resurrection fern

Poetry and Pictures : My Son and I

Tumbling, shale over flint,
Granite for a bed,

Set over an orbiting furnace
Stone ledges leapt into the skies,

Soaring o’er the ages,
As nothing else can fly through time,

So slow and sure,
That nought deflects their course,

Excepting just the very wind and rain,
Whose constant tribulations will make vain,

The highest climbing mountain peaks of earth,
They casually erode these errant bluffs,

Deferring stone to dust and girth for dearth,
Tumbling ever more into a plain,

That which has risen,
And may yet rise again.

 

Write a Poem Everyday

The lions and 

Tigers of our youth,

 stalk the sordid alleys

 concrete jungle that a city is

 in search of prey 

of play 

of any word 

on what the point

 of living is.

 They leave their unintrusive selves

 in black-lit pasts and background social scenes

 only bring the sharpest knife

 to the fight

 the conflict waged in brutal words 

and apathetic stares

 that preen and start

 in the alcoves of physical commerce.

 Leaving cares and manners alike 

(so alike) in the basement apartments and rundown condominium high

rises,

 the beat up bungalows on the borders of the burbs and the metropolis,

 where society stirs in self incriminating circles 

only in practice, it is just practice

 for the play of words and fists,

 guns and knives,

 but also hugs and kisses,

 on the streets of the city

 in the passionate grip 

of those sickly-sweet summer nights.

As yet untitled poem from my son Benjamin, as an introduction to the first completed piece of my collaboration with Cathy Cullis of November Moon.

A poetic start to the week.

Breakfast in Amnesia

Breakfast seemed

 

Not quite a meal but more a waking dream

With bits of food that drifted through my teeth

Slowly passing

From plate to me

While my mind did so proceed

That all I thought

Was mere imaginings

 

My mind a fictive horse with wings

To ply the airy, surreal heights of what’s not yet

and what can’t be

 

In search of what amuses me

 

I often find myself thus lost

Before I find the muse accosting me

 

Sometimes with a wink

other times

With a playful pinch on the cheek

Notes:

The poem was written by my son ( his latest)

the photographs are mine with all the statue ones taken on my recent trip to Baden Austria

The head with the crow on top is Beethoven's . He used to spend his holidays in Baden.

Since I didn't have a picture of his real muse I substituted his former university room mate, Edgar.

The machine embroidered words are the work of Cathy Cullis and will be part of a future collaboration between us.

The latte is the work of my eldest daughter Tamara.

 

A Poet's Birthday and a Birthday Poem

Some people are just born with certain very special talents and gifts. My son Benjamin was born on this day and at a very early age showed a very definite eloquence with the english language. Whereas at the age of two or three when you ask a child how his morning is going so far they might say a few words my son the poet would recite an original sonnet. My mom used to call him her little sunshine. I distinctly remember him really glowing when he was telling us a story. Lucky for us this happened with great frequency. 

To celebrate my son's birthday I want to share with you his latest and perhaps the most special poem he has written for me along with some photographs I have taken. Although we are separated by distance this day he is such a very important part of my life and my love.

A stone’s growth is inverse,

Time’s trials reverse its mass,

Revert

To smaller and smaller forms,

In this backwards trend there are no norms

 

The pebble all alone,

Might be the stone,

Inside your shoe,

Or a diamond in the earth,

Or a diamond set in an invulnerable alloy

To shave and mould the others of it’s kind.

 

So many stones together,

Might be the gravel on your driveway,

Lightly dusted by the heather,

Or covered in snow by winter’s weather.

Enough rocks in the right place

And you’ve got a gravel beach,

Waiting for time to teach

Every one how to be sand,

As though it were bland.

 

Turning every dull piece into a hundred thousand

Glittering particles of dust-like sand.

 

What does it take to break down

Into an indistinct sea of distinct matter?

 

Just a little bit of space and more than enough time for everyone to ponder

Think of:

The mountain that gave you the beach that you walked on last.

The stone can’t help but surrender,

To you or time, it matters little.

Happy birthday my son.

 

Poetry and Pictures : My Son and I

The Winds I Know

 

I saw a tree bent quite in half,

By force of wind and rain.

 

The furious might of nature’s wrath,

Before me was left plain.

 

To see those branches sway and snap,

To watch boughs torn asunder.

 

It caused my hand my chin to tap,

My mind to turn to wonder.

 

Such unseeming severity,

Did wind apply to tree.

 

I questioned what the Winds I feel,

Would fain do unto me.

Note to self:  Take more pictures of trees and wind this year :)