I Read Borges Poems
I read Borges poems
And the Night opens up a vast and different kind of Memory
Histories of place I have never been
Faces I have never seen
Questions of Identity
Streets I will never walk in
Too long and deserted
To truly contemplate-
Fame and its follies
The delusions of a name
Death and destinies
Games of words
Encyclopedias of strange tribes
Anthropologies of gestures
A voice and tones of thinkers long unknown
Books rewritten
Literature as life
Reading as adventuring
Labyrinths, hourglasses, imaginary swords and battles
And loves whose only realization is their longing
Solitude and its self- deceptions
Escape and its consolations
The long road in poems and parables
Old age and the regrets of what one has never done-
I read Borges
And there is the joy of the real thing
What only Literature can give
Life is more when read about
Than when lived -
A seeming in the silence
Where even the most beautiful words on the page
Are best seen as echoes of past worlds greater and more glorious
Long lines on the page defining worlds far away and forever mysterious
Time passing unapproachable.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Oh The Poems
OH THE POEMS AND THE POEMS AND THE POEMS
Oh the poems and the poems and the poems
Oh the love of Literature
Oh all that stuff
I have given my life to-
Words and meanings and feelings
Pages and pages and pages –
What it is all this literary life for?
When out the window out the door
With our eyes we see in an instant other worlds other dreams?
I don’t know and I will never know
And Literature is certainly far more than I can say it is-
Oh the poems and this poem and this day turning grey
And all my life old and old and more old and more old-
Oh why oh why oh why
And always back to God
My last rescue and refuge and escape
I who have read so much Great Literature
And can only write this-
Oh the why and the oh oh oh and the words
And the whole world of Literature
I would belong to and do not.
Oh the words oh the world oh the Literature
Oh God help me please can’t you please help me a little or not?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Borges
BORGES
Life is a Story,
An Essay,
A Poem.
Its characters are not real -
Its lines are long,
Its rivers are in you
As you play games
With Time and Identity,
You write
And we see
readings
Never heard before.
Greater more humane writers
have been and will be-
But there is only one Borges.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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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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In The Manner Of Borges I Write Poems In My Old Age
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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These Words Too Say What Love Was
ATHESE WORDS TOO SAY WHAT LOVE WAS
These words too say what Love was-
Though I am long from that love and those feelings-
Once there were songs in the night and great passion
And we were a kind of happiness that only the very blessed know-
I had dreamed of such love for so long
And you in your beauty were all Beauty could ever be-
We loved for a long time
And in that love I learned forever that Love is real-
But somehow in a way I will never understand
For you that love died-
And I was left loving without being loved
And had to go a long time in the pain of longing for you again-
But that was long long ago
And now where our love is no one can ever know
For it is only in memories that cannot truly capture what it really was-
Love it is true is the most beautiful thing we know
And I knew this with you
And will be grateful for it forever-
Though the nights the many years of nights in the long time that has passed say
There are other feelings by which we live and kinder quieter loves also -
O passion of my life oh destiny long gone oh Love I will never know again,
Do you blame yourself at all as I long ago have forgiven you
For abandoning the Beauty of our Life for long sad years of concentrated mindfilled gladnesses?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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After All The Endless Longing To Be Who We Are
IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE
In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.
Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.
We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were
I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.
God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.
THE REAL POETS
The real poets are few in number and largely known by name
The rest of us are endless frustration in aspiration
Words upon words upon words
Dreams upon dreams upon dreams
Getting and going nowhere forever unheard
The real poets find their anthologized place
And we know them over and over and over again
The rest of us just appear this only once
If we appear at all
And our words and our hearts and our minds
Do not encompass and inspire the endless rereadings
Time and Time’s Wounds make again and again and again
We are once only always forever losts
Nothing will save us
These words too coming in the wake of a long night’s reading
Of the poems of others
Cannot sustain and redeem
Cannot be what they would be
Cannot help and cannot save
Me or you or anyone we love
Even as poetry.
God Who Knows All
And in the End Decides on Everything
Has made us smaller even than the Angels
And our place in the Divine Song
Is not as far as we know
Anywhere heard at all.
Goodbye world
We are going
We have done what we could
We have written and written and written
Oxymandias’ poet will remain
And we will not
The lone and desert sands will stretch away
When we are not even a single grain.
THE WORLD IS FILLED WITH THE ENDLESS SILENCE OF THINGS
The world is filled with the endless silence of things
Dreams in old age are not the dreams of youth – and will never be
Old pain in old bodies stirs the imagination to anger at itself
The history of the universe begins somewhere long before we were born
And when Time ends more Time will not begin elsewhere
Parallel universes pose mathematical riddles to an evidence- hungry horde of physicists who live by supposition alone
And yet underneath it all we are biological beings – brains of our own misperceptions
Clamoring clamoring while on the other side of the moon
The cold goes deeper in us than all the distances we will never reach
Mites and Bites and Little Strings Digital waves and wiry wise things
We are all more than a cave painting with buffalo music beating in the fire
Under the darkness once
When we hunted with small eyes the body’s animal prey
Our spirit said mocking melodies of great and good sounds
Let the Maker of All be One in Love
And less than us may there never be new
The world we love and the people we trust
And the endless game of the transitions
This is a hell of a way to be who we are
And yet some say we are dust more than stars
And under the end of the forever we feel
Only our Names will remain not quite real.
AFTER ALL THE ENDLESS LONGING TO BE WHO WE ARE
After all the endless longing to be who we are
We come in old age to know what we dared never dream
That we as we are are less than we will forever be
And all that we have made is nothing beside
What God alone may make us should God have decided
That we are worth more than the interval here of our own small being
Dust is not enough
And will never be
For what we dream
For those we most love
Bones interred and epitaphs made righteous in stone
Cannot replace the vital thing of each breathing being
So so long ago
I knew when my grandmother died that she Bessie Zeibert- Peshie really- had so much love and goodness she should never be gone
Lost in her very last moments seeking a stolen sweater no one had ever taken
A sixteen year old girl in steerage with her first child who would never marry and live only to help his nephews and niece
God of Love
What are we
So many have died
So many good people
And I here officially an old man yet young enough to begin and thrive again in words
Questioning as I did then and knowing more and no more
We are the end and the beginning of the universe humanbeings kind or unkind
Light too is another name for death when it is forever too strong
I see I feel I know
We are what we are
And You will take us home
In a way we cannot dream now
Something so good as many of us have been
Must never die
And You Alone know how
We will survive
In the endless Infinite Eternity which no one who has ever lived can describe
Or truly understand.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Like So Many Poems I Read
LIKE SO MANY POEMS I READ
Like so many poems I read
These poems I am reading now
Are not poems to me.
They are too detached
Too abstract
Too up in the air.
I want to hear the words
Make a music of feeling
In my soul.
A poem must move me
If it is to be real.
Why then do I write these words
as if a poem?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Kohelet Again It Is Not Just The Vanity Of Vanities
It is not just the vanity of vanities
It is not just the truth of the contradictions
It is not just ‘a time for this and a time for that'
It is not just ‘Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth before the evil days grow nigh'
It is not just ‘Better a living dog than a dead lion'
It is not just ‘Enjoy your days with the wife of your youth'
It is not just the eternal truths
And the poem of the long home-
And the turning again and again of the wind and the water
And the sun and the sound-
It is not just the sheer beauty of the thing and its words
Despite an occasional archaic ugliness
It is not just the truth that cannot be gone beyond
Because this is what life is and what the grave is and what we are
It is not just too ‘that the making of many books much less the making of many poems is a weariness of the flesh-
It is that after all the years I have arrived at the time
Where the golden bowl may be broken and the voice of the grinders made low
And man return to his eternal home-
As in youth I in old age read and reread the words of the Preacher
And know myself and all of us in them-
Oh the greatest Literature is here
And part of it I repeat in my fragmented self
While the long distance of life goes beyond
In words which will be heard for the first time -
For this too is not everything
And what we do not know yet
Kohelet too does not know-
And for all of us as God permits
Who knows what will come
After the Vanity-
If it is after all Vanity
And the end of it all?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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(Inspiration Poem) A Book Never Read
Living by the fire
Living to admire
Living down to the wire
Still the wheels don't turn
I think it is because I want it
Urn for it
The beautiful almighty
I will not pray
Not as long as I live day by day
How much does my soul really weigh?
How many sins can be forgiven?
The fog will eventually choke you out
Whine and pout all you want
It won't make a dent in my steel cage
Because it was built from pure rage
If Its not a stage
What am I going through?
Its just another page of my book never read
Words as stale as the food I was fed
Maybe it was how many times I have been dropped on my head
I plead guilty to an unwritten destiny
I lied to myself in a mirror straight to my very own face
Memories erased
It's just another page of my book never read
I can't be lead astray
Especially if I'm willing
It's not much different then stealing
A moral yeng then yang
A oh so perfect harmony
Keeping things on a even keel
Always questioning what is real
It's just another page of my book never read
I hold on so tight to my comfy bed
Such a beautiful night
The stars are glistening oh so bright
I turn off the lights
Sleep for the dreams of a tomorrow
We are all living on borrowed time
So I ask again where's mine?
A question that continues to go unanswered
Draw your own conclusion
It's another one of the deep dark mysterious illusions
It's just another page of my book never read
It's as if every word has never been said
It's just another page of my tattered and torn book that will be never read
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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There Was A Poem Long Ago
THERE WAS A POEM LONG AGO
There was a poem long ago
A poem of youth and hope
Now there are other poems
Poems of age and sorrow.
There was a poem once
Of love – and happiness in love
Now there is a poem of lovelessness
And sadness.
There was a poem once
Of the long and distant open road
Now there is a poem of the dead end.
There was a poem once
That believed in Poetry
Now there is a poem that knows
Even the most beautiful worlds of words
End in dust
There was a poem once – long ago.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Was Away From The Poems
I was away from the Poems
I could not hear them within myself -
There were many sounds
Many different kinds of words
And speakers and ranters and shouters
And all kinds of false music also
And even beautiful music and prayer-
But there were no poems
I could hear no poems
And within myself suddenly there came such ‘longing’
And such ‘anxiety’-
‘Where is the Poem? And where can I possibly be if there is none?
And how can I find it again? ’
And all I needed I thought was some long long long silence
Some being alone and away
Some forever waiting to hear
Some listening to the true voice
And then somehow somehow the Poems would come again –
And here here here it is now
The poem
Quiet and sure and happy and light and singing
As if it were the one music God wanted me to hear
And repeat always as if it truly were mine and yours
Dear imagined reader,
Alone.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Have Read Many Poems I Know I Never Could Have Written
I have read many poems I know I never could have written
Poems whose language was far richer and more remarkable than mine
Poems that saw as I cannot see and sounded as I cannot sound
Poems of magnificent music and many hidden meanings
I have read many poems greater than those I could ever write
And have been humbled and saddened and inspired by them
Out there somewhere else
There have been real poets
And I in my own little lines
Love and respect them.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Deceased Poets Of Nature
Such beautiful poems to Nature they did write
The poetry we love for to read and recite
May they rest in peace now where-ever they lay
The deceased poets of Nature their poems live today
They glorified Nature and her praises they sung
And though they may be long dead their poems remain young
the poets of the land and the poets of the sea
In their beautiful poetry their greatness we do see
Their poems and their songs I loved as a boy
And their poems and their songs I will always enjoy
The beauty of Nature they did celebrate
And beauty in their words they loved to create.
Great insights of Nature from them we did gain
The beauty of their words with us does remain
We loved them for their poems in decades long gone
The deceased poets of Nature their poems living on.
poem by Francis Duggan
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On Books
Books are my first love, I’m so proud to read;
They give me knowledge and help life to lead;
Hours, days just pass by, by reading life-time;
Life would not be worth, if not for my rhyme.
Great are those people who write books all life;
Burning just candles, with Goose-quills in strife;
Tired of writing though day-long or night,
They keep on writing in such a bad light.
Books serve a great cause; their value can’t cease;
It takes years to write but reading is ease;
Book-makers struggle to print a few books;
And keep spending time to, improve their looks.
Some find their way to libraries in town;
Some remain untouched and nev’r taken down;
Silver-fish, Moths eat the books that are old;
Some are gone obsolete, some sold like gold.
Some are in tatters and must be rebound;
Books are Man’s best friends where solace is found;
Reading for long hours, does help you to learn;
Books give much knowledge and wisdom to men.
Read books with great care whose weight is in gold;
Serve generations though they may be old;
Source of much Info, deserving respect;
Books are life-partners whom you ne’er reject!
poem by John Celes
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I Read and Reread/ The Poets I Love
I READ AND REREAD/ THE POETS I LOVE
I read and reread
The poets I love-
I seek new poets
To love poetry more with-
I write my own small poems
And read them again occasionally-
Sometimes I find in them lines
I want to return to
And remember.
If only I could be such a stranger to myself
That I in reading a poem of my own
Would know it belongs to Literature.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Do not read my poems…. [for YOU ]
Do not read my poems…
After I am dead
As a lament, a wail
An elegy, a requiem
Do not read my poems…
After I am gone
When no more I can
Hear your velvet voice.
Do not read my poems…
Alone without me
To comment along
And read with you
But, do read my poems
When I beside you lie
With my head resting
On your supporting arm
Listening to you read
In whisper, in kisses
In silence, in love
In sleep, in dream
Watching you feel
Every word I wrote
I’ll close my eyes - Love
Brush aside my hair
With your breathe
Which half veils my face
Sleepless fevered I wrote
Read me my poems
Now sing me a lullaby
Rock me to sleep
On your broad chest
Diving into your eyes
A thousand times
I am refreshed
By your smile
I’ll write on you a poem
Traced by my fingertips
To be etched in your heart
And burnt into your soul!
So, do not read my poems…
poem by Angelina Pandian
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Literature I Loved
LITERATURE I LOVED
Literature I loved-
Reading gave new lives and new worlds-
Experience enriched beyond
What I could have ever have imagined alone-
The pleasure and joy of it
The discovery the adventure-
Literature I loved
And Life greater because of it.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The last page
Till you complete reading
The last page of your life
You could muse and enjoy
The best pages you’ve read.
Once your life is extinct,
You cannot reminisce
With joy about the past.
Hence we want the page
That we read is not the last.
20.10.2008
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Log Book
From a ship’s logbook
Sat on deck another long day I smelled of chippy fat
and the sweat of honest labour
The stove in the galley was oil fired but I wanted to
read a few poems before I had a shower.
The light wasn’t any good so I read a western book,
as I always had wanted to be a sheriff in Texas.
The book was good I knew the words before I read
them, fell asleep when I awoke it was midnight
I knocked on my cabin door, give roaches a change
escape; impossible long days and blithe was the sea
In the morning I was still reeking of chippy fat and it
was too late to have a shower.
poem by Oskar Hansen
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Keep Moving
Hurry up
Dont slow down
Pick a time
Dont let hands pull you down
If youre waiting
Have it up
Move along
Say goodbye
Dont let words stay too long
If youre leaving
It read
We missed you
Between the lines
It said hold it high
With a smile
Speak out loud
With the mind of a child
If youre lucky
It read
We missed you
Between the lines
It said hurry up
We really must be going theres no time to delay
We have to leave our message because we cant stay
It really is important so remember take care
Please keep on moving cos theres nobody there
It read
We missed you
Between the lines it said
Weve waited for so long
But now its time t-t-to keep moving along
Here and there are the signs
On the road give way to stop and go
When youre moving
It read
We missed you
Between the lines it said
Weve waited for so long
But now its time to to to keep moving along
Keep moving, youve got to keep moving
Keep, keep, youve got to keep moving
To keep moving along
song performed by by Madness
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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