Bob Schwartz

Tag: poetry

April 9, 2016

Unicorn Island

Unicorn Island

Unicorn Island

What difference does it make
Where the sun rises
What the time zone?
The earth and sun
Don’t care.

The bag man
Leisurely strolls
Past the French watch store.
The restaurants
Are ready from last night
White tablecloths
White napkins rolled.
Past an apartment courtyard
The smell of breakfast.

The time and place
The names and lives
No place
This morning
Is an island.

Note: The title requires an explanation. This is a scene in Westwood in Los Angeles. I love L.A.: sometime resident, recent visitor. Walking down Wilshire, I saw a billboard for a new YouTube movie called Unicorn Island. I decided that this was the perfect new name for the city. Filled with unicorns, a bit of an island. It might not catch on, but for me, from now on, L.A. is always Unicorn Island.

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March 29, 2016

Shapes

Circle Triangle Square - Sengai Gibon

As day begins
I sketch
Circle
Triangle
Square.
They are everywhere
I look.
Appearing
Disappearing
Reappearing.

Illustration: Circle, Triangle, Square by Sengai Gibon (1750 – 1837)

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March 16, 2016

Demon

The demon in my dream
Had no name or number
Big and terrible
It was safe to sleep in my dream
Only when it slept at its night
In dreamed night
In my night of dream.
An unpredictable terror
Of size with no measure
Chasing me in daytime
Dreamed daytime
In my night of dream.
In the dim waking room
It lingers like fog
Though its power is gone.
Does it have a dream
Where I am the terror
And it hopes that I am asleep
To escape me
For a moment of peace?
Does it know hope or fear?
Do I close my eyes
In the frightened fog
To see?

“Because the mind has no beginning or end, you can’t use the mind to put an end to the mind. Because there’s no inside, outside, or in between, if you look for the mind, there’s no place to find it. If there’s no place to find it, then you can’t find it. Therefore, you should realize there is no mind at all. And because there is no mind at all, demon realms can’t affect you. And because you can’t be affected, you subdue all demons.”
Hui-ching (578-650)

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March 9, 2016

Life Story

Life Story

How many life stories
Count.
Plain and fancy
Good and plenty
One
Million
Billion
Worthy of a biopic
Or a headstone.
Breathless and amazed
At what it has come to
In the pages
Or paragraphs
Or words
That sum it all.

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March 3, 2016

Actor’s Nightmare, Actor’s Dream

Actor’s Nightmare, Actor’s Dream

I wake up to find everything
In the place it was left.
Props on the stage
For another performance
Moved an inch or two
Back or forth
But more or less
The same.

Is this the day
I try to speak the first line
But don’t remember
The words and actions
Or even which play?

It’s called
The actor’s nightmare
Entry to an unbidden hell.
But to me it is a dream
A heaven of unscripted silence
Where everything
Including me
Are newly born.
No different
Unpredictable
Ready and
Right where we belong.

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February 17, 2016

Mirror

Mirror

What is heavier
Than the weight
Of a mirror?

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February 14, 2016

Valentine’s Day

Love is
The boldest embrace
A stroke of the brow
A symphony
A single note
Distance in miles
As close as skin to skin.
Yesterday remembered
Tomorrow imagined
Meeting here now.
Confusion and clarity.
Intoxicated and sober.
Treasure found
Never found
Misvalued or lost.
Glad to sleep
To awake knowing
Or hoping.

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February 9, 2016

Match

Match

A bit of paper
A sliver of wood
Tipped in red.
A flick of a wrist
Against a strip of grit.
A stick of incense.
A candle
Lighting the dark
Sparking romance
Marking a birth
Calling to heaven.
Fire igniting
The bed
The room
The house
The world
The next world.
What miracle
Do you have
To match it?

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February 6, 2016

Round Trip to Heaven or Hell

If you had a round trip ticket
To heaven or hell,
Bliss or madness,
Sure you would return,
Would have to,
Which would you choose?
Tour over,
Now the common surroundings
Might seem shabby and disappointing or
Simple comfort and sanity a relief.
Conscripted for travel
Or volunteering,
This is what you learned
Gladly or sadly
For the next inevitable journey.

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February 3, 2016

Babel On

Babel On

What is the point and price of
The tower of words and thoughts?

High and fine
To reach higher and finer.

Was God protective,
Jealous even,
Of the secret word
That would reveal all
And make him redundant,
Obsolete, inferior?

Or was it a sign
We couldn’t read
That in the clouds,
On the moon,
Mars, the stars
We would find nothing but ourselves
Still babbling
Traveling
Going nowhere?

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