I like ideas and the flow of words. The physicist Lord Kelvin said that if you can express a scientific idea in the form of an equation then you know something about that idea. I believe images are the equations of poetry. If you can describe an emotion or thought as a concrete image then you truly understand the concept.
I have been published in many print and web journals and recently have taken an interest in digital photography.
Letting Things Lie
My yangless yin lies before my eyes.
It's only a quarter lying flat on the table.
As always the famous profile trusts in God
and is so near to liberty.
I know that face could buy me a few minutes of
a telephone conversation,
or parking on a crowded city street.
The coin has another side of course,
an opposite or a complement,
for there is depth in everything I see.
But much is beyond my view.
My mind does flirt with possibilities of a beyond,
but I have no eyeball certainty of its existence.
For now, I can wallow in the familiar,
secure in what it can give me.
Only some grave and growing doubt
about the reality of what I'm seeing,
or some sudden compelling need
would drive my fingers to seize the circumference
and lift the circle out of its two-dimensional plane
up into another dimension
so that my eyes can verify that on the unseen side
there is truly an eagle under a call for unity,
or a dedication to a particular state,
or perhaps only the blank face
of a poorly counterfeited coin.
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If You Be Meek
as lambs among wolves,
then be neither old nor young
and always nudge toward the middle.
Don't lower or raise your head too much.
Beware the slightest trace of nonconformity.
When the wolves finally lunge,
and your companions make their liquid turns
around rocks and grass tufts,
turn
as sharply as the others
but not too sharply.
Keep the pace,
for there must be only one cadence of feet.
When a herd brother or sister gets a fang in the throat,
stop only when the others stop.
Stop, but never mourn.
Your kind has been diminished by one,
but that is your good fortune.
Graze and regain your strength,
for after the buzzards have picked clean the leftovers
the stalking hour will come again.
But don't worry.
Just keep moving.
Never rest.
And above all,
always lose yourself within the herd.
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Silverfish
Not sweet like the bees
nor itchy like the mosquitoes
nor "ah" inspiring like the butterflies
nor so blasted everywhere like the ants;
neither do they spoil a meal by crawling in it.
We call them primitive,
and to us they're invisible,
especially to those who don't read.
Little is written about them in books
though in books they certainly are.
The Koran, Bhagavid-gita, Talmud,
they're catholic in their tastes.
They'll unbind any tome in time.
To them it's all thought for food.
The last grand supper will come eventually.
They'll leave our bodies to the worms.
It's our immortality they hunger for.
The final period will be their droppings.
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A Question of Thirteen Seconds
"After your head is cut off by a guillotine
you have 13 seconds of consciousness. . .
13 seconds is the amount of . . . energy. . .
in the brain to keep going. . . not only can you blink,
but you can do two for yes and one for no;
and it is said to have been done."
Dr. Ron Wright, Chief Medical Examiner of Broward County Florida.
Now no pardon is possible, even from God.
Now the wind in the lungs will be forever stagnant.
Now the lungs themselves will dissolve.
Now the Platonic ideal of mind free of body is almost realized.
What is proper etiquette for you--the executioner--
when all the condemned's debts have just been paid?
What to do for the already but not yet dead
at this socially awkward moment?
Are you, at last, forgiving?
Do you pick up the head by the hair
Do you stroke a pale cheek?
Do you allow a loved one to approach and kiss?
Do you hold up a mirror?
Do you torture the eyelids with a question?
There is time for one.
What would you want to know?
Does the being at your feet know the answer?
Or does the faintest consciousness blind one to what comes after?
What lies ahead---is it evening darkness or high noon blaze?
Do you ask if it's comfortable?
Is it now an it?
Think of something fast.
What is the professional thing to do?
Be silent? Be curious? Smile? Cry? Look away?
Sing a hymn?
Or leave the head in the bloody bucket,
and let the eyes glaze in a screamless terror?
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Flights of Frightening Comforting Fancy
"And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch. . . .
The name of the star is Wormwood.
A third of the waters became Wormwood,
and many died from the water,
because it was made bitter."
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Revelation 8:10,11
I think about what I might think
if this plane plunged into the sea,
with all of us reduced to a fiery Wormwood searing the sky,
with sunset to the West, gathering darkness to the East
and the fast approaching blue below.
No mindless panic, no soiled pants
rather I'd practice a Zen-like focus
on memories, on actions flowering from memories.
I'd recall two days ago when we screamed divorce.
But then I'd remember this morning's parting kiss
and her saying that she'll miss me,
our recent anger an inconvenient memory.
As I, as all my fellow travelers, fall
I'd rise above myself
keeping still amid the panicky Hail Marys.
I'd smile at the oxymoron of a downward ascent,
a heavenly, hellish release of soul from body.
But most of all there'd be the paradox of the parting kiss,
not a Judas kiss but a seal of loyalty,
as the plane cracked
and the ocean rushed in salty as tears.
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(Copyright 2002 - All Rights Reserved by Richard Fein - No reproduction without express permission from the author)For more of Richard's writing, visit his personal web sites:
Poems - hometown.aol.com/bardofbyte/myhomepage/index.html
Poems - expage.com/page/richardspoems
Photo Album - www.pbase.com/bardofbyte
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Letter to the Author: Richard Fein at Bardofbyte@aol.com