The Many Faces of Poetry – Rust/Untitled/Image

Posted: August 27, 2021 | Author: artrosch | Filed under: Poetry, The Many Faces of Poetry | Tags: Poetry, The Many Faces of Poetry, Writing to be Read |2 Comments

Sometimes I think I’m finished, that the last word has been written, the last kiss has been kissed. Then I tell myself

“Don’t be ridiculous!”. I’m here until I’m not here. Then I’ll be somewhere else, I’m sure of it.

These are recent poems, so recent they’re not even written, or half written.

Rust

How can the world be killed?

Melt the ice caps;

Beauties that we’ve known and loved

will die.

Polar bears will swim to exhaustion,

their cubs will starve.

A beautiful creature is dying,

but is the world dead?

Poach ivory from elephants until

there are no more elephants.

A great and profound beauty is dying.

I feel its death throes in my body, but still

the world can’t die.

There is no end to the world. Perhaps

when a small piece of our planet is murdered,

it diminishes those of us who live in this time,

for we are accomplice to the crime.

I don’t see myself as a world killer.

I see myself as a world maker.

But I can’t stop the tides that are rising,

the beaches that are drowning,

the storms that are raging.

We killed our world for comfort. I did.

You did. I bought into the con

until I saw the contempt in the con.

When I saw the con, I stomped on it like a poisoned artifact.

Earth killer! Murderer! Earth hater!

Is the world dead? It can’t be.

The desolate tide flats where bones show in the mud,

where mangled soldiers lie, where steel and gunpowder

show their leavings. That’s what I see, but that isn’t all

there is to see. Earth still lives.

Untitled

Aug 18 2021

There’s a part of my heart that I’ve never given

because it didn’t exist

until now.

It lives because of you, it was called forth

from my soul’s interior,

a place that yearns to be rid

of the burden of unloved Love.

It is the love that is shaped like you

a burnt silhouette

outlined by my vision

of your love for me.

I want my love for you

to be full like the orange moon

behind smoky clouds

to be full like a dark sky of stars

to be full like only a starving spirit

can ever know to be full.

Image

August 19 2021

Image: woman weeps over body of loved one.

On her knees, she rocks back and forth, hands clasped

The film is silent, black and white

but I can hear

grief, agony of heart and flesh.

Image: child running down a road in terror

fleeing the bombs, the thunder and flames running.

Image: men holding onto the fence

of their prison, drained of life and hope.

Image: mass graves filling as soldiers

toss bodies, casual

as farmers disposing of chaff.

Image: as camps are liberated

prisoners barely able to walk

to their freedom.

Image: filmed from bombers, napalm cannisters

topple end over end 

incinerating jungle canopy and all beneath.

Image: B17 over Germany loses its wing

tumbling.  No parachutes.

Image: There is nothing

I’ve seen the images

thousands of times

I rock in my chair before the screen

Image image image image

My eyes have become two people

each one has a mind

Their minds are pasted in surrounding spheres

of image.

I choose to sit here

and partake of the images

I choose, I’m just a modern person

I live my life on the ordinary street

safe for now from everything

but image.

before everyone knew

Image would wrap the world

Engulf and change our history,

turn it from experience into Image,

leaving us to feel

just a bit hollow

even though we are filled beyond satiation

with Image..

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