There is much
you ought to do,
there is much
you could do,
there is much
that needs to be done,
there is much
you might do,
there is much
that you left undone,
and you know this
but on this day
you have chosen
to spend too much
time in thought
and composing
this sad
excuse for a poem.
If I was in Russia I
would have no problem
finding a title for this poem
for it would be The Last.
I would write that I mourn
the children, men, and women
sacrificed to assuage his
warped need for domination.
I would write that I detest
his disregard of truth,
supplanting it with his lies
to justify his megalomania.
I would write that I stand
with the people of Ukraine
and for that I would pay with
my words, and perhaps my life.
I have taken to
folding my poems
into little paper boats
and dropping gently
into the river
where they sail
downstream.
Many may drown
but some may
reach the lake
or be plucked out
and read
or discarded.
The river is,
in the end,
my harshest
critic.
I wanted to write like Heaney
but of course he got there first
and could do it in two languages,
so that was out of the question.
I tried to write like other
of the greats only to find that
what set them apart from so many
set them rather far apart from me.
So I an left to write as myself,
which I find a bit boring for I
know myself all too well, and anything
I say or write I’ve heard before.
But I suppose you have not
heard it before so unless you are
the one who sneaks into my dreams
before I can capture them,
in which case would you return
the best of them, for in them
I know lies whatever better poems
I have yet to cast to paper.
You misunderstand me, he said,
I did not ask you to write a poem
about a flower, anyone can do that,
I asked you to write a poem with a flower.
Do not ask me what the poem
will be about, ask the flower, but
first you must learn to speak
the language of the flowers.
If you find this difficult, consult
the sky, it is fluent in almost all
species of plant life, mother to
them at one time or another.
When you have finished, cast it
to the morning breeze, that
it might find purchase somewhere
and sing its song to a new audience.
This poem begins
with infinite
possibility
First Published in the 2005 Scars Publications Poetry Wall Calendar
A phone call, a lawyer’s clerk:
Can you tell me about Lisa Landesman?
I pause for that is a name I have
not heard in forty years, save
in a poem I once wrote,
now long forgotten.
She was my sister for two
or three weeks, adopted like I was,
and then Mike, my then father
dropped dead of a massive
heart attack and she was soon gone.
We were Federal adoptions, our
birthplace under Federal law, not
getting its own for two decades,
and her adoption wasn’t final so she
was re-placed and never replaced.
She won’t inherit as I will from
my cousin who died having no
siblings, spouse, children,
nieces or nephews, who left
no will, who left only kind memories.
The leaves will soon begin
their descent from the small tree,
already brown, their beauty
departing before they do so.
They are bilobular, an odd word,
but one that belongs in a poem,
even this one it seems, and it is
their shape that you first notice.
The tree will all to soon be naked,
branches sticking into the air
as if searching for a breath
that refuses to arrive.
But we know that soon after
the small buds will open
and orchid-like flowers will appear
to our all too temporary joy.
I’ve made a practice
which feels more like a demand,
that each day I take a few
moments or more and stop
whatever else I was, or
should have been, doing
to write a poem.
There are days, perhaps this
one where it seems more
a short bit of prose to which
I have added line breaks
despite the protest
of the words, condemning them
to bear the mockery, and
others when I take a poem,
ignore its inherent rhythm
and pass it off as prose,
that insult remembered,
the words plotting revenge
but lying low, waiting
for the perfect moment
to destroy a poem I know
is worthy of publication.
When I least expect it, one
may unfurl wings and lift
into a clouded sky searching
for the hidden sun, or
it may wander off, a child
momentarily free of parents
off to discover the real world, or
it may retreat back into
the pen, unwilling to be seen,
objecting to its misuse, or
it may sit in front of the TV
and watch soap operas
and game shows, not caring
what is on the screen, just
escaping from the damned page, or
it may sit still, be tucked away
and hope one day to be accepted
for all the world to see.
an old writer and his words 