I Wait in Never-Ending Silence by Jane Karina (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

I Wait in Never-Ending Silence
by Jane Karina

For years I wait,
in silence,
never-ending
silence.

The endless cosmos
turning
and turning
while I await
its stop.

A sun wails for
attention in a
desperate bid
for success.

The earth grumbles
in a rocking chair
swaying back and forth
with rhythm
for an old man.

A cycle grows
of breathing
and choking.
The cycle continues.

The air follows out
into the ocean
tides
to be swallowed
and be no more.

Still I wait
in never-ending
silence:

For life,
for death,
for rebirth.

IMAGE: “Silence” by Arthur Beecher Carles (1908).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jane Karina is currently a soon-to-be undergraduate student aspiring to be a criminal psychologist. While waiting for university to start, she fills time by swimming and other sports, writing fiction and writing on her blog, and various other activities. Visit her at fluencyofwords.wordpress.com.

Waiting On My Kite To Fall by Catfish McDaris (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

WAITING ON MY KITE TO FALL
by Catfish McDaris

Waiting on the first and last leaves
Waiting for the snow to come and go
Waiting for the yes or no

Waiting for John Prine to sing about a half
an enchilada and Jesus and the missing years
Waiting for my daughter to speak to me
again after ten long years of silence

Waiting on my wife to laugh so hard she cries
Waiting to see and hear the chevrons of geese
and the hopping robins and parrot tulips

Waiting for the tears to dry.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Catfish McDaris served in the Army artillery for three years shooting 155 MM Howitzers. He appeared in The Lowdown 2013 edited by Robert M. Zoschke dedicated to Lawrence Ferlinghetti with his art on the front cover and his work and photo included.

IMAGE: “Geese in Flight” by Ohara Koson (1877-1945).

Still Waiting by Perry S. Nicholas (I Am Waiting Poetry Series)

STILL WAITING
And I am waiting/for the storms of life/ to be over—Ferlinghetti
by Perry S. Nicholas

I am waiting for my earned peace.

Now I wait for doctors to stop poking
this aging, hairless body,
for my heart rate to drop below 100.

I wait for neighbors to take down
Repeal the Safe Act signs,
replace them with He is coming.

For electronic insanity to subdue,
for people to look each other in the eye again.
To tire of the silliness of machines and screens.

I suppose I am waiting for someone to talk to.
I suppose I’m still waiting for time to tell.
For my struggle to end, strain to loosen.

My head spins wanting something new,
waiting for it to make up its mind.
About a lot of things, but mostly about the present.

Is it worth an effort to accept the past?
Or bear the weight of never knowing?

I’ve been waiting a long time for quick answers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Perry S. Nicholas is an Associate English professor at Erie Community College North in Buffalo, New York. His books of poetry are: The River of You, What the World Sees, Small Crafts, Beginnings, and The Company We Keep with poet Maria Sebastian-Nicholas. Perry has recorded one CD of poetry called I’ve Written Too Many Poems.

IMAGE: “Blue Night” by Edward Hopper (1914).

Self-Portrait, poem by Linda Pastan

SELF-PORTRAIT
(After Adam Zagajewski)
by Linda Pastan

I am child to no one, mother to a few,
wife for the long haul.
On fall days I am happy
with my dying brethren, the leaves,
but in spring my head aches
from the flowery scents.
My husband fills a room with Mozart
which I turn off, embracing
the silence as if it were an empty page
waiting for me alone to fill it.
He digs in the black earth
with his bare hands. I scrub it
from the creases of his skin, longing
for the kind of perfection
that happens in books.
My house is my only heaven.
A red dog sleeps at my feet, dreaming
of the manic wings of flushed birds.
As the road shortens ahead of me
I look over my shoulder
to where it curves back
to childhood, its white line
bisecting the real and the imagined
the way the ridgepole of the spine
divides the two parts of the body, leaving
the soft belly in the center
vulnerable to anything.
As for my country, it blunders along
as well intentioned as Eve choosing
cider and windfalls, oblivious
to the famine soon to come.
I stir pots, bury my face in books, or hold
a telephone to my ear as if its cord
were the umbilicus of the world
whose voices still whisper to me
even after they have left their bodies.

SOURCE: Poetry (October 1997).

IMAGE: “Ohhh…Alright…” by Roy Lichtenstein (1964). In November 2010, “Ohhh…Alright…” sold for $42.6 million during an auction at Christie’s in New York.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda Pastan has published a dozen books of poetry and a number of essays. Her awards include the Dylan Thomas Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award (Poetry Society of America), the Bess Hokin Prize (Poetry Magazine), the 1986 Maurice English Poetry Award (for A Fraction of Darkness), the Charity Randall Citation of the International Poetry Forum, and the 2003 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Two of her collections of poems were nominated for the National Book Award and one for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. From 1991–1995, she was Poet Laureate of Maryland.

The Train, poem by David Orr

THE TRAIN
by David Orr

Not that anyone will care,
But as I was sitting there

On the 8:07
To New Haven,

I was struck by lightning.
The strangest thing

Wasn’t the flash of my hair
Catching on fire,

But the way people pretended
Nothing had happened.

For me, it was real enough.
But it seemed as if

The others saw this as nothing
But a way of happening,

A way to get from one place
To another place,

But not a place itself.
So, ignored, I burned to death.

Later, someone sat in my seat
And my ashes ruined his suit.

PAINTING: “Chair Car,” oil on canvas by Edward Hopper (1965).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Orr is the poetry columnist for the New York Times Book Review. Winner of the Nona Balakian Prize from the National Book Critics Circle and the Editor’s Prize for Reviewing from Poetry magazine, his writing has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Believer, and Pleiades magazine. Orr holds a B.A. from Princeton and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He is the author of Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry (HarperCollins, 2011), available at Amazon.com. Visit him at davidorr.com.

Travel, poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, painting by Edward Hopper

TRAVEL 
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing;
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.

PAINTING: “Compartment C, Car 293,” oil on canvas by Edward Hopper (1938).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry. During her career, she was one of the most successful and respected poets in America. Like her contemporary Robert Frost, Millay was one of the most skillful writers of sonnets during the twentieth century — and also like Frost, she was able to combine modernist attitudes with traditional forms, creating a unique American poetry. Her middle name came from St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, where she was born. Friends and family called her Vincent.

Summer Rains, haiku by Matsuo Basho

SUMMER RAINS
by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694)

Early summer rains
so heavy
they obscure the waterfall

ART: “Rain,” woodblock by Hirokazu Fukuda. Limited edition prints available at new.uniquejapan.com.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Hirokazu Fukuda (1944-2004) was born and raised in the Tochigi prefecture, an area about an hour north of Tokyo surrounded by mountains and hills to the east, west, and north, with the Kanto Plains lie to the south. Hirokazu planned to become a professional classic guitarist but suffered a hand injury at a young age. Seeking a medium to express his creativity, he first worked with the canvas, then moved on to become a master woodblock artist. According to family and friends, he always hoped that his work would touch the heart of those around him.

In the Library, poem by Charles Simic

IN THE LIBRARY
by Charles Simic

There’s a book called
“A Dictionary of Angels.”
No one has opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered

The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.

Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.

She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.

IMAGE: “Concert of Angels” (1535) by Gaudenzio Ferrari. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Charles Simic was born on May 9, 1938, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. In 1953, he left Yugoslavia with his mother and brother to join his father in the United States. In 1961, he was drafted into the U.S. Army, and in 1966 earned his Bachelor’s degree from New York University. His first full-length collection of poems, What the Grass Says, was published the following year. He has published more than 60 books including Jackstraws (1999), Walking the Black Cat (1996), and The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (1990), winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2000, his many awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. When appointed U.S. Poet Laureate — a post he served from 2007-2008 — he said, “I am especially touched and honored to be selected because I am an immigrant boy who didn’t speak English until I was 15.” 

colours, poem and painting by Brinda Buljore

colours
by Brinda Buljore

colours spread
in creamy textures
water the bride
child of sun
and earth
filled with green dwarfs
yellow yolks
fiery reds
blooming violets
into values
rich with spring’s sap
under the winter covers
of powdered snow
flows with ease
into the dry crevices
of the sanded paper…

Painting by Brinda Buljore

ABOUT THE POET/ARTIST: Brinda Buljore is a writer and artist who lives in Paris.

The Addressing of Cats, poem by T.S. Eliot

THE ADDRESSING OF CATS
by T.S. Eliot

You’ve read of several kinds of Cat,
And my opinion now is that
You should need no interpreter
To understand their character.
You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are same and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse–
But all may be described in verse.
You’ve seen them both at work and games,
And learnt about their proper names,
Their habits and their habitat:
But how would you address a Cat?

So first, your memory I’ll jog,
And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.

And you might now and then supply
Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie,
Some potted grouse, or salmon paste–
He’s sure to have his personal taste.
(I know a Cat, who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit,
And when he’s finished, licks his paws
So’s not to waste the onion sauce.)
A Cat’s entitled to expect
These evidences of respect.
And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.

So this is this, and that is that:
And there’s how you ADDRESS A CAT.

PAINTING: “Blue Cat, Green Eyes” by Walasse Ting