3 Poems by William Bernhardt

Revelation 

For those who thirst
        there’s a waterfall
For those who ache
        there’s tender embrace
For those who think they’re alone
        angels beckon
For those who doubt
        a compass points the way
        within 

Where the Poet and the Bride say Come 

Snowrise 

The sky was still, the air was brisk
I held the ice within my fist.
So sure that I had reached the end
my travels slowed before the bend
but as I reached this new plateau
the ground gave way, as did the snow
I felt a shuddering in the earth
it shed its skin, the ground gave birth.
A crocus called, with purple voice
its dappled petals, soft and moist.
The freeze would melt and in its puddle
clues to what before befuddled.
I felt the fear and doubt subside
while joy within would coincide
with love, and promise. When there’s room
and time enough, the crocus blooms. 

Song of Lara 

I celebrate the way your eyebrows
      do backbends over hazel eyes
      on the pedestal of your cheekbones
      and the parabola of your smile. 

I delight in your voice, so soothing
      when you whisper, rumbling
      as you sleep, growling when you pull up
      your pants, rapture in the shower. 

I revel in your walk, your defiant
      stride, determined gait, saucy
      buttocks distracting, the grace
      of calf and thigh in delicious syncopation
      kinetic art, music in motion. 

But most of all, I love your hand, soft
      smooth sultan’s satin, I will curl up
      beside you, able to sleep but
      unwilling, because I would rather be
      aware. 

Bionote 

William Bernhardt is the bestselling author of more than thirty books, including the blockbuster Ben Kincaid series of novels, the historical novel Nemesis: The Final Case of Eliot Ness , currently being adapted into an NBC miniseries, a book of poetry ( The White Bird ), and a series of books on fiction writing. In addition, Bernhardt founded the Red Sneaker Writing Center in 2005, hosting writing workshops and small-group seminars and becoming one of the most in-demand writing instructors in the nation. His monthly eBlast, The Red Sneaker Writers Newsletter, reaches over twenty thousand people. He is the only writer to have received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." In addition to his novels, he has written plays, a musical (book and music), humor, nonfiction, children books, biography, poetry, and puzzles. OSU named him “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man,” noting that in addition to writing novels, he can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, prepare homemade ice cream, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”