been reading recently (Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyers.) Five of the seventeen poems in the book are from Der Querschnitt. (Ten of the poems were published in a book entitled Three Stories and Ten Poems and a couple are odds and ends.)

The Der Quershnitt pieces are bawdy by 1920’s standards, though not particularly for today. The other poems can be a bit intense, dealing in subjects like death in war (Champs D’Honneur,) suicide (Montparnasse, and a curse upon literary critics (Valentine,) but tend to be a bit more refined (excepting Valentine. which may be the least elevated of the collected poems.)

The poems include a mix of lyric, free verse, and prose poem, though all are fairly short (the longest, The Soul of Spain, fits in three pages.)

My favorite was a short lyric poem entitled The Age Demanded, which considers the paradox of the 1920’s as a progressive age, restrained. I also found T. Roosevelt to be fascinating because in the act of critiquing Teddy Roosevelt, Hemingway (wittingly or not) gives us a bit of autobiography. (i.e.“And all the legends that he started in his life // Live on and prosper, // Unhampered now by his existence.”)

I give Hemingway more credit for saying interesting things by virtue of being bold than for saying anything in a particularly interesting way, but it’s enough to make these poems worth reading.

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