contemporary poetry

Sunday

POSTED IN contemporary poetry June 8, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday

My Sunday is a gorgeous sunny day (f-i-n-a-l-l-y the sun shines!). I’m sitting on my balcony, with finches and robins flying loops in the space between two big maples trees. I’m reading the June-July issue of American Poetry Review, there are 12 new poems by Elaine Equi, a fine poet, and there’s an essay, “Why Poets Translate” I’m reading next, unless I get too distracted watching the birds.
Did I tell you about the finches that built a nest just above my balcony door? I can see the top of the female’s head as she sits on the invisible eggs warming them into eventual birth.
The male finch perches on the balcony railing and chatters at me. I’m sure in his mind I am the intruder, not him.
This in miniature is the whole drama of life on earth as one generation replaces another. But we humans complicate the drama with our emotional and intellectual natures – it’s the glory of being human that NOTHING IS AS SIMPLE AS IT SEEMS.
And so as I sit here with my book face down on my lap, watching the male finch scold me, seeing the other birds swoop between trees, and squirrels chasing each other at unbelievable speeds, I’m content to have no thoughts for a change, and just let time pass and carry me along with it.

The lawn below my balcony extends for about 45 feet, there’s a screen of trees and bushes that hides the drop-off, a cliff side that plummets down to an invisible golf course!
I can’t see the players, but I can occasionally hear them. But golf is not an intensely driven game and the players are sedate, so I’m undisturbed by their presence.
The loudest thing I hear are their golf carts! And what I can see of the golf course spread out far below me is so lovely: a diamond-shaped lake with an island in the centre, a sight always peaceful and charming, it reminds me of a Chinese painting.
This is a calming place. I’m lucky to have found it.
And to think just one mile away is ROBERT STREET, one of the longest streets in the Twin Cities that  is packed with car dealerships, fast food joints, chain restaurants, Wal-Mart, Target, other retailers, computer companies, phone, etc. etc.
The urban blight of modern America – commerce, commercial, commercialism, on it goes,
B-U-T I don’t see or hear it, it’s another world from mine. I have finches and Chinese art, quiet and calm, poetry and nature. LIFE IS GOOD.

You could say I’m philosophical today too. Mine is the real Epicurean philosophy of life as a measured pursuit of delight, not wanton pleasure but balanced pleasure. It’s in between Puritanism and Licentiousness; we avoid the extremes for the sakes of health, well-being and decency. This is all part of the philosophy of Humanism. 

It’s always great communicating back and forth with you, but in my imagination, it’s as if we were sitting together in the same spot, just talking . . .

All my Finches!

 

Daniel Brick

The Muse

POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 31, 2015

The Muse

 

Far ahead of me, I see my Muse

dressed plainly in a tan skirt

and a white blouse, She is waving

a bright yellow scarf in her left hand.

Her right hand she holds open, palm

facing me, as if she were halting something.

 

.      .      .      “Follow after, Poet”

I hear her words as speech arising 

in the back of my mind . . . I read my poem

out loud. Then I read my silent heart.

Both are replete with what I have loved.

 

 

 

Daniel Brick

A field in Romania

POSTED IN contemporary poetry May 13, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A  field in Romania
 

In Spring, in a field stretching across Romania,
a man and a woman stand side by side,
their hands lightly clasped, on their faces
the suggestion of a smile. The man is attentive
to her needs, she is fascinated with his stories.
Their stance displays the goodness of the right
people. They are waiting for the arrival of
a special Word the wind will carry down the Windway.
The land itself awaits this Word. Those of us at home,
or at work, or in a journey, or in the cemetery or a church
await the Word. Most especially, the crowd,
silent and calm, almost motionless, the Witnesses wait,
assembled on a grassy expanse below the knoll
on which the man and the woman search each other faces
for reassurance. People shape this Word silently
with their lips, then bow their heads, knowing it is
only a few deep breaths away . . .

The Word itself is part of the wind which carries it
on the Windway, the part that it leaves behind,
its mysterious trace no one has seen but everyone
feels. Soon they will carry the Word . . . This is now
the quietest place on earth . . . And, with no drama
of any kind, the Word spreads without speech
through the crowd, and continues its country-wide trek.
This event is no more special than watching a cloud
form, disperse, and reform, but by then we are looking
elsewhere. It is no more special than lovers making
promises to each other. sealing each one with a kiss.
Or a man and a woman teaching their youngest daughter
the oldest dance, steadying her legs, counting out
the rhythms with her, until her child’s grace takes over,
and the three of them trace the ancient pattern of footsteps
in the afternoon light. I tell you again,  it is no more
special than watching grains grow, or a river flow,
or the sky darken with rain. What must happen
will happen, and we live our lives in the Meanwhile
between such momentous events —

The birds, there! The birds have arrived! They circle
about us, then swoop down and gently graze
the woman’s unprotected hair. They hover over
the man’s head, or settle briefly on his shoulders.
We all turn our heads upward when they suddenly
climb back into the sky. Our unison gesture is a kind
of prayer. They careen in a wide circle around us,
they glide inside the circle their flight has traced,
then shoot upward again, straight into a cone
of light they fill with caws, and calls, and shrieks.

It is no different from yesterday’s sight, it’ just
much bigger. Tomorrow, fewer birds will do
the same aerial dances, and not everyone will
watch. But that does not concern the rest of us.
We love the repetition of beauty . . . Some people
have begun to leave the field, when in an eerie
silence, riding and twirling around sun-shafts,
the birds come racing down, into our human crowd
once again, swooping upward at the last second.
Some burst through the tree canopy so headlong is
their speed! We are amazed. Cheers and clapping
resound throughout the field. Then we join hands,
and a general dance begins. Awkward at first,
with unsteady steps and botched rhythms,
gradually the better dancers assert control.
and pull the rest of us along. We hug our neighbours
tighter, lovers leading the way, and amid cascades
of laughter and row upon row of kicking feet,
swaying bodies, smiling faces, we become what
we are meant to be – one body becoming one soul.
And long into the night the dance prevails,
in a field in Romania. Overhead, the birds circle
us again and again, calling in voices that
sound almost human . . . .
         

Daniel J. Brick
with thanks to Magdalena for her inspiration!

 

Approaching Spring

POSTED IN contemporary poetry February 27, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Approaching Spring

 

To the sound of a deep melody
like the circuit of the sea
wise CHILD with summer’s blood in your veins
here, in this cold northern country,
help me to remember what has been loved
and to dream what will be loved.

To the sound of talk and tears
like the softest tones of Chopin’s piano,
quiet GIRL hidden within the lilac bushes
now, in this season of soil and rain,
come forth suffused in purple fragrance
and we will wander over marshes of moon grass.

To the sound of dawns and nightfalls
like the boisterous orchestra of March.
sweet WOMAN whose hands open the sun’s doors
always, during the flights of deer and owls,
guide me into the gold light of June
along a free-flowing stream pressed against familiar shores.

 

 

Daniel Brick

4 Metaphors About The Moon

POSTED IN contemporary poetry February 9, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4 Metaphors About The Moon

 
I.
My heart is a well within, where clear waters raise if it rains,
mixed with mud.The moon inside it grows and dwindles continuously.
She breaks for me her bread, I share with her my water.
The more dreams I carry on my back, the more she shines brighter.

II.
Because of too many shadows my road is darker
and I hid in the hollow of an old tree. Tomorrow it will be cut down.
The bloody knife is on the ground, covered with dust.
I feel like a woman who has never had a shadow,
either sunshine or moonlight.

III.
Right before dawn, when dreams knock loudly at my conscience gate,
a gray orchid grows under my eyelids.
A night butterfly asleep on the white sugar bowl.
What if the moon itself was nothing but the imprint of a dry flower
on the iris of a child’s eye?

IV.
If you dare to pass by the corner of a poet’s house in Venice,
a black gate towards the old attic will open.
There the moon turns on a gramophone record.
Always the same tune, over waters and rice fields, beyond dams and oceans,
beyond white birds migrations in any season.

 

 

copyright
Cristina Monica Moldoveanu

https://www.scribd.com/doc/253525559/Poems

Let Us Be Poetry

POSTED IN contemporary poetry February 7, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let Us Be Poetry

I think that in this shattered World,
As cruel and cold as it may be,
We’ll find the softness of a bird,
In some great piece of poetry.

A Poem that will read your heart,
Give it the love that makes it start,
Surrounds you with musical scales,
Hoists up, imaginary sails.

I think that thanks to Poetry,
Feelings come forth more naturally,
Words do describe the inner soul,
Poetry’s mother to us All.

 

 

Sandra Feldman

 

Lonely Moon

POSTED IN contemporary poetry February 6, 2015

The Occasional Traveller

POSTED IN contemporary poetry February 3, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Occasional Traveller

This is a poem of male roads. It starts
with an ordinary road made up of
daily traffic plus the occasional
traveller impulsively joining
the regulars. Unlike them he has no
sense of the time this journey will grab
from his life, he cannot calculate
whether or not it is worth the risk.
The seasoned traveller can always
turn around, go back home, and
salvage part of the day. But this
impulsive one is lost between
the too familiar house he has abandoned
and a goal he cannot name or envision.
In the end he will need to see his journey
as a success. All around him the regulars
are smiling, counting their profits,
congratulating each other, laying plans
and new schemes. Only the occasional
traveller, this man bereft of companionship,
is alone. His mind is a round-about,
with no exits, only entrances. At day’s
end, no woman sweetens his life.

 

 

 

Daniel Brick

Snowfall in the Night for Fabrizio Frosini

POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 21, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snowfall in the Night for Fabrizio Frosini

 The snow had just begun to fall,
thick snowflakes falling
past the restaurant window,
when you whispered, leaning forward,
oblivious to the crowd
around us, when you whispered those words,
and the feathery snow kept falling and falling,
when you whispered to me alone,
you whispered in a dream-voice,
‘I want you tonight, ‘ and the snow
was shining as it fell, and I nodded
as in a dream. Then I grabbed your hand,
saying, ‘Tonight I want you, ‘ as the snow
softly covered the earth, and the dark air
was shining with promises….

 

Poem hunter

Daniel Brick

This is She

POSTED IN contemporary poetry January 18, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is She

This is she, watching
Her portrait as she used to be,
In the moment between
Her gaze and the mirror

This is she, knowing
Me across that distant night,
Upon those paths of light
That traverse she and I

This is she, Magda
Mastered fingers spinning spheres,
sending harmonies to ears
Inside, beneath these stones

This is she, list’ning
To silent phonemes brimming sounds
Of loves and mysteries found
Between these hearts of ours

This is she, fash’ning,
With tempo, style and tone,
Matter, meaning in the tome
A life is in its living

This is she, lena,
In the garden that we share
Our words ballet ‘pon the air,
And tests of time endure

Happy Birthday, Magdalena

Garnet Robbie Shaw

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