Once There Was A True Love
once there was a true love
no poem was written
and then that true love
somehow failed
and since then
hundreds and hundreds of poems have been written.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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How Many Non- Beautiful Poems Must Be Written
How many non-beautiful poems must be written
Before one beautiful poem can emerge?
How many longings for love must a person know
Before their one true love comes?
How many times must one love one’s true love
Before one can never bear to be again without that Ecstasy?
How many times must one sense that Ecstasy gone
Before one knows that she is forever lost?
How many pleading meaningless words must be spoken to return her
Before one knows that she has forever gone?
How many words must be written
Before there is one true poem?
And how many poems must be said to one’s love
Before she listens and denies and goes far away to her own poem
Only she and not the one who has loved her with all his soul
Will ever know and be at home with?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Only One Mother
Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky,
But only one mother to dry your eyes,
Hundreds of shells on the shore together,
But only one mother to have forever
Hundreds of birds that go singing by,
But only one mother to help you try
Hundreds of lambs in the sunny weather.
But only one mother to treat us like treasure
Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn,
But only one mother to help us move on
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover,
But only one mother the world wide over
Hundreds of people to tell apart
But only one mother to give us her heart
poem by Kaitlin Skelding
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The History Poems Have Not Been Written
The history poems have not been written
The poems after Milosz
The Wallace Stevens poems will never be written
I can’t come close
I have tried the Blake poems
But of course I am not near them either
I would like to the ironic intellectual poems
I might be able to do them
I could do a kind of surrealistic association mind poem a prose poem
But I don’t like that very much
The poems of Jerusalem have not been good enough
Poems of propaganda are awkward and unacceptable
The small poems that tell of my life
They are for me the chance at real poetry
And I will continue as best I can with them
The American poems I have not yet found the idiom for
I can be epigrammatic in Emerson Thoreau fashion
But not with the hard New England observing eye
Borges poems I love
And the stories of mind and literature
Making the drama of a life of a storyteller
Interest me
But I doubt I could truly do them well
Imitation can only take one so far
And through it one may lose one’s way entirely
I can really do only what I am
Not the Dickinson poems nor the Hopkins poems nor the Wordsworth poems nor the Keats poems nor the Amichai poems nor the poems of many others whose poetry I love
The Biblical poems have been tried
The poems of cosmic and scientific reflection
I could try to improve them
There are too many different kinds of poems to write
And I cannot write almost all of them
This is another poem about poems and poetry
I have written many for a long time now
Perhaps I need to go elsewhere and write in a new way
A way I have not dreamed or even remotely understood possible before.
The poems of the unknown poetry await me
I will go on but I am not sure now I know in which wa
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Have Written Too Many Poems Of Despair
I HAVE WRITTEN TOO MANY POEMS OF DESPAIR
I have written too many poems of despair-
Too much complaint-
Too much sorrow grief sadness difficulty pain-
I should have written more of hope of youth of love-
I should have sung of happiness
I should have been been a poet
Who helps others love life more
I can try now-
But can words of ‘will’ really be poetry?
It is when the lines come to the mind and heart
On their own
Naturally
That the poem begins to live.
Does this sound like a ‘happy poem’?
Or yet another lament for what I am
And have not been?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Are Poems Too Painful To Be Written
THERE ARE POEMS TOO PAINFUL TO BE WRITTEN
There are poems too painful to be written
Poems also too shameful-
And poems that cannot be said,
Because of the pain they would give others.
No one can tell all their truth
Without hurting too much.
Silence may be sacred
Hiding – True Love.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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If There Has Been One Poem Today
IF THERE HAS BEEN ONE POEM TODAY
If there has been one poem today,
Can there be another?
Should there be another?
Isn’t one poem enough
For a day
A year
A life?
To have written one true poem?
But was it a true poem?
And is this a true poem?
And have I ever written a true poem?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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A Poem Can Be Written Anywhere, Anytime
A poem can be written anywhere, anytime-
A poem can be written too early in the morning
While waiting in Talpiot for ‘Rami Levi Supermarket’ to open-
It can be written in one’s head in a frozen Army barracks in Beit El
Or in a small room on Rav Berlin St on an old Smith- Corona
In the first happy years of one’s marriage-
It can be written for years from Haganah St. in French Hill
In the family years and the lonely ones
It can be written walking by the sea in Tel Aviv
With small children in hand-
It can be written on the same shore years later when one’s life has been broken
By Love’s desertion-
It can be written in old age on Rehov Shahal in Givat Mordechai
As one takes joy from the birth of one’s first grandchild-
A poem can be written anywhere anytime-
I have been writing my poems in Israel
For more than half a lifetime-
May those too
Who come after me
Read and Write Poetry here.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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This Is A Poem Written To Escape Doing Something Else
THIS IS A POEM WRITTEN TO ESCAPE DOING SOMETHING ELSE
This is a poem written to escape doing something else
Perhaps in a way all my poems have been written to escape doing something else
Some lifetime work I never wanted to do?
Some hard business task?
Some duty of life I felt myself not up to yet?
Some meeting some personal confrontation?
But this poem
A small poem indeed
Is written because I fear the longer work I have to do
Will not be alright-
But then don't I also fear this poem too and all the poems
Will not be alright?
All my life I have been escaping into poetry-
Why in my old age how in my old age
Should I
Change this now?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Nothing..
This poem is not about love..
This poem is not about pain..
This poem is not about the things i have learned...
This poem is not for the broken hearted..
This poem is not for the ones seeking help..
This poem is not for the depressed...
This poem is for no one,
Because no one can contain nothing...
This poem is not filled with wisdom..
This poem was not written with love...
This poem was not written for a lover nor a brother...
This poem was nothing special...
Not quite remarkable....
But it is nothing because that what it was...
Nothing and it will never be anything...
poem by Jenna Marie
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The Last Poem Was Written Again And Again
THE LAST POEM WAS WRITTEN AGAIN AND AGAIN
The last poem was written again and again
It said ‘All the poems have been written. There is no new poem to write.’
Writing it again now
I wonder how I dare demand the attention
Of any possible reader.
Aren’t they all as fed up with me
As I sometimes am with myself?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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So Many Words Of Love Have Already Been Written
So many words of love have already been written
Why should my poem for you be anything new?
It is true I loved you very much
And for years was deluded in the joyful thought that you loved me
I wrote of course words of love to you
But they are lost like most of what I have written-
Do I still love you now
So many years after we truly loved?
I loved you with the total obsessive love of one for whom the happiness of the other is the only meaning of the world-
Now I am old and far from even true remembrance of the love
that once was my life
And where you are in your soul I sadly do not truly know.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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You Are Translating True Love In The Language That You Like
it is amazing
here you are translating the meaning of true in your own language.
i am amazed.
you love poetry after all? you still love
true love
i hear the cracks of your broken heart
i pretend it is nothing to me
i see how you bleed
your white shirt bloody
and your hands
cupping some drops of blood
from your bosom
i pretend i have not seen such a pitiful sight
i have my own broken hearts too
but you will never know that
you have contempt on my lost loves
because you never understand that true love can also be
more than what you expect
it can be more than one
it can be many
the way i love are like ten fingers
the caress of ten fingers
they move like a tribe of love
on the thighs of my beloved
on her breasts
how can i be so cruel living with just
a finger to love just one?
now i make a poem about true love
the one that uses so much of myself
to love not just one
but all
yes, do not be surprised
to love all of humanity and humanity
has not just one set of breasts and thighs
oh, there are hundreds of them
and from their milk a thousand children shall live
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Not Every Poem Knows How To Say Its Own Name Properly
NOT EVERY POEM KNOWS HOW TO SAY ITS OWN NAME PROPERLY
Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly-
There are poems that have no name
And poems that are named by others who have not written them-
There are poems whose names make them what they are
And poems whose names contradict and belie them-
Many poems have their first lines as their names
And these poems often are as memorable as one line only-
Great poems and good poems can be nameless
Or can have unforgettable names.
Not every poem knows how to say its own name properly -
Poems are poems are poems
And names are names are names
And sometimes they meet and are one
And live happily ever after-
But there are times when perhaps
They never should have met each other at all.
Poems have their names
And names have their poems
But sometimes they love each other
And truly are one.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem That Perhaps Never Should Have Been Written
THE POEM THAT PERHAPS NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN
Not the poem of yesterday
Nor the poem of tomorrow
But the poem of today-
What gives life meaning now.
Not the poem as it is read
But the poem as it is written.
Not the certain poem
But the poem that does not know
If it truly is a poem.
The poem that gives hope only when it is written-
The lesser poem-
The poem that perhaps never should have been written.
The poem I am writing now,
Perhaps for myself alone
The lesser poem
The poem that perhaps should never have been at all.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Every Day Should Have A Poem Of Its Own
EVERY DAY SHOULD HAVE A POEM OF ITS OWN
Every day should have a poem of its own –
For every day its own story of dreams and perceptions -
But there are so many days
And so few true poems-
Poems that should have been written
Are not-
Our days and nights go by
Never to be remembered.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Have Written Too Many Imperfect Poems
I HAVE WRITTEN TOO MANY IMPERFECT POEMS
I have written too many imperfect poems
This is another one.
Years have gone by,
Where are the perfect poems?
A handful of true poems
And the poet does not die.
Where are mine?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Callous women folk
Hundreds and hundreds of women
Were on the way, on who you set your eyes.
hundreds and hundreds of men
might set on them their eyes.
Women grow immune to men
and undermine them altogether,
with delight in men’s plethora.
Light attracting swam! Woman is callous.
25.12.2000, Pmdi
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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The Poem Is Always With Me
THE POEM IS ALWAYS WITH ME
The poem is always with me
It waits inside.
And when it wants to be heard
It asks me to write it down.
Sometimes I say it,
Sometimes I hear it within myself silently,
Sometimes it goes away
When I go elsewhere for a while.
The poem is always in me
But sometimes it goes away
And is lost forever.
How many poems have I lost?
And how many poems have I never written down
That I should have?
And how many times have I written down
What is not a poem for anyone,
Except for the one who seems to need
A poem inside
All the time
So much?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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This Is My Poem
This is my poem of ______. (date)
This is my poem, written by myself.
This is my first poem never written.
This is my last poem now to be written.
This is the poem I would have written
if I had lived yesterday what I lived today.
This is my poem changing white light
into gold-leaf
and blue into violet.
This is my poem like a heaven twisting
and turning inside of me
all night long.
This is my poem of opening a window
to show what was always inside.
This is my poem encompassing everything
hope can bestow or chance agree with.
This is my poem of open-ended freedom.
This is my poem breathing life into motion.
This is my poem written as I wrote it
a living being.
And this is my poem ending;
but only for today..
poem by Patti Masterman
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The Poem Is Restless In Me
THE POEM IS RESTLESS IN ME
The poem is restless in me-
It waits to be heard-
Now that it comes
It does not feel especially happy about itself.
It knows it is not real-
It is not much-
Just because it is called a poem by me
Does not make it a poem -
The mind has its own place-
My mind also -
I am always thinking poems are with me,
And poems waiting to come-
But who am I and what do I know?
These lines are written in the still of the morning
When the light outside still brings hope
That a new day is possible.
But so many poems have been written in the early morning
And I am so old from hearing them said to me by myself-
And what does it all mean anyway in the end when God is the Only One?
And who am I to know what God is, or invoke the name of God
In such a small thing as my own poetry?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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