Poetry

The Man Who Loves Buildings

by

by Carmen Mason  

 

The man who loves buildings
Measures earth and stone and firmament
Looks long at scale and space and dominance
He searches for the widest space to set them in, he lets them spread
He worships icons
And sees himself in his imaginings
He fills with fervor and desire ~
Connemara marble, rare straw-colored brick
Become adornments to his own attire.
Soon he gives them all his time
Becomes the edifice, the artifice.

A wise woman

builds instead what she can live within
And if need be, tear down.

 

My raso:

This poem got birthed after I watched a documentary on Stanford White. It came slowly like the strain of a vague, vague song you heard in a department store weeks ago that won’t give up but sticks in the recess of your skull; you keep humming it and giving it these words that are not lyrics or complete ideas at all and are really rather foreign.

*Raso – when, why or how a writing  came to be

 

Carmen Mason: I have been writing poetry and prose much of my life. I’ve been published, won prizes but realize I write most for myself — to express, explore, expunge and exhort.

 

 

 

 

Oases

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by Howard Seeman

I am at the piano 5 years old.
My mother teaching me
is still with me.
That me
is still with me.
____________________________________________________

I watch TV with my sister in bed.
We are 5 and 3
and hear my young father singing.
____________________________________________________

I pet my dog Major
and he and I remember.
Tho’ he died 57 years ago.
____________________________________________________

Sometimes I see the picture of
my beloved friend Danny
gone.
Now inside me.
_______________________________________________

Listening to my daughter
I am suddenly in a garden
drinking her.
___________________________________________________
And now with my beloved driving,
I comfort her,
my hand on her lap.

 

Howard Seeman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, CUNY; Education Consultant, Life-Coach – has been writing poetry for over 60 years. He taught poetry in high school, led poetry groups and conducted workshops on: “Centering Yourself Thru Writing Poetry”, and is a Certified Poetry Therapist. His poems have been published in local journals, and in a book: Unlike Almost Everything Else in the Universe: Aware of Being Alive.

Harbor

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by Mary R. Smith

I found a scruffy beach
on New York Harbor,
arranged
driftwood, zinnias,
a sunflower in sand.

Family huddled
on bleached logs,
took silk bags of ashes,
undid them in the surf,
waters quieted,
particles vanished.

Seals have returned
to this harbor
after a century,
sidestroke near pilings,
heads slick as paint,
scrutinizing
our gazes.
Tunneling away,
gliding in currents,
they sweep
irretrievable traces.

 

“Learning to write poems is a journey – both a struggle and a delight.”