Collection of poems

Reflections in Poetic Form — Vol. 1

Poems often reflect how we feel about events in our lives and seldom represent what actually took place. Words spoken about nothing of importance, remain behind like tenants that refuse to leave, reminding us that nothing should ever be taken for granted. Love, however great, is still at risk from the oddest of adversaries. A misplaced noun. A verb gone rogue. Result: silence. Outlook: unknown. So, we purge. We get all those nasty thoughts out of our heads. Chase the errant feelings until exhausted, so they fall away and bother us no more. And in the end, we hope. We gather up all we can remember, and say a little prayer that they’ll soon be joined by new memories and we’ll be okay again.

I wrote the above at the end of a recent poem as a way of expressing my belief that poetry is equal parts creativity and therapy.

That they seldom represent only what we are actually feeling — hurt, love, loneliness — but more often reflect on how we deal with them. How we approach living and all that goes with it and keep recalibrating our point of view as the world constantly changes around us.

I love fiction. I enjoy the journey and feeling, even for only an hour or so at a time, that I am someone else. Someone capable of overcoming obstacles that to mere humans are a little too tall and too wide and too persistent to be overcome. Not without a superpower or the ability to go back in time and make the obstacle less imposing.

But with poetry, you are not taking the reader on a long journey. You are not asking them to pack a lunch, get comfortable and enjoy the ride because poems (as I see it) are not designed to show you a different world. They are not there to make everything better. A hundred words can only accomplish so much.

A poem is more an inoculation against future discomfort.

A way of fortifying our points of view and allowing us to not just see the good in life but understand fully that when there is bad, it is approachable and can be overcome as well.

I’ve written about this poem before, Funeral Blues, by WH Auden, and consider it to be one of my favorites and yet it is about loss. An almost overwhelming sadness that the poet is asking everyone to understand and feel but not necessarily succumb to.

I have read it a hundred times and I have never been overwhelmed by its emotion or sense of sorrow. Funnily enough, it makes me hopeful. How is that possible? Exactly. That’s what poetry is all about.

The purpose of this article is to highlight a few of my recent poems. All of them were published before, but not as a group. Perhaps these are linked together by some of the words written within them, or by the emotions, I am trying to convey. But linked they are and placing them together seemed like the right thing to do.

A poet needs readers. Those that are willing to stay still for a few moments and allow the words and feelings to fall off the page and into them. What happens after that is all good.

What It Is, Isn’t, and There You Have It

Brooklyn has become a rather spiritual place for me. Born there many years ago. I left the city under a cloud of depression and disbelief that anything good would come of my life. But thankfully, I was wrong.

Now it’s a city I return to, to reminisce. To breathe in the city air and allow the images thus conjured up to have free reign over my thoughts and feelings. To show me what I had failed to see so many years before. And understand that concrete and steel, and brick and stone are only part of what makes a city great or memorable. For me, Brooklyn will always be special. I just hope it has forgiven me for deserting it in the way I did.

Aspirations of Greatness Haunt My Waking Dreams

We are all enamored with goals. Little flags that we shove deeply into the far-off landscape to remind us where we are heading. Then we fight and struggle to get there even when we sometimes forget why we’re doing it.

I’ve had goals all my life — tons of them. Most of them are forgotten or stored away on little bits of paper in boxes kept in the attic. Why keep them? Because they might still be active in some alternate universe that we’ll cross into at some point in the future. But probably not.

More likely because we don’t like failing and if we hold onto them, there might still be a chance of reaching them. This conflict with goals, dreams, and objectives was at the center of this poem.

Reflections

I was having a tough week when I wrote the three short poems contained here. It happens. I used to be concerned about tough times. Afraid that they would somehow creep underneath my life and cause all sorts of havoc. But I’ve grown out of that belief. Age will do that.

Wisdom inevitably attaches itself to you over time — even when you’re not paying attention. Things like Truth, Grief, and the concept of Call Waiting are connected here in my mind. Yes, it’s an interesting place. But mostly because I see connections in everything that happens.

Moving toward the truth is a great exercise — like walking or doing stretches every morning. The truth has a way of clearing things up. A kind of universal solvent that clears away confusion and complexity and allows simple things to take their place. And as far as Grief and Call Waiting — well please click on the link and see for yourself.

Thanks for reading.

Jenine Bsharah Baines Harley King James Knight Rebecca Romanelli George J. Ziogas Agnes Laurens