I Rarely Drink

  
I Rarely Drink
     
I rarely drink, but when I learn
What men, to men, are doing,
I quietly sit and grimly muse,
My teetotaling rueing.

If only we could meditate
And change the course of things –
Or if our words could open hearts
And give the children wings…

If things were there, that we could do,
That weren’t just diversions,
Then parts of this, our world, we'd change
For slightly better versions…

Alas, I only sit and sulk,
Defeated, as I see
How all of life is set afloat
Upon a burning sea…

I rarely curse, but with Omar
I cry out now, “Divine –
Who’s far from that, I’d profit much
From cursing – and from wine.”

Burning Sea
http://nature.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/467300/

2014 July 20th, Sun.
Brooklyn
 

Bleakness and Bliss

      
Bleakness and Bliss
  

Doodle-006

    
“Me and my loneliness…” a sister once wrote,
Phrasing her thoughts in the words that I quote.
They struck me, on reading. They stay with me still.
I try, with my verses, that vacuum, to fill…

Gotama the Buddha did methods devise
To merge with the silence, in ways that are wise.
And yet, we are lonely – and emptiness dread.
We try to be busy – until we are dead.

“Me and my loneliness…” a sister had written,
Expressing her mood in a manner unbidden.
She wrote this as prose – but the best of my verse
Is bested, by far, by those syllables terse.
  
******
   
If “Who is this sister?” is a question you ask,
Her privacy, then, with a riddle, I’ll mask.
Rhythm – her name.  In the heart of the atom,
She probes.  (“It’s for knowledge…” said Ava to Adam.)

All of our science and all of our art,
My verses of nuance, resembling a fart,
All in their total are bupkis to this –                               \1
“Me and my loneliness…” – bleakness and bliss...

Today, to the reader, I’m writing again.
But why I am writing, I cannot explain.
You with your loneliness, I with what’s mine…
In the eyes of a puppy, the essence divine…
  
2014 July 16th, Wed.
(last stanza added July 19th)
Brooklyn, New York
  
1.  bupkis:  nothing, worthless – a word, probably of
Yiddish origin, used by New Yorkers and others; also
spelled bupkus, bupkes, bubkes.
   

Hear and Remember

     
Hear and Remember
       
(includes verses excised from "When Will the Killing Have End?")
      
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seven of the following fifteen stanzas were excised, for the sake 
of brevity, from the poem: When Will the Killing Have End . The 
other eight stanzas were added later.  Images have also been
added. 

Pablo Picasso painted Guernica in 1937, after the bombing, by
fascist forces, of a village with that name in Spain during its civil 
war. The image could only be fitted at a small size in the blog 
column. It is better to view it at a larger size, by clicking on the 
image. You will then see also the other images, in a click-able 
gallery.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
They each are blaming the other,
As the people are caught in between.
The earth and the sky and the ocean –
Do they watch, as we suffer, unseen?
  
******
  
To those who had started the cycle,
To those who have kept it alive,
We ask, "If your conscience is missing,
Do you know, that you will not survive?
 
"Your hands have been strangling the living.
Your mouths have been spouting the lie.
And yet, there is truth and there's justice.
And these will be there, though we die...

The Shootings of May Third 1808
Francisco (José) de Goya (y Lucientes)
oil on canvas, 1814; Museo del Prado, Madrid
image source: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/goya/

"Hear, from the ones you've forgotten,
Hear, from the ones you deny.
Hear, from the ones who are dying.
Hear – and remember – our cry."

******
  
How many, today, will be dying?
How many, beloved, who're dead?
How many, to fight, will be vying?
The streets, with their blood, will be red...
        
How many, from death, will be fleeing?
How many, the children who'll die?
How many, the burned and the blinded?
How many, who'll wish they could die?
 
Our hearts, they are thirsting for vengeance,
And yet, they are breaking with grief.
Where is the road of repentance,
The light of the hopeful belief?

Who are the ones that will profit?
They know that we suffer and die.
Where, in our age, is the prophet
Who tells us the truth, not the lie?

Cambodian Refugees, Thailand
Steve McCurry
(c) Steve McCurry
image source: http://stevemccurry.com/blog/wars-children

What could have set this in motion?
How can we bring it to rest?
Who has the will and the power
And chooses to do what is best?

What do we know of the working
Of all that has brought us to this?
When people are crushed and forgotten,
Who will be speaking of this?

Yet more of these lies and this killing?
Yet more of this darkness of grief?
When will our breathing be easy?
When will we have some relief?
       
******
  
To those who had started the cycle,
To those who have kept it alive,
We ask, "If your conscience is missing,
Do you know, that you will not survive?
  
"Your hands have been strangling the living.
Your mouths have been spouting the lie.
And yet, there is truth and there's justice.

And these will be there, though we die...
      

Guernica
Pablo Picasso, oil on canvas, 1937
Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
image source: http://www.pensarora.org/art

"Hear, from the ones you've forgotten,
Hear, from the ones you deny.
Hear, from the ones who are dying.
Hear – and remember – our cry."

******
  
The earth and the sky will remember –
The sea that has tasted our blood...
And those, who have wrought the disasters,
They will pay, for the things that they wrought...
  
 2014 June 8th Tue (stanzas 5-11) 
& June 11th Fri (stanzas 1-4 and 12-15)
Brooklyn, New York  
     
---------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  The poem, When Will the Killing Have End,
can be read by clicking here .
---------------------------------------------------------------
      

When Will the Killing Have End?

    
When Will the Killing Have End?
    
We heard of your death, my brother.
The grief that we felt was deep.
What could we do but listen?
What could we do but weep?

Some will sing of the glory.
Some will speak of the shame.
What will they know of you, truly,
Who never knew your name?

Who will know of our sorrow?
Who will know of our loss?
Your mother and sister are grieving
For the son and the brother they lost.

You were my hero, my brother –
My teacher, protector and friend.
But now you are gone, oh my brother,
And the killing is still not at end.

We pray for an end to the killing,
We pray for the person that dies.
And yet, how many are willing
To kill or to die for the lies...
                  
  < Please see below the image for the last five stanzas.>

Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica
image source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0

 



















                                                                                                      .
Who is our enemy, truly?
Where is the source of the dread?
Why should the parents be grieving?
Why should their children be dead?
       
You are gone, from this Earth, my brother,
And never will return...
And why should you?  We suffer –
As flesh and houses burn...
   
I walked with you just yesterday,
And yet it seems a while...
It seems that we are walking still.
I see you turn and smile... 

The love I feel for you is deep.
It will forever be,
Although you'll never walk again
And turn and smile at me...
  
The anger in my heart is great,
But greater is the grief.
And so I will not turn to hate,
For love is my relief.

2014 June 7th, Mon. 11:59 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
                                                                                        
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:  Seven stanzas that originally followed the first five,
preceding the image,  have been excised  for the sake of 
brevity.  Those excised stanzas  have been incorporated 
into a separate poem,"Hear and Remember".)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   

My Excuse

  
My Excuse
  
I once was broken-hearted. My remnant mind was crazed,
I wrote for you then verses. In abysses, I gazed...
In gauging then the meter, I sensed a silent calm,
And so it was that rhyming became a soothing balm.

And though you're long departed, I'm writing verses still,
For though they're my addiction, they do, a vacuum, fill.
And when my heart is weary and mind has paid the cost,
They give me back my essence – the quiet I have lost.

I write in a tongue that's foreign and wonder what's the use.
But when the muse comes calling, I rarely can refuse.
I wish that you could hear me and know that I am well.
The things that I've been thinking, I wish that I could tell...

How many write such verses, how many hold them in?
How few are given chances, in this, our world of sin?
There's grief and there's forgiveness, there's love and there is pain...
I wish that I could hear you and be with you again.

My heart, it still is broken.  My mind, it still is crazed.
That I am living, working – at this, I'm quite amajed.
But still, I'm writing verses – and wondering what's the use.
And this, that I am writing, is merely my excuse. 
  
2014 July 7th, Mon, 8:57 pm
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York
     

A Little Bit of Fun

        
A Little Bit of Fun
     
It's summertime, in  lands of winter snows.
The sun has strengthened and the sapling grows.
And where the weary rest, forgetting wrongs,
There's something right – as inner essence knows...

There comes a time, when a working one retires,
To play perhaps on flutes and strum on wires,
And in the afternoons, to sing the songs
Of time, of distance and of lost desires.

******

But short of that, for those with summers off,
The next best thing is this – however brief –
These days, when clock-alarms are set to “off”,
And from the race, we're offered some relief.

These lazy days of summer, though they're late,
Give time for us to bask awhile in sun,
To slowly sip our coffees, contemplate,
And even have a little bit of fun.

******

With autumn, public schools were opened. We
Went forth to work in them, to workers be
With voices stopped.  We yet were bid to teach.
And what we wrought, was plain for hearts to see...

All winter-long, we slaved and shivered as
We waited for the spring to grace the land.
But when at last it came, we still were bound
To wait till now to breathe – and understand.

2014 July 5th, Sat.
Brooklyn, New York
 

Our Fourth of July, 2014

         
Our Fourth of July, 2014  

July the fourth – a holiday – for some...
My brother-in-law is working hard today
to fix a backyard shed whose roof collapsed
from all the snow the winter dropped on it.
And I am there to speed, as much as I can,
this three-day project, threatening to go on...

A hurricane was sweeping up the coast,
but we up north escaped its central gyre.
The humid heat oppressed us, for a while,
and then came thunderstorms and pouring rain...
Today was cool, with showers passing through –
a pleasant day, that should be ending soon...

The sky is still alight, as evening comes.
The setting sun has painted walls in gold
and set the edges of the clouds on fire.
But as we watch, the sky is drained of light.
It turns to deepest blues and violets,
and in that deep, a quarter-moon shines bright...

And as we now approach the magic hour,
the sound of rebel fireworks can be heard.
And from a backyard, just two houses down,
there rises, of a sudden, jets of light
that arc to spreading flowers in the sky.
The reds and whites and purples shower down...

The final screw goes in as night arrives.
I take my leave and walk towards my home.
I see the west is still aglow with light,
and as I walk, I hear and see the sounds
and sparkling bursts of light that those, who dare,
set off – although these things have long been banned.

On reaching home, I climb up darkened stairs
and see the light beneath the hallway door.
I fumble with the key and enter in
and see the wife is there.  The TV set
that quietly sits all year is brightly lit,
with fireworks, songs and music pouring out.

2014 July 5th, Sat., 5:15 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York