Tag Archives: poetry

POEM: On “Walk On, Ye Doomed”

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Radnóti wrote, “Walk On, Ye Doomed”
[Járkálj Csak, Halálraítélt!]
in 1936 —

Eight years before he was force marched to death by Nazis.

And I am left to wonder whether he was a prophet,
or whether the Poet’s obsession with death makes him seem prophetic.

Whether he was a prophet or not, he was true to his poem.

There’s at least 750 kilometers between the copper mines of Bor and the tiny northern Hungarian town where he was killed — a place closer to both Bratislava and Vienna than to Budapest.

Call it 500 miles on foot,
emaciated from cracking rock for copper to build the war-machinery of those trying to erase a people — his people.

They found a pocketful of poems on his person when he was exhumed.

If you can’t think of anything else to do in the act of slogging at gunpoint across two countries than to craft poems, you are not a poet, you are THE Poet.

POEM: Kurtz & Marlow of the Mind

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Everyone has a darkness to navigate.

I chased my Kurtz into the river’s savage tracts  —

steamboat long since left behind —

portaging to lands above the cataract ledge.

You’ve heard it said, “You are every character in your dream?”

That thought flickered into my awareness

just as I realized I felt as much Kurtz as Marlow.

My sole consolation was that my Kurtz was dying.

And since I felt that one man can’t die two deaths —

[wishful thoughts of legacy be damned]

I felt my Marlow would outlive my Kurtz.

But when Kurtz-of-Dreamland sucked his last breath,

he didn’t stick to script with “The Horror! The Horror!”

Instead, he said, “Box my bones up for the elephants.”

Which seemed as nice as remembering his fiancée’s name —

as far as I was concerned.

POEM: Orange Jelly Fungus

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Its alien orange gleamed across a mid-winter forest.

The only thing — save shamrock green moss girding the base of trees — that begged attention in that silent, decaying woods.

Its globule nature desiccated into angularity,

adding to its alien claim,

and it shone with every orange a flame can throw.

The guide said you were edible,

but, seeing your flaming colors,

I could never convince myself that you wouldn’t taste of orange jelly enough to not spit you out on the ground.

Besides, I won’t say you’ve seen better days,

but you’ve seen less alien days.

POEM: Wisdom of the Leaf

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The mind is architect of a slum town of grief.
Silent words, yet ceaseless calling.
I envy the simple way of a falling leaf.
No grasping, nor fear of falling.
 
If a thought could twist on the wind for its brief life —
not frantically seeking hold.
We would not live these dear lives strafed by strife.
We’d not find our dreams bought and sold,
or feel untimely turning old —
vigor sapped by a false form of cold.

And life would be all we had to live.

POEM: Shaken Vows

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A cold wind blew through the vestibule,

tussling the tongues of flame

on the candles powering parishioners’ prayers.

Would one ill-timed entrant extinguish all those vows and well-wishes?

The flames did a shimmy dance,

but remained lit —

save one.

POEM: Stone Weeper

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In the graveyard kneel so many mourning, wailing widows and widowers — weak-kneed and hanging off tombstones.

Carved of marble or cast of bronze, and meant to last an eon.

How odd to imagine a permanent mourner.

In the time marble can be carved, I’d prefer any subject on my gravestone to be captured leaning back in a boisterous belly-laugh with a beer can in hand.

POEM: Unintended Plunge

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In my dream, I stood upon a bridge,
but not upon the suicide ledge.
Mesmerized by sparkles on still water,

I toppled over the railing all the same.

POEM: Dancing through the Graveyard

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What’s the age at which dancing on a grave switches from an adorable bubbling over of life

to a

deplorable act of petty vindictiveness?

I saw a boy — clearly in the former category — pull it off,

but I knew that if I joined in the best I could hope for was an evil eye. And the worst would be to be slapped, kicked, or spat upon.

For I long ago crossed the river of innocence beyond which lie presumptions of foul intent.

An ever-watchful Orphean world keeps me from crossing back over that Stygian river.

Oh, to live life on the other bank.

POEM: Danube

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High enough to glimpse the tail of the serpentine river that snakes through town.

I thought about the marriage of possibilities created by that ceaseless flow.

And all seemed possible under heaven and on earth.

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GREEN WINTER HAIKU

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a crow caws
standing on a stout post
black eye watching



a child wonders,
beyond this rainy valley,
is it white?



nothing scurries
but mushrooms sprout
wet forest floor



lonely bus stop
one man waits for a nearly
empty bus



streaks of blue
viewed through cloudy skies
a bird hops