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Once Upon A Time There Were Long Poems

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE LONG POEMS

Once upon a time there were long poems that told a story-
Now there are only small poems
That tell a feeling.

This is a small poem
And I am a small poet
And we are all small readers
Who are always losing the poem
By rushing on to the next thing.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poems Written About Poetry

The poems written about Poetry
Seemed to be self- indulgent and self- serving,
The Poet worshipping what he does
And making himself Holy-

But in some other way
They were simply Explorations
Efforts at understanding the Art
And improving the Music-

They were in their own quiet way small adventures
And gifts to other would- be- poets
And lovers of intense lines-

The poems written about the poetry
Were small additions to a long history
Poems about poems-

One kind of poem
In a world
Where there is no end to more and many.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Story Of The Poet

THE STORY OF THE POET

The story of the poet
Is told by his poems
A long long story
Of many small poems.

Can they be read?
Can they be known?
Can they be understood,
As the story they are?

The story of the poet
May forever be unknown-
And die with the poems
Never known.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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All I Can Do Now Is Write Another Poem

All I can do now is write another poem-

The poems are small,
And do not require the long hours and long years
Of the books-

Like the world as a whole
I seem to have a shorter attention span
And less patience-

A poem can be written and given a name
In minutes not years-

Though some would say a great poem
Takes the travail of years of waiting
And years of work-

But I did not say
‘All I can do now is write another great poem'
Perhaps I have in all the years of the nights never written one-

I can write the poems I write
My kinds of poems
In a fairly short time-

All I can do now
Is write another of my kind of poems-

Whether they be worth anything,
Or not.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Wrote My Last Romantic Love Poem A Long Time Ago

I wrote my last romantic love poem a long time ago-
Now I write quieter poems
Poems of the pleasure of the old-
A walk in the morning
A sudden turn of sunlight on a cold cold day
A small kindness I may do
Or someone may do for me
Poems of love for my family
And of sadness at the sickness of my friends
Quiet poems
That do not know the wildness of passion
The bitterness of love disappointed
The up and down motions
Of when she does and when she doesn’t
And all her yeses and nos-
I write quiet poems
And I live happily in them
And I sometimes think with sadness
Of the great passion there was once-
But I am old now
And happy and quiet in small things
Grandchildren, among the best of them.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Poem

THIS POEM

This poem
This first poem
This last poem
This poem that invented Poetry
This one and only one poem
This fictional poem
This ideal poem
This perfect poem
This would – be holy poem
This unreal poem
This poem which is not a poem
This poem which is the essence of all poetry
This poem
And that poem
And my poem
And your poem
And all poems
Poem poem poem poem poem
This poem
Mine and yours
This one small poem of so so many
And not such a good poem at all.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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What Is A Jewish Poem?

WHAT IS A JEWISH POEM?

What is a Jewish poem?
‘Shema’ is a Jewish poem
Perhaps the Jewish poem-
'Shmoneh Esreh' is comprised of Jewish poems
Nineteen prayers as one-
Our history is filled with Jewish poems-
From the beginning with Abraham and Sarah
Those who have given so much beyond our understanding -
Jewish poems everywhere -

Is each Jewish life a poem and a story also?
Or is it only those who give something to our people and history
Who are worthy of Poetry?

I have known many Jewish poems
People the great world will not know the names of
People who whether they walked humbly or not
Made the lives of others better in some way –

Kindness is perhaps the ultimate Jewish poem
And Justice also-
And Jewish poems are not without their contradictions –

As I write this poem in Jerusalem in the land of Israel
I think of the small Jewish world of Troy New York where I came from so many years ago
And miss so many people no longer of that and this world –

Longing for Israel for two thousand years was the Jewish poem
Living here now is a blessing and a gift
I thank God for.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My Poems Are Small

MY POEMS ARE SMALL

My poems are small
As I am small-
A small poet,
If at all.

I

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Are There Ever Too Many Poems?

ARE THERE EVER TOO MANY POEMS?

Are there ever too many poems?
Will the world fall down
If there is one small poem more?

Here we are, my poem and I-
Sitting on a park bench
In the morning sun
In Jerusalem.
What could be holier
For an old Yid
than that?

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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This Poem Is Not A Dream

THIS POEM IS NOT A DREAM

This poem is not a dream
It comes from where so many true poems come
From the other side of the mind
When it does not know peace -
From the waking desire
The hunger that is not satisfied
The lonely life and the lonely mind-
It comes from the search for love
And the love itself – the joy of love-
And from the memory of what we most deeply know when we are ourselves in love of another-
This poem is not a dream-
It comes from the waking world and the waking words-
The hard truths the bitter small things
The disappointments and rejections
The endless small humiliations which Time and Chance make of us all-
This poem comes from where we are most human
With the pain of those closest to us-
And our longing to save them and be loved forever by them-
The dream is not the poem
Life in its all its endless difficulties is the poem
And this poem too
Does not say half of all the hurt I have suffered in this one small day alone.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem -Written On The Small Pad

THE POEM / WRITTEN ON THE SMALL PAD

The poem/
Written on the small pad
In the almond tree park
Intersection Disraeli- Alkalai
The poem of the past days
The poem of the light – rain beginning,

Another Jerusalem poem-
Four- thousand years of Jerusalem poems
I from Troy, New York
Thirty- five years in Israel
Nearly sixty- eight years of age
Write.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Poem Of The Evening

THE POEM OF THE EVENING

The poem of the evening
Is a small poem
It waits for its own words
And hears itself come slowly and surely
It knows by the time the darkness is here
It will already be real.

The poem of the evening
Is an easy and small poem
It may not mean much
But it comes so smoothly
It seems to laugh at the heat of the day
And love itself for being here.

The poem of the evening
After the long day
Is a happy poem

And it looks forward to praying the evening prayer forever.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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There Are Days No Poem Can Be Written

THERE ARE DAYS NO POEM CAN BE WRITTEN

There are days no poem can be written
Grief and worry frighten the poem away
Yet the poem lives hidden
For our darkest moments our loneliest fears
Too need their poetry.

Poetry is a way of saying all we need to say
It is our deepest feeling most deeply expressed
It is all we are
The whole of our being
In words.

When a poet dies
Words die
When I will die
All I am will no longer be able to write
One more poem.

How afraid I am in the night
And how dark in the early morning before I rise
But now that I am here
Writing this
A bit of hope begins in me
And I can dream that
When I walk out the door
a few minutes from now
A new day will begin.

How many days I have left
How many poems to write
I do not know.

It is not light yet
And the darkness is still here
But I will feel the morning again
This morning
Thank G-d
You have given me so many poems.
A few small words
help me believe
I truly am alive.
.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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An Afternoon Poem Is Rare

AN AFTERNOON POEM IS RARE

An Afternoon Poem is rare-
Afternoon is long after the first light-
Afternoon is a time of heaviness and quiet
A time of rest-

Afternoon is after the morning work has been done-
Afternoon is the weight of the day-
Afternoon is the time after the day has lost its freshness-

Still there must be afternoon poems-
There must be a beauty that emerges
In its own way,
Perhaps from where lovers meet
Perhaps from ‘ripeness is all’
Perhaps from the anticipation of evening
Perhaps from winter where it is the warmest time of day.

There must be afternoon poems-
Poems that celebrate all that warmth can bring-
Poems of rest poems of sleep-
Poems of waiting to believe
That in the evening
A new day and a new world
Will make life easier again.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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An Evening Poem

AN EVENING POEM

An evening poem
Waits for deeper darkness
A night poem knows blackness
As home.
A morning poem is light
An afternoon poem is thick with heat.

All times have a poem
And all seasons poems also
All lives are poems
And all stories also.

We all are and all know poems
Poems pervade us
And the universe.

It is night now
But when the morning comes
Its poem will overshadow now.

What a brave new world it is
With so many poems in it
And what a life-
With such deep sadness
Waiting forever to be unexpressed.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Oh The Poems And More Poems

OH THE POEMS AND THE MORE POEMS

Oh the poems and the more poems
The wonderful poems I am writing all the time
God has given me this gift
And when I wait in the right way
And when I listen to myself properly
The poems come in ways I could never have thought of or imagined before
They come as mysteries as gifts as surprises
As wonderful to me as perhaps to you their possible readers
Oh the poems and the more poems
The wonderful poems God has given me
And the light of this day and so many other days, also.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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There Is No Poem For Me Today

THERE IS NO POEM FOR ME TODAY

There is no poem for me today
There is no poem of yesterday
The poems have gone
And far away
There is no poem
For another day.

There never will be another poem
Poems are gone
Poems are stone.

All the words I will ever write
Are not enough
For a Poem of Life.

The Poems are not
They will never be
I am not a Poem
Nor Poetry.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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