Sitting
Sitting
Mat on floor
Cushion on mat
Ass on cushion
Legs crossed.
As far from the center of the world
As could be.
Bob Schwartz
Tag: poetry
January 19, 2016
January 11, 2016
The Weight of Light
You catch me
Head cradled gently in my hands
As if in pain.
You might even ask:
Are you okay?
Is something wrong?
When I release my hands
Raise my head
And you look closely
You are not so sure.
No lines of worry
No clenched brow.
No smile, it’s true,
Instead a convoluted calmness.
The light is in tiny pieces
Arriving and out of reach.
Visions, memories, hopes
That neither burden nor comfort.
I hold my head
As I see and stretch.
Nothing else but an exercise
In near sweetness
Lifting my way
To the rest of the day
To the rest of the days.
January 8, 2016
Morning Star
Morning Star
There is so much to learn.
Continue to learn that
There is nothing to learn.
But this.
November 30, 2015
Haiku: Morning Anyway
Morning Anyway
Sleeping fitfully.
Dreaming ridiculously.
Morning anyway.
November 15, 2015
A Room by the River
A room sits
Alone by the river
Windows open.
Wind flows through
Water flows by.
I wake and sleep
To the wonder of
Water and wind.
The sounds of wonder
The words of wonder
No words of wind and water
For
Sleeping
Waking.
November 9, 2015
The Quantum Physics of You
You are quantum physics.
Deeply important and essential.
Deeply complex and puzzling.
There is no sense, no rhyme or reason
To be angry with quantum physics
Even if it is sometimes frustrating to fathom.
The only appropriate response
Is fascination and appreciation
And thanks for making the universe possible.
November 7, 2015
A Blue Blanket
A Blue Blanket
A million items
Flood the closet.
Stacks and shelves
Hangers and boxes
Haphazard cascading
Valued and worthless
Detritus of a life.
In their company
A blue blanket
Carefully folded.
Any night
It may take its place in a dimmed room.
Cover for a middle hours half sleeper.
Blue cloud in a black sky,
Warm soft comfort
Caught between memories and dreams.
The way to sleep and then,
Morning through the blinds,
Folded and away again,
Until another restless night.
October 23, 2015
One Breath
One breath is the wind
Leveling mountains,
Raising mountains,
Emptying rivers,
Filling rivers.
August 2, 2015
Mandatory Campaign Esperanto and Poetry
The First Amendment forbids the government from controlling how political candidates campaign. Which seems a shame, since the abuse of language, logic, and truth that goes on often seems criminal, a form of citizen abuse.
But if we could make some changes, it might be fun and even enlightening. So instead of having to endure candidates pandering with their (sometimes questionable) fluency in Spanish, we could require all of them to campaign in Esperanto.
Jeb Bush might then have launched his campaign this way, almost certainly capturing the Esperanto vote:
En ajna lingvo, mia mesaĝo estos optimisma ĉar mi estas certa ke ni povos fari la jardekoj tuj antaŭ la plej granda tempo iam esti viva en tiu mondo.
Ke hazardo, ke espero postulas pli bona kiu estas en ni, kaj Mi gxin donos mian ĉiuj.
Mi kampanji kiel mi utilus, irante ĉie , parolante al ĉiuj, observante Miajn vorto, alfrontante la demandoj sen flinching, kaj restante fidela al kion mi kredas.
Mi prenos nenio kaj neniu por sentado. Mi kuras kun koro.
Mi kuras por gajni.
Ĝi komencas tie kaj nun.
Kaj mi petas vian voĉdonon.
Dankon. Dio benu vin.
In any language, my message will be an optimistic one because I am certain that we can make the decades just ahead the greatest time ever to be alive in this world.
That chance, that hope requires the best that is in us, and I will give it my all.
I will campaign as I would serve, going everywhere, speaking to everyone, keeping my word, facing the issues without flinching, and staying true to what I believe.
I will take nothing and no one for granted. I will run with heart.
I will run to win.
It begins here and now.
And I’m asking for your vote.
Thank you. God Bless You.
Even better, let us require all candidates to campaign in poetry, rather than in their often overextended, useless, uninspired, and uninspiring prose.
They could choose any genre or form that suited them and their message. Rhyming or free verse. Classic or experimental. Long or short. Of course, we would be thrilled if they would go with haiku or some other sort of micro poetry. Imagine a campaign speech only 17 syllables long. It would be blissfully over as quickly as it began. By the time they got through “God bless you and God bless the United States of America,” they would have exactly one syllable left. Which given the nonsense that we have to endure, may still be one syllable too many.
October 3, 2013
National Poetry Day in the U.K.
National Poetry Day
In the U.K.
A day to turn away
From the plainness of prose
To levitate above its dull weight on hearts and minds
To read write appreciate celebrate
Fly on verse.
America has dedicated a month to it
The cruelest month of April
As if our rebel poems are 28, 30 or 31 times better
Than those of our exiled imperial masters.
Let your verse be free.
Ignore the Yankee codger Robert Frost
Who said free verse, without form or meter,
Was like playing tennis without a net.
Play poetry tennis as you will
Without net, without racket, without balls
Without clothes, without score.
Happy Poetry Day.
Bob Schwartz 