Poetry 1
Steve Evans
Continuum is a poetic dialogue among friends. There are often several responses to a given thought. As time went on, Troika became the preferred conversation. Troika is the linear combination of Haiku, Cinquain and Tanka, traditional Japanese poetic forms. This is the first group of poems.
The new series (poetry 2) is available HERE
HAIKUS
This summer day in
February. What a tease!
Mud between your toes.
The one old window
in my home lets the wind speak freely. I listen.
Tomorrow words will
come to give us love for those
who do not love us.
The collar tears on
my favorite old flannel shirt.
Time to sew my soul.
TROIKA
New to the cold air,
our faces tighten and brace
against the morning.
Nights have
lost their softness.
The moon, still mystery,
is now subtle and evasive.
Distant.
This is the time we
feel vulnerability.
We protect ourselves,
look at our reflection, but
the mirror is unsilvered.
Troika for Esther
(1919 - 2005)
Your body breaks. Not
a surprise, not expected,
but now accepted.
Waiting
becomes present
tense. You made your
wedding
dress on the train.
He waits for you.
Your time
does not have tense. His
time calls you. We say goodbye.
We were your future
our ages ago. We say
goodbye together to you.
TROIKA
Anyway you look
at it, truth is difficult.
Saying it matters.
There are
alternatives.
Black is white, fire is rain,
a total eclipse of the sun
tonight.
Singing quietly
just a simple melody,
almost a whisper,
every note more softly,
until the cadence is all.
Troika
My old clarinet.
So many years forgotten.
Then the case opens.
The smell
is still the same.
Velveteen, wood and spit.
Unencumbered raw memories.
The reed,
encased and dormant,
wants to sing again. My mouth
hopes for harmony.
Some notes begin.
Breathy and
free. The rest
will wait their time.
RECITATIVE
So these three muses are sitting together
in a bar.
Muses, you know,
they dress weird;
really provocative,
but weird.
Anyway, while talking about
clients and all,
Clytemnestra blurts out
(they have weird names)
"Why are they all so
NeeDee?"
"What's the BiG deel?"
Argentenio counters,
"FeerFactoR!" "IdenTiTeeCrysis"!
and several more
Blah-blahs.
Blog, (no gender distinction)
eying the other two slowly,
-- sighs.
MONHEGAN ISLAND, MAINE
(for Andrew Wyeth)
Andrew came for the light
and gave us the crippled,
backlit beauty
of the long grass.
"Christina's World" is protected
by ten miles of six foot seas
and sometimes sun
and sometimes not.
- However -
(?) She really wasofhis
other(s) light(s).
S(he),
hermits of Mannana,
unison cripples.
The Light - his light - their light - light.
Barbara Van Noord
I tried to walk
in Christina's shoes,
but could not,
she could not.
My grass green as hers
Wyeth gold,
A thousand spears
Softened
Are my bed.
Here, ant armies
carry out their duties
to the last.
Here, beetles
with rainbows
on their backs,
small creatures
I have no name for,
citizens of a plentiful
civilization
living underfoot.
A white moth
pauses on my arm,
the cloth
that covers my hip
slips
fresh and grass-stained.
Jared Peabody Hoke
Such bright longing, Christina!
Such incandescent angst.
Hide in plain sight.
Allow the untroubled grasses
Their climactic conversation
With the sun;
The burbling brook its run to the sea;
The beetles their tiny triumphs.
The timeless tumult goes on
And all have their place
Except you.
Winter Trilogy
Sudden thunder in
January. An only
moment. No reason.
Quiet
showers follow.
With no cold and no snow.
Maybe a nightingale will sing
tonight?
Maybe it will be
easier to sleep tonight.
Just one simple thing
at a time. Maybe on this
coldless night, a dragonfly.
Clear night, dark night, still.
Whisps of memories collapse
into cold breath and
are gone.
A plastic tree
carries my Christmas lights
this year. She passed it onto me,
somehow
knowing that it was
the right thing to do. Funny
how life has a way
of giving and forgiving;
of giving in forgiving.
I remember when
the lake spoke in December.
Slowly, while turning
into
ice. Beginning
softly. Swelling, and then
Fortissimo! The long echoes!
Cracking!
And then the silence.
The nothingness. The no sound.
And then the soft moans
began under the surface.
This I remember.
Troika for Family
Her last drop rippled
away. Breath and hearing the
last to go. Stubborn.
His last
alone. Among
strangers. His unspoken
courage of War years in photos,
letters.
We pass them and breathe.
She sings "Summertime, and the
livin' is easy".
Rings and ashes now are one.
Our living room is so big.
HAIKUS
Dedication: Jim Mayzik, S.J.
Our paths are either
comings or goings. The end
is not the finish.
The way we say it
changes. What we say does not.
The joy among friends.
Well, I guess it's time
to fall in love with the Earth
all over again.