Ghosts
Ghosts
The thoughts dark and bright
Just ghosts to be whisked away
By a wisp of wind
Bob Schwartz
Category: Poetry
April 13, 2017
April 11, 2017
The Mountain and the Cross
The Mountain and the Cross
How is the view
From up there?
Can you see
How you got there?
Others look
At every act you took
Word you spoke
Song you sang
Pull them apart
Put them together
A journey
That never seems to end.
For you it ends here
For a time
On the mountain and the cross.
A privileged child
A prince
A prodigy
A champion of the people
An enemy
A wise man
A miracle worker embarrassing mere magicians
A leader
A rebel
How did that rebellion go
How is it now?
One mistake after another
Has cost you everything
Won you something
But what in the end
Did it all mean?
(Jesus wonders
If he might have lived longer
Not one hundred twenty
But more than thirty three.
Moses has no complaint
About the number
And would not trade places
Sitting on a mountain
Not hanging from a cross
But regrets having to survey
An unreachable destination.)
You were just infants
Too young to remember
How it began.
Leave it to others
To imagine that past
And future.
You have no choice
But to let them see and speak for you
As you saw and spoke for others.
Now your eyes and mouth are closed
In dark silence from a height.
© Bob Schwartz 2017
April 9, 2017
Sunday Birds
Sunday Birds
I heard the birds chattering in the trees
About weather and breakfast
About which service
They might attend
What they might wear
This Sunday morning.
So many decisions
And opinions
So much music.
© Bob Schwartz
April 5, 2017
Thought Gone North
Thought Gone North
The most clever thought
That might change the world
Interrupted
By spring geese loudly returning
Gone north
And now
The world will just have to
Change itself
April 4, 2017
Walt Whitman – Song of Myself
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, LI
Song of Myself, I
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy
Note: Not much to say about Walt Whitman that isn’t already said. Above is a picture of the Walt Whitman Bridge, connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey across the Delaware River. Besides bridges, Whitman also inspired modern poetry and pieces of modern life. The Body Electric that he sung is what he lived, envisioned and wrote, and is still more than we understand. Please read Walt Whitman.
April 3, 2017
The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse
From The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse (Shihwu) (1272-1352), translated by Red Pine:
Here in the woods I have lots of free time. When I don’t spend it sleeping, I enjoy composing poems. But with paper and ink so scarce, I haven’t thought about writing them down. Now some Zen monks have asked me to record what I find of interest on this mountain. I have sat here quietly and let my brush fly. Suddenly this volume is full. I close it and send it back down with the admonition not to try singing these poems. Only if you sit on them will they do you any good.
40
A thatch hut in blue mountains beside a green stream
after so many years visits are now up to me
a few peach and plum trees blooming red and white
a green and yellow field of vegetables and wheat
all night I sit in bed listening to rain
when it clears I open the window and doze off watching clouds
nothing in life is better than being free
but getting free isn’t luck
April 2, 2017
My Birds
My Birds
I started the digital birds singing
Just as the real ones arrived out the window
Mine were louder
And under my control
The wild ones served no one
Least of all me
And would stop and go
At any time
Anyway I silenced mine
To be with
The real singers of spring
April 1, 2017
Ezekiel’s Tesla
Ezekiel’s Tesla
I am through with my chariot
Ezekiel said
With its wheels gleaming like beryl
Rims tall and frightening
Covered with eyes
Moving with four-faced creatures.
I want a Tesla.
March 31, 2017
April Is Poetry Month: Be Foolish
April is Poetry Month. April 1 is Fools’ Day.
Be foolish and write poetry
Writing poetry is a fool’s game
Be foolish and read poetry
Reading poetry is a fool’s game
Pointless like a line without a period
Like a game without a score
Start and never stop
Not in May or December
Not next year
It is always a month
For fools like us
March 31, 2017
Buddha Bemidbar (In the Wilderness)
Buddha Bemidbar (In the Wilderness)
Moses is missing
In his place
Siddhartha sits.
Israelites are numbered
Can he free them?
The way in the wilderness
Is unpassable.
Can they pass it?
Too dark to sea
The waters give way
To dry ground
As if they were not there
From the beginning.
Walk on
The mountain next.
Bob Schwartz 