Poetry

by Elaine Weisburg

While we drift past painted cottages, onion domes, birch groves,

Yale Professor Steinberg lectures on the Russian intellectual’s obsession with
peasants:
One image sees them patient, suffering, compassionate, in touch with nature,
another image sees debauched savages.

Steinberg explains a deviation from the announced program,
“You haven’t seen the arranged-for correct
convent because someone stole the money
the travel agents sent. You should not have been
charged for seeing Dionysus in the compromise cathedral
and you should have been told why you should have seen it.
You have just had a real Russian experience.”

In Uglich at a bend in the Volga, a small languid city founded
in the tenth century, I stand spellbound at the spot
where henchmen of Boris Godunov murdered nine-year-old Dmitri,
the only heir of Ivan the Terrible. Two steps away a woman is
selling gorgeous rag dolls in ornate peasant dresses.

Among the notes from a lecture on Turgenev,
“We haven’t decided the existence of God
and you want to EAT? !! ”

Elaine was a design reporter and features editor at House & Garden and House Beautiful for more than three decades. She is also a memoirist but only dared to attempt poetry in Sarah White’s class.

by Elaine Weisburg

I’ll seduce her as a goose thought Zeus
On meeting Leda.
A second thought made him deduce
She’d find a swan was sweeter.
Antiope, now, she got a satyr,
Fair Europa faced a bull,
Identities were rather loose
For Zeus, whose card was full.

Elaine was a design reporter and features editor at House & Garden and House Beautiful for more than three decades. She is also a memoirist but only dared to attempt poetry in Sarah White’s class.

by Walter Weglein

Above me, 180 planes an hour stutter,
approaching Newark.
On my right, just yards away, trains toot,
tracking to Hoboken.
On nearby roads, ceaseless traffic seeks the City.

To my left, in a little park, children shout, run and splash.
I lounge in my lush garden,
a giant pine shading my little red house.
High in the blue, white streaks etch the sky, blur and vanish—

Walter Weglein:
Word Power
A writer all his life,
he’s never thought to strive
to write a poem.

But 18 years in IRP
have given him the “chops” to see
he can show ’em!

by Fred Shinagel

He wasn’t a swinger of  birches.
He was a kicker of stones.
Down the earthen path.
Down the broken street.
 
Impulse
Movement
Impact
 
Control
Contact
Satisfaction
 
Boys know the rooted feeling.
Men remember as well.
 
So different from skipping them on a still pond.
 

Fred Shinagel: Retired from Wall Street, a neighbor of The New School for 49 years, a graduate of the Cooper Union and MIT, has again found expression via the right side of his brain with charcoal, pencil and poetry.

by Howard Seeman

Boy do I appreciate the coming of Fall,
as I am tired of the heat of Summer.
 
Boy do I appreciate the coming of Winter,
as it helps me balm the fading beauty of Fall
and lays a dark carpet for the wonder of Spring.
 
Boy do I appreciate the coming of Spring,
as it renews my strength for life
and melts away my cover ups.
 
Boy do I appreciate the coming of Summer,
as it warms and frees me to go out again.
 
Boy do I appreciate the coming of Fall,
as I am tired of the heat of Summer.
 

Professor Emeritus, C.U.N.Y.; Life Coach at: E Coaching for Helping Professionals; Education Consultant on Classroom Problems at: Pro-Ed Media: Classroom Management Online; Published poet at: Howard Seeman’s Book of Poetry.

by Carol Schoen

The storm ravaged
the beach on the isle;
waves assaulted the lighthouse,
ripped out the pines by their roots.
They leaned against each other,
spindly poles, their needles,
a shawl to hide their dying.
 

Hurricanes were the island’s history.
Earlier ones had wiped out
real estate developments, orange
plantations, a rich man’s estate
until finally the land
was sowed with fast-
growing, shallow-rooted
Australian pines.  Feathery
needles provided shelter
for the raccoon come to
its narrow sandy shore.
 

Our favorite place
for swims in the waveless
sea, party picnics, wine
to salute the sun’s good-bye.
After the storm, we wandered
back.  Most of the fallen
trees had been removed, a few
rotted in damp mud.  When
we took out the food,  gaunt
raccoons emerged from the devastated forest, stood
silent, then shuffled
towards us.
 

Carol Schoen wrote her first poems for Sarah White’s study group and has been chugging along happily ever since.

by Carol Schoen

A pointillist pen
sparkles a limb,
flakes dance between branches.
pillow the ground
blanket smooth.
White-pink petals
float around yellow green,
perfume the  air,
dazzle finches,
cushion the earth,
prophesy bounty.
 

Milkweed bursts open.
Feathered arrows
punctuate the meadow,
tree limbs sag too soon,
blue asters reflect the sky.
 

Burgundy ignites branches:
leaves crackle and crunch
whisper warning
of winter. A pointillist
pen sparkles a limb.
 

Carol Schoen wrote her first poems for Sarah White’s study group and has been chugging along happily ever since.

by Mireya Perez

Parma, Italy

 
Beyond basilicas, walled-in cities,
Mosaics, Tintoretto’s and Madonnas
Here in Italia she wanted to see a wedding.
Close to 5 p.m. feasting on formaggio, pomodori
and foccacia
on that stone bench the basilica in front
looking across the piazza
a sudden flicker, a glint of gold
caught her eye
the shining from the little girl’s feet
climbing the steps to the basilica
below her pale rose ankle-length gown
held by the elegant blonde woman in the white suit
and towering heels
 
as slim, dark-suited men began to cluster
by the marbled walls
below them yellow taxis spill forth
gesturing, tanned, silky women in three-inch heels
 
who pick a path through the cobblestones
to the entrance steps
as a sparkling Alfa Romeo coupe
trailing white tulle stops directly
under the main gate of the basilica.
Ancient wood groans to open revealing rose garlanded
stone pillars beyond
waiting prelates
the organ’s breathing strains
the choir’s “alleluias”
Quickly she crossed to the basilica
smiling
knowing
wishes do happen
sometimes.
 

Mireya’s poems leap from English to Spanish and back again, invoking an array of spirits. Her poetry appears in Caribbean Review, Revista del Hada, NYU Poetry Review, and in Anthology of Colombian Women Poets, among other places.

by Mireya Perez

The photograph of my father’s family
When he was 14 standing
Behind his father reading the
Newspaper and his younger brother
In the communion outfit in the
Left front and to the right mamá
Abuela so elegant in her silk pumps
And fox-collared dress coat
With baby Tita on the floor by the
Vase where Tia Julia the oldest
Was dropping a lily next to her
Sister Bertha by the velvet drape
And to her side Tia Nina in
First communion veil and dress with
Pretty Tia Alicia protectively behind.
 

In my new home
I place it on my desk’s
Upper shelf in a copper frame
To remind me of who I am.
 

Mireya’s poems leap from English to Spanish and back again, invoking an array of spirits. Her poetry appears in Caribbean Review, Revista del Hada, NYU Poetry Review, and in Anthology of Colombian Women Poets, among other places.

by Carmen Mason

At another time
a woman would have married
all the men
I have loved:
bright achievers
repentent
devout and
reverent choirboys
resonating hymns

Sometimes
I did believe in them
I could confess to them
I could hail Mary for them
but not drink blood
place wafered flesh
upon my tongue and swallow;
worship and
down the chalice
of their thin, sweet wine

Always, I have been looking
for a Jesus
(shame on me )
who, not knowing
who he was,
what was expected
of him.
would walk upon my heart
like palm leaves
and with his smile
pluck the thorns
and turn them
into roses

Carmen Mason has been writing poems since she was six, has won poetry prizes throughout the years, has been published in small magazines and enjoys sharing her poetry at open mikes. She writes short stories and memoir, but feels her most intrinsic ‘voice’ is a poetic one.