B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
Let this December dawn
be a morning
of such American perception
that signs and wonders
will be in our
hiking direction
thinking to pause
on windows
to watch chimeras
of songbirds
hearing cicadas
and cardinals go South
on whatever road
by Robert Frost's birches
or James Dean's cycles
thanking life's moments
for a worthwhile day spent
bemused by glimpsing times
of recluse J.D.Salinger
in Vermont
looking for miracles
of Kerouac's prose
or visiting Emily Dickinson
at Amherst groves
where we park
on the right routes
over expressway obstacles
by a thick river of cars
as a cool mortal Beat
and a smooth jazz guy
within my hands,
toes and feet
may pardon, circle
and disclose
of their memory.
B.Z. Niditch, 18 december 2015
You sent me a letter
from Warsaw
in between my phlox
and rock garden chores
with pebbles from the sea
the dead stones come alive
from my noon daydream
of busy tackle fishing
on the other side of the Bay
here for a last run
miles away from the shore
as trout survive
seconds, seasons, times
now remembering
my headlight
of the motorcycle
needs to be switched off
e mailing my sailor friend
Ringo over predicable waves
who is going to my
Beat poem reading
hoping he would become
an ecologist
traveling like on roads
always of exodus
living in tabernacles
over desert borders
to protect and rescue turtles
sea lions, whales,
other mammals
by outposts
of crowded sails
under chromatic rays
by sunshine
with look-outs
over grassy island
Ringo is now
riddled by his own jokes
in his blue angler kayak
who says he noticed
my old Harley and fixed it
in the parking lot on the dock.
Gert Strydom, 18 december 2015
The flames in the fireplace make tongues
and we are dancing slowly
while the candles are burning intimately
and are throwing long shadows
and your eyes glow large,
you look innocent
and it does feel as if the whole world
is laying open before us
and I feel the artery
beating in your neck,
your perfume fills my nose
and there is something very deep
that I do read in your golden eyes.
Outside the branches of the avocado tree
Is beating on the roof
and time is busy
growing its own wings
but inside you and I dance
as if free from all things.
Joe Breunig, 18 december 2015
Your unfailing Love and new mercies,
greet me in subtle waves of unsung joy.
My weary and hurting soul now embraces
yet another opportunity to be with You;
in dawn’s early light, I begin to see
the fulfilled promises of another day.
Completely open my heart, eyes, soul
and spirit with Your ethereal Presence.
Show me the ordained path that’s lit
with the Light of Your Heavenly sway.
When I’m with You, I’ll never stumble.
My life has been entrusted with You;
there’s no turning back, since I’ve
decided to move forward with You alone,
having been saved and divinely humbled.
Author notes
Inspired by:
Psa 17, 143:8
Learn more about me and my poetry at:
http://amzn.to/1ffo9YZ
By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2015, All rights reserved.
Satish Verma, 18 december 2015
This shapeless fear
gives birth to cosmic vibrations
a prelude to porous thoughts.
Foreign in pain, a face burns
in deep meditation.
Nothing consolates. Hurting
the contents of judgement,
a reflexive existence exonerates
itself from a spiral fall.
Indecisions of sun
to penetrate the fissures of dawn
failed the valley of flowers.
Aloneness was speechless.
The shoots plucked
the sky in flakes. The wind
played at the mercy of trees.
The royal departure
of night sprang a surprise.
The dying seed had
a pride to offer. The sprout.
Nothing is upsetting the garden.
no one is certain of crazy fate.
The sap has a sense of liberation
coming out of conflicts
and chaos. A communion
with space takes place.
Gert Strydom, 17 december 2015
At Klipdrift military base
just outside Potchefstroom
where now the kaki bush,
other weeds and grass are knee high
through ash holes, rubbish, broken glass
barbwire, tins and stones we went
with fire in movement exercises
and live ammunition fired over us.
We ran, cat walked, leopard crawled
and was sent to and fro
with bullets hitting up dust around us
and some grenades were tossed
a distance away.
The very next day my left knee
was busted good and well
and when I reported sick
the PTI-corporal
almost busted his gut
and touched the crossed swords
on his arms
and told me if by any chance
I came out of the sickbay that day
he would see to it
that I would really take a beating.
The doctor at the sickbay,
called in another one
and yet another one
and the three of them
didn’t want to treat me
and said that there was a big chance
of me losing my knee
which was swollen like a rugby ball
and they sent me by ambulance
straight to One Military Hospital
at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria.
I was wheeled into casualties,
where I had to wait some time
while shot up people
flown in straight from the war
was treated first.
When they finally got to me
they took one look at the leg
and wheeled me into
an operating theatre
where they asked
if I wanted to walk again?
I just said heal me
and they removed my uniform,
strapped me down
with bands around my feet
hands and legs
and gave two injections
just above the knee cap
and said that it was local anaesthetic
but wouldn’t help much
and that nothing would really
take the pain away
of the next procedure.
They pushed a big syringe
with a large needle
in under my knee cap
and the pain was great
as they pulled out puss
but I didn’t make a sound
while tears of pain
were in my eyes.
The laboratory identified
the infection that I had
and they said that I have got
septic arthritis
and everything was swell
while I got a drip
with the right antibiotics
and some pain killers,
watched television from a set
on the wall,
had my own radio
to choose music from
and could even order
from a menu
and it was like staying
in a great hotel
where they fixed me properly
and after two weeks
that was like a holiday
I walked out of there.
[PTI=Physical training instructor.]
Ailill, 17 december 2015
Why did we meet?
Was it chance or timing?
That morning you tried to trot
through the crosshairs of my headlights
before you bounded off in flight.
First time,
naïve to this side of things,
rewinding my life into slow motion,
like a zen koan.
No thought
of future or past,
contradiction or contrast.
Just awareness,
that didn’t expect,
only hoped……I
might…….Survive.
Diving off the road,
the wheel
with a will of its own,
directed my fate
on this blind date
with destiny.
Between real
and fantasy;
like a dove,
I was Dr. Strangelove
racing toward destruction,
flying.
Not knowing....
where I might land.
Sand colliding,
my ride bucking,
runaway flashing lights,
stage of mind
in siren fright.
No door opened
to welcome me in.
It was just me,
rolling down that hill,
coming to a
stand still.
Strapped upside down,
in wheels spinning round.
Earthbound,
I’ve watched the sun rise again,
but since then, it's been unclear.
Deer,
Is it you,
breathing new life into these dreams?
Satish Verma, 17 december 2015
I allowed you to tread on me unflinchingly.
My mind on pause,
ungrieved you turn back the clock.
Enough to stun the century,
I take cognisance of divine’s club foot.
I did not believe in self-pity
but I was racing against time
to avoid a jealous path running with me.
Yet I was sleeping on bushes of estranged thorns
without locking my golden age.
Tulips are no more my favourites.
You have to dig deep to plant the bulbs
and wait. When death opens the door for me,
I wanted to be free from any commitment
and ready to walk in, like a foot soldier.
This cosmos is mine, body is for you.
It no more obeys my command.
No more commas are needed,
a final full stop will do.
I am returning back to my home.
Gert Strydom, 16 december 2015
I. Solitary
There’s a solitary bird
sitting in the berry tree
as if watching me
and every now and then
pecks a few, before looking again
and it comes daily
and maybe now
sees me as its friend
and I watch it eating
with the sun glittering
on its green feathers
and its long tail
swishing up and down
and when I look away
I do hear it calling, calling
as if trying to attract my attention
as if seeing me looking
holds something of company for it.
II. The going
Why did you not make me aware
that never again
I would see you there
in the berry tree
from early morning
singing from dawn to dusk.
You were chirping and indifferently fluttering
like every other day
and I did not realise
that you were going away
with the setting sun
and now any movement
in the berry tree
catches me to see you,
but only to realize
that a sparrow
is also hungry.
Satish Verma, 16 december 2015
Bleak landscape
transcends its shoulders,
writhes in pain.
I praise the light for green haloes
and tall figures, which cast
long shadows on parched lips,
my world. The hot sand fills the eyes.
A palpalable seizure shakes the horizon.
I drift like a dry leaf
on the winds of time
the perplexities of sand dunes
and dancing smoke.
What I was striving for all life?
A metaphorical silence
spends the energy of unspoken waking.
The rich decadence of things unhappned.
The occult rules the flesh
and the music of life dies.
The names start trading the tree,
full of flowers, inarticulately
to faithless autumn.
The twigs long for mother shape
the icons will swallow
the melting grief in vain.
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