When I first came on to Substack, I had multiple issues with internet connectivity (I live in internet hell); and unfamiliarity with the current web jargon (It has changed a lot since I first worked on a Commodore 64). So, I am republishing two works where they should have been published with apologies to those sites that I “bombed”. I’m still looking for the same thing that others see in my work, whether art or writing, and welcome any responses.
I was guilty of poem bombing other writers — trying to find out whether I could really call myself a writer. That was then. Now, In know I’m “a writer” because published or not, I still keep writing. And beyond that revelation, the MS candidates for professional writers is not my cup of tea. I’m older now, and my writing (as it has always been) is observational. Some would call it cathartic, in private, I call it writing myths for the future. Human behavior is predictable and yet unfathomable. That understanding can make it much easier to record and shape the study of behavior, and I believe that the arts in their various forms have the ability to transcend time and place. It can take the unfathomable into the predictable through the response of a person who responds to great works (and sometime, not so great works).
TWO POEMS - Free Form
Graduation Day
Once when I was young
And saw the evening star as something
Beautiful and rare,
And longed to share that deeply dusky air
With others,
I spoke of my desire to one who cared —
And blushed like any bride.
But she whispered: “wait — and live!”
And so I did.
And now, returned, I need to tell you Pam;
You did not tell me of the tears that I would pay.
The years of standing at the window looking in
At the many gowned and sequined feaster’s
Who would not care
To see the mirror in my eyes.
Rain
Rain comes
Like a ritual at sundown:
In the between time
Before the night claims ascendency.
There will be just enough dew left
with daybreak — jewels in the in the crown of the day.
You are older and wiser, knowing now that the most important validation comes from yourself. I am still working on it. I loved the rain poem, the image of the dew and reminder of the coming morning.
Poems can illustrate a moment of time in life or they can illustrate life in the time of a moment. When we feal writing is a gift from God, it may be a ten talent gift, a five talent gift or a one talent gift. All are important but never waste even a one talent gift from God.
You are older and wiser, knowing now that the most important validation comes from yourself. I am still working on it. I loved the rain poem, the image of the dew and reminder of the coming morning.
Thank you!
Poems can illustrate a moment of time in life or they can illustrate life in the time of a moment. When we feal writing is a gift from God, it may be a ten talent gift, a five talent gift or a one talent gift. All are important but never waste even a one talent gift from God.