Poem for the week: "The Art of the Movie Actor"

The Art of the Movie Actor

Here and now is never there and then

but there and then is always here and now,

and it takes forever to get to there and then

from here and now, and that’s life here

and there in the movies.

Sarah Jessica Parker, playing Vivienne Carella,

singer-musician-songwriter diagnosed with

terminal brain cancer and fated to die with or

without surgery in Netflix’s Here and Now,

redeemed herself to me.

More artifice than art in the roles she played,

a fatal flaw in Parkers career, as credible as she

could thespianly be, so fraught was the here

and now of her condemned life in Here and Now

that she won me over and made me cry, and

that`s the art of the movie actor.

New poem: "Post-election Blues"

 Post-election Blues

Man’s proclivity for stupidity never ceases to

to astonish me; why is that? We know what

to do to win the game, but that damn ego/shadow

always gets in the way; why is that? Brown face,

black face, white face, it doesn’t matter to the

human race, ignorance always divides us; why

is that? Canadian/American citizenship, pro-life

or pro-choice, same-sex marriage, in the great

cosmic scheme of things, does it really matter?

And wearing a turban in Quebec could violate

Bill 21, but proud Jagmeet Singh bared his head

to show that he was no different, not to mention the

Machiavellian spawn that covets to be a sovereign

nation within our great nation, holding Democracy

by the throat, and the fear-mongering leprechaun

and her one-trick pony show, followed by “Mad

Max,” who cut off his Conservative nose to spite

his impudent face; so much nonsense in this

federal election that I nearly lost heart. All the

same, I exercised my democratic right  

and hoped for the best.

Poem for the week" "The Miracle"

The Miracle

One day I saw God kneeling,

praying for a miracle;

and down here, in the nitty-gritty,

of this world, I heard man cry,

“Why, God?”

The rape and murder of a child,

and, of course, always the holocaust;

misery upon misery, an endless

stream of pain and tears; and

God prayed harder.

Then I saw all the suffering in the

world filling the hole in man’s soul;

and God stood tall and straight

with a smile upon his face,

grateful for the miracle.

Follow-up poem: "In Memory of Harold Bloom"

In Memory of Harold Bloom

“The time when we shall see, hear, and do no more

is nigh in one’s later eighties,” wrote professor Bloom,

“the world’s greatest literary critic,” bringing his last

book Possessed by Memory: The Inward Light of  

Criticism to closure (there may be more posthumous

books), and his nigh became fact Monday, October 14,

2019, Canada’s Thanksgiving Day, when the inveterate

teacher of the world’s great literature crossed the Great

Divide at the age of 89 in New Haven, Connecticut,

forlorn and melancholy, unable to appease his restless

spirit with the world’s great literature that he read and

reread with preternatural speed, much of which he

could recite at will so prodigious was his memory, a

literary savant whose brilliance drew me like a moth

to a flame, and now he’s gone, no more. “The rest is

silence,” he would say, quoting his god William

Shakespeare. Dead but not gone, he will live forever

in his many books, the melancholy light of his life-long

endeavor to satisfy the longing in his soul for meaning

and purpose that he failed to glean, “a tale told by an

idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing,”

an irony much too deep for tears.

New poem: "The Greatest Literary Critic"

The Greatest Literary Critic

He died in New Haven, Connecticut,

October 14, 2019, the day we give thanks

for the bounty of the year, “Turkey Day,”

we call it in our home in beautiful Georgian

Bay. He was 89 and in failing health; so, it

wasn’t unexpected, and I didn’t cry. But he

brought me to tears whenever he talked of

literature, reciting whichever poet to make

his point, the magnitude of his memory

was so scary—he could recite Shakespeare

and Paradise Lost at will; but he died lonely,

and unresolved. For all of its genius, literature

could not satisfy the longing in his soul to be

whole and complete, like the acorn seed

that became a mighty oak tree; he died,

merely, the greatest literary critic.

Poem for the week: "My Foolish Tongue"

My Foolish Tongue

It hurt to say what I did without thinking,

it hurt her, but it hurt me more than her;

but I said what I did because I cared,

and that’s the irony of love.

Why do we hurt those we love?

We care for them, we long for them,

we cry for them, and we would die for them;

but we hurt them all the same.

I thought about what I said to her last night,

and it took hours before I fell asleep;

but when morning came, I saw my error

and vowed to make amends.

It’s happened before, two or three times—

maybe more; but always one more time too many,

and it seems to take forever to heal the wounds

of my foolish tongue.

Poem for the week: "Whispers from Eternity"

Whispers from Eternity

I heard eternity speak to me yesterday,

a whisper so sweet, it took my breath away.

I could not believe what I heard, so simple

was its truth; and all judgment vanished.

What could possibly free me of this

resentful spirit, this demon of arrogant pride?

This instinct—natural or man-made, I do not know;

a foul blend of many misperceptions.

A whisper so gentle, so understanding and

forgiving, like the fragrance of a garden rose.

“Every path leads to the self,” eternity whispered

to me. “Your path brought you home.

 Respect the path of others, and trust God

to bring them home too.”

And I listened.