Afternoon Poem (For Martha and Armando)

The Author and giant turtle of the Galapagos, 2005

After eating and talking all afternoon with family and friends ((kind of celebrating Martha and Armando’s wedding, after dating eighteen years) (I had asked if they were rushing it—a little? … the joke didn’t go over well)). I have grown long and tired, like the old turtles of the Galapagos—who has lived a hundred years, and who has done nothing, nothing at all! Hence, with sandal-footed-feet, I excuse myself, and make it to my bed, fall deep into wondrous dreams, a thousand years old…!

#3837 (4-14-2013)/ For Mary-Sofa

Note: The author was in the Galapagos in 2005.

A Family Problem

I don’t know how it all started, really I don’t know!

Perhaps we were all impersonators—(by chance)

Possibly they were always irritated, with me.

Plainly, nothing was clear between us, —evidently!

—why did the silent cold war start? (and when?)

“What are you thinking?” no one asked that question.

I said to Rosa: “You’ll have to ask my Children, if

Indeed they still can remember.” She replied, dry eyed:

“I tried, I really tried…I don’t want to be on their side.”

#3840 (4-14-2013)

Note: a Minnesota Poem; American Version of the Ghazal form/Confessional style poetry/ Poetic Prose (for: Cody, Shawn and Zaneta)

Bees Climbing over Bees

How busy the bee

Just watching them

Inspires solitude, and

Striving….in me!

As if they have no eyes.

Bee eggs lying on the floor

Of the hive

Swift little wings folded

On their backs—

Climbing over one another…

How did God find the time (?)

#3837 (4-14 2013)

Note: a nature poem: while in the central jungle of Peru, called: Satipo the author had quite the experience with a wasp hive (2009), undressing to go under one of the waterfalls, noticing the hive above him to his side, that it was busy with life, and here he was ready to move it out of his way, until he heard the buzzing…the author is inspired by the diversity of the Taoist nature poem.

Out to Old Aunt Betty’s ((A Minnesota Poem) (Poetic Prose))

First picture, Left, Elsie (1920-2003) the author’s mother; and to the right, Aunt Betty (1985); the second picture, left

Is the author, with his older brother (Mike), around 1957?

Wasn’t it something, brother of mine, in those far-off days of lost

       time—

Our youth, when the weekends came, out to old Aunt Betty’s we

       went visiting—playing cards, or Monopoly?

It all comes back to me today, —as I am old, and you are gray.

Yet we patter from day to day, awry…

Why, I can see us now, in the kitchen, cardboard table, a deck of

       cards

And her face, and your face and my face too, and there is mother

       drinking coffee, Betty also…

#3866 (4-21-2013)

Note: here the poet tries to convey in the simplest language the richness of the world around us, in this case one that is part of the past.

Knee-Deep in August ((Huancayo, Peru) (Poetic Prose))

Little Girl from Huancayo

I’ll tell you what I’d like to do—best! In the month of August, — Some afternoon, in Huancayo, Peru I’d like to just mosey about the Plaza de Arms, like I used to do.  Sit on a bench and rest. Feel the breeze coming through the mountains, and do anything else!  I like to watch the pigeons on the old Cathedral roof dive for corn the kids throw about; observe the ice cream venders moseying about, it all catches my interest. I like scrutinizing the sparrows as they climb up some tree…maybe find a nest tucked away in some branches. Read a good book of poetry, fall to sleep knee-deep in the breeze of August.

#3864 (4-21-2013)

Note: Poetic Prose, or metered poetry, or rhyme, it all doesn’t matter, however the writer wants his work written out, there is no reason why he cannot do so. In some cases I use Poetic Prose Rhyme. Poetry is no more limited than literature is in general. Poetry of course is more selective, short, and it may produce more images than prose.  It is all a matter of getting out truth one way or another. Here the poet tries to avoid sentimentally and produce everyday objects, recreate the world of experience: which can be done in poetic prose, or even an essay; trying to avoid the drabness and the inadequacy of metered poetry: hence, we see: mountains, pigeons, a tree branches, etc.