Everything
(for Eleanor)
If we’d lived 100 years ago we’d meet in the sparkling cafes of eastern Europe share a pastry and sip our bitter brews argue over the news- paper the crises in the capital the meaning of love of loss of life raise a ruckus curse G-d laugh at nothing and everything. Then hug and smooch goodnight and off we’d go back to our feathered beds in the shtetl. __
The Inability to Concentrate
(brain fog)
g r T h i s d o e s n ‘ t e n s m a k e crossword clues are clueless sentences are ropes of words mysterious with punctuation Paragraphs remain clean rectangles only. Shapes revealing no meaning. Reading is impossible concentration confounds. fever and headache form a curtain certain to disguise the mystery of definition synonyms dissolve verbs stop cold adjectives describe nothing nouns are not persons places or things. Daily I scan my puzzles, am puzzled by articles I know are about something. Daily the grid evokes only puzzlement. My book can only kill spiders. It’s a measure of the virus reconciling weakening succumbing to my antibodies saving my body. I know when I finally begin to decipher, to understand, my return has commenced. One day I fill two little white boxes with letters. Later twelve words with a tiny dot at the end tells me something I didn’t know. I remember the story I am reading. I am reading a story. I am reading. This makes me cry. I am healing. __
Whales
You loved our songs. named us by our flukes, watched entranced as we danced on the waves but we knew we were still endangered. Unprotected by those who could protect us. We are so much alike. We suckle our young. We breathe air. We sing. It’s too late. We know this. Our calves often can’t see the sun through a new continent of plastic. Our songs have changed but you don’t notice. We have heard your protests to end war and violence. We breach as a cheer but know we are finally finished, so in protest we will beach ourselves and stink up your beaches, rotting hulks of sadness for you to deal with, to chop us up and cart us away, wondering why. Why, you ask, why? This is our protest. Our young cannot see the sun. Our world is too polluted. Our young cannot see the sun. This is what we must do. Enough. Enough. Goodbye. __
Death: You
Death:
you old instigator,
arbiter, referee,
I know that when
we dance
and I finally
fall into your arms
then
I’ll be free,I don’t fear you,
as I did when young
and know I’ve died
a thousand deaths
through centuries
and so what’s
one more,whether chalk-white
from all my blood
down the drain,
or the wrinkled hands
of age reaching
for one more thread of
hope,
or the horror of
disease
and pain,there are those
who’ll cry
and others who
will curse my choice,
with stifled screams
shattered dreams
and ragged voice,but Death,
we’ve got a date –
it’s more than a wish,
and more than fate,
I know you’ll be on
time, you always are,
I hope it’s I
who won’t be late.
__
The Indifferent Sun
(for Ann)
The indifferent sun doesn’t
care if clouds separate its light.
What shines on the face,
radiates, comes
from within.The wind whips
its stinging rebuke,
ignorant of our very
existence. Cracks
in the lake ice almost
spell something, hieroglyphs
hundreds of meters
long.Love is not
dependent on
the weather. Elements
argue and scream
on the desolate winter
landscape, yet the heart
beats heat all the way
to our extremities.Below the surface,
asleep, spring
dreams of flowers,
and colors of a
sunrise bursting
like pomegranate juice
expanding into a
glass of mango nectar.The vectors of our lives
twist and turn,
braiding the steps
we take with others,
the love that comes
we pass
along, whilethe shapes
of the clouds
dance and stretch,
elastic,
in the forever sky.
__
Your poems speak to me too, on many levels.
These are moving thoughts and poems. Thanks Burt for sharing them.
Love the poems! You are >my< lyricist!
Beautiful