Sunday 5 May 2013

3 Poems by Robert Wexelblatt

                             Poème du Jour

                            When the iron certainty of fanatics
                         
                             is fractured by the soft skepticism
                           
                            of the civilized, when everyone’s rights
                           
                            are firmly the rights of all, when the dawn
                           
                            does not disclose a single corpse on the sand
                           
                            and earthbound hope again extends feathered
                           
                            wings, then our children may learn to recite
                           
                            sonnets older and better than this one.
                           

                            What must we sacrifice to the gods of
                           
                            weather?  Our trucks, our toasters, the Sabbath
                           
                            lights?  In August’s heat, desperate souls dial
                           
                            down self-defeating air-conditioners.
                           
                            A tsunami heaves above the supine
                           
                            city, our delusions of innocence.
                           

                       
                           False Spring

                           
                           The day stretches out like a waking cat.
                           
                            Firestoned mud softens; emerald daffodils
                           
                            stand headless but eager.  Sudden grackles
                           
                            squawk and bully among flocks of fretful
                           
                            winter sparrows cleaving to their feeder.
                           
                            Ridged with grit, snow banks shrivel to gray knolls.
                           
                            Joggers emerge, cyclists in their Christmas
                           
                            gear; warm air inveigles with soil’s scent.
                           

                            But to the north winter marshals its last
                           
                            battalions, a blizzard of misery
                           
                            to tease and freeze heart’s expectations.
                           
                            Like gobbets of torn flesh, huge wet flakes fall
                           
                            through the streetlamps’ pale glow.  In the morning
                           
                            a cold sun winks off treacherous streets.
                           

                           
                            Birthday
                           

                            Age is the illusion mirrors make real,
                           
                            a fact your adolescent soul belies.
                           
                            Reflections don’t reveal what you feel,
                           
                            just someone worn and wizened and not wise.
                           

Bionote

Robert Wexelblatt is professor of humanities at Boston University’s College of General Studies.  He has published essays, stories, and poems in a wide variety of journals, two story collections, Life in the Temperate Zone and The Decline of Our Neighborhood, a book of essays, Professors at Play; his novel, Zublinka Among Women, won the Indie Book Awards First Prize for Fiction in 2008.  His most recent book is a short novel, Losses. wexelblatt@verizon.net
   

                           

   

1 comment:

  1. nice poetry
    Robert Wexelblatt poet is awsome
    Keep Carry on.
    best regards:
    http://mp3videosongs123.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete