The following three poems are also from my collection “Devotion to Heroes.”
The Poet-Artist
Poetry’s a bumbling and a fumbling art,
an art that’s finished before you start.
It fits the shape of a container,
on a page it’s the remainder
of all the thoughts you’ve thought;
it’s turning what you’ve thought to naught,
then turning back again.
It’s picking up again your pen.
It’s writing after you’ve not for years,
conceding all your most concealed fears;
it’s fighting might and main.
It’s writing for soldiers twain.
It’s paying homage and writing odes,
it’s bearing good names and turning toads
into princes; its common task
is to take from us our stoic mask,
writing outside or in a chair,
writing everything everywhere,
every emotion of mortal part
laid by every mortal heart
to tell you of its pain, its love
for things here and up above.
The poet’s an adventurer
who’s of love sound and also surer,
who writes within the space
of his heart, the face
of this most immortal art.
And so I raise my grateful glass
to every poet now and past.
From bards all down the line:
grant that what inspired you might also be mine.
The Astronaut
There is no oxygen in the void of space.
I would not go there; too fearful am I,
but there are others who face the sky
and boldly live their lives;
the astronaut for science strives.
To those who seek to raise the roof
of being, and proof
of wonders overlay,
say I: to outer space, and away!
Bravery instilled in many forms,
breaking all our thought-of norms:
the astronaut’s a walker of space,
he or she goes to that place
where others will not go,
far beyond the reach of a stone’s throw
the astronaut in space patrols
how a ship ventures, through space rolls
and touches down again.
Sure the astronaut’s also glad when.
To walkers of space I’m not quite akin,
My courage, I’m afraid, is quite too far thin.
So, to those brave enough to try,
I say: beyond with you! To the sky!
Woman
Call me niña,
señorita,
Fräulein,
dame,
la belle dame sans merci,
call me shedder of all tears,
call me person of great fears
or staunchly on my own,
call me lovely to make others groan,
call me sister, good architect,
surrogate, subject, queen:
and whether cwene or guena,
I’ll take pride in what you mean.
Call me muse of Dante – woman wise and serene –
or else in Ilium the cause of scene.
Call me triumphant goddess
with stars of twelve enstoned
upon my crown while I am safe enthroned.
To me life’s not been easy.
I’m of no temperament
to follow rules not agreed to
which you did invent.
So, wherever you find me,
do not give me pain,
but love me as men did Helen,
and your affections please maintain.
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