Don’t worry, the ageing crisis
is over, the dead have been dumped in fields, mines and rivers, their bodies will be preserved in museums,
today every death is a maxim, an honour to preserve till posterity
knows
how many deaths
how many deaths
in a nuclear age
in a global world
in the world pressing buttons with one slender finger.
Only history will rue such deaths.
(For ‘R’)
You go and do it
have the revolution
embedded in your incarcerated dreams, but
don’t bring red, only other colours
the dance of the peacock,
swirling feathers, the regal pelican, the coated parrot, the green,
the blue the mauve the yellow
not the red
not the blood
change by all means
bring in the revolution
yours, mine evolution.
Not the red
Not the blood
Yes deplore poverty
Yes play the blame game
the blockbuster
breaking the hustings
the gun, the vote bombs
But not with the blood
Not the red, only in
prismatic colours.
Wherever you go
the sparring want
the dubious jaunt
faces gaunt
poverty impoverished
not ever to be replenished
we cry, we protest
Is this all a test
not far are gallows
in eyes that are hollow
a country burns, another
turns impostor
one is pleading,
the other misleading
one is a bully
the other sulky
one wants doles
another picks holes
one says disarmament
the other says missile
come we all imbecile, docile
we know that wherever we
go there is the ranting want.
When illness strikes
controlling your life.
When pain is a nasty daily visitor
holding you tight
in the grip of old age.
When what remains
are aging memories
of a partner loved
of children young and once dependent
of adults who now need you less
while you yearn to be needed more.
Some turn to faith as a consoling force.
But I have burned those bridges long ago.
For God is no longer a redeeming force.
Yet I have found a way
To console my day
To turn my winter years
Into May.
I look to poetry
In its magical world
And find words
Which give life to my soul.
While writing I am free
So very briefly
from daily Angst
from memories of a past lost.
And I hope again for a new May.
When at my computer
I find the path
once covered with grief
to live now in the present day.
autumn horizon
golden leaves float
on icy puddles
More at https://twitter.com/Haikuintraining.
summer’s end
tumbleweed on the beach
cold rain clouds
More at https://twitter.com/Haikuintraining.
Longevity is everybody’s business, how old are you,
have the pills, don’t forget
the blood pressure. Have your lipid profile done once
a year for good measure.
Be sure the sugar is not high, but if your hair is white, then you
will be blackening it, all the night.
They had managed to escape Vienna
before the Nazis marched in.
Thanks to the support of an American cousin
they settled in Washington Heights —
a Manhattan haven for Jewish refugees
Others were not so lucky.
Kurt, the couple’s 5 year-old son,
bore the name of the grandfather
In Treblinka he was gassed.
Adjustment was not easy: they needed jobs
They were lucky: he a butcher; she a seamstress
Fluency in English not a necessity
We now meet Kurt at 20 in 1965
and the girlfriend Gerorgann,
who was the love of his life.
She was mature, tender, optimistic and kind.
The two spent hours talking on the phone,
Taking long walks in the neighborhood
Eating pizza at the local hangout,
Doing homework in one of their homes
One summer evening they made love.
And everything changed.
Theirs would be a love, growing stronger
each day.
So what was the problem
of two people in love?
For In the eyes of the parents
the love could not be
Their despair had no bottom.
How could this be true?
The boy’s Jewish soul
was bound to the suffering of many.
How could Kurt forget?
His very name tied to the Uncle who perished.
The family held council… uncles, aunts cousins alike
A mafia-like meeting of gun-toting gangsters?
No guns, but the weapon was GUILT
All denounced the relationship
with passionate conviction
An affront to the very core
of their Jewish past, present and future.
Kurt was given a choice: keep the girl and lose the family
A choiceless choice
He chose the family
I sit, I wait
my eyes travel the page
over, over, side to side,
pretending to understand
or care even on my
second sweep of text.
Waiting in the shadows
Double agent breaking codes
Captivated by your beauty
Wary though of being played
Summer air thick, humid and smoldering.