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Index of poems:
- Hinterland
- His Lopsided Grin
- Midlife Meander
- Poetry of Being
- Power Block
- Stale Brew, Stagnant Water
- Strangers On a Train
- Sweep Me Off My Feet, Will You?
- Through a Child's Eyes
- Venus of His (Petrarchan Sonnet)
a cold heart beats in a dry land
as if it had a lock on love
– naught –
mere tectonics moving hard but hollow bedrock
adorned today, tomorrow worn to shapeshift sands
bending to the timeworn winds of war
like all humbled human tides before
calling God to frame the fissures, drive the flock
while forced there on the fringes, life quickens, hovers.
‘brothers’ wait to see what’s yet once more – fools’ folly
fraught with self-righteous fervor
laying waste the landscape’s wealth and promise
reaping whirlwinds it has wrought – and yet
the godless pray too
and the ones whose visions view their own unseen unknowns
who deeply understand in their souls and bones
why it is we’re here:
“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”*
every faith’s hardest highest earthly call of all.
*Matthew 22:39
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His Lopsided Grin
© Helga Ross 2003 & 2004
There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,Back to top
And found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
– Mother Goose A godlike glint of topaz eyes meets mine, a hint of lion lineage, a king, my feline lolls, his finest form’s recline, stares, slivered almond pupils narrowing. One of a kind, sanguine, missing one fang, he grins his grimace of a crooked smile, body language says, “I don’t ‘care a hang’ for mouse fiestas, siestas the while.” Cat calls, croons, cajoles; stirs not a whisker, I’m a mere mortal subject to his snooze. No fool, he’d heard a little bird whisper, “Adopt her!” Sure! Shelters nine lives to lose. Sherman marched in, wound his wound with his charms, Past perils, now conquests, smug in my arms.
Midlife
Meander
© Helga Ross 2003 & 2004
They call it middle age, what was old ageBack to top
in Middle Ages, margins moved along.
Forty cinches wasted youth, not the song
one won’t forsake nor can’t foresee the gauge.
Yet such as we still count ourselves, we’re young;
as long as flesh forbears and wit and heart
command a conscious choice to second start;
our eyes on fate with arts’ best efforts flung.
This is time’s prime, the part to shrink or grow.
Some let it go like midriff would expand,
content on best’s behind them, or regret.
We malcontents mad scramble to bestow
such gifts as make the mark our dreams demand;
leave something of ourselves we’d not forget.
© Helga Ross 2004
the poetry of being
is in the heartbeat and the breathing
and the pulse the feel imparts
in tandem with the thoughts
a skip, a trace, a blip, a race, a press
of pressure points is wrought
by what is sensed and sought
the essence seals –
an idea, an experience, a memory seized –
while all the while the blood
in consummate design
courses involuntarily the vessels
arteries to capillaries to veins
of corporeality
its systolic symphony
the poetry of being
embarks the seeking and the seeing
the optics, the mind’s eye’s perceives
elicits a response – a murmur, a moan
a laugh, a sigh, a groan, a cry
exacted and expressed and manifest
by means of some unseen grand scheme
moved by sensation to imagination
or is it notion, emotion in reverse?
trace the tingles from their impetus
to their final place or resting piece
or find them lost …
the poetry of being
is in the doing
the move to plod or pace, or climb or race –
the dance to an inner beat that taps the soles
when reality snaps back the feat
in the foot fight of rhythm's resistance
for first on the finish line
or the fingers tap keys
and pluck strings
of internal harmony
the play of creations and recreations
for their versions of a masterpiece
moved, as the spirit orchestrates ...
En route to understanding we will meet,
many an opinion foisted as fact,
a wall of dogma, lined a dead-end street,
our labyrinth minds' trace of vaster tract:
To see the obvious as the sights unseen;
to say the somethings as not said before;
hit gravity head-on, an apple’s glean,
like Newton found the novel we ignore.
Is that not what we were created for?
Our journey’s discovery of who we are;
of learning all that’s led us from our lore;
of making us instruments to mend our mar?
Knowledge is power* we learn, mind’s design.
What the Powers can't seize will you consign?
*Sir Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), Religious Meditations, Of Heresies, 1597
Stale Brew, Stagnant Water
© Helga Ross 2004
the drench of decades
we’ve slogged
we, the seasoned ones
dunked our sweet-and-sour dreams
in swampy soup designs
soused and self-indulgent cooks
stir and serve dollops
dispensed from on high
their tastes dilute our broth
but serve as balm
to we, the hungry
now, we live to eat
where once we ate and lived and thought
we buy
insatiable consumption
feeds but doesn’t satisfy
we bob like bloated corpse on murky sea
not caring – except what makes the biggest splash
not seeing – we’re shallow
and our mud puddle isn’t deep
Strangers On a Train
© Helga Ross 2003
Scene I: Friday, late afternoon eager labors shelved for hurried shopping, early rush commute she anticipates intimate evening, romantic assignation appealing midst-of-bloom tryst, love interest show of promise phase glowing, relationship waxing slow peel layers of disclosing familiarity, revelation, trust coming cozy, desire growing. Seduction feeds mood flavors strains soul’s waves with sensuous thoughts. French loaf, fine cheeses delicious pates, choice Chablis, full bundles arms overflowing she enters, claims vacant subway-seat. Across the way handsome someone watches sees, studies well pleased. Eyes meet self-conscious color rises, recognizes sparks of pleasant chemistry surprise suppress, admiring mutual smiles. Oh my! Each finds situation delightful, the other so fine reads mind thinking poetry “A loaf of bread and a jug of wine...” Brief train ride interlude sublime savored special, memorable in time. Scene II: Wind whipped, hair wrecked she fights way for train, blizzard blinding coat, scarf, muffler wraps but scarcely shields inclemency mussed, face flushed, breathless mess ruined morning, wasted aesthetic effort flings into nearest window-seat. Frustrated femininity looks, feels tasteless unmade-bed disheveled, unappealing deep breaths, slow cooling, endeavors mere repairs. But wait – Tall dark, handsome interloper pauses, scrutinizes, sits down next. Daren’t glimpse, show disaster’s face direct. Catch window’s dark reflection, gaze compelling. Side by side, pretend preoccupied linked by mysterious affinity, buzz warming electricity, soft current of scintillating alchemy arms and elbows barely touch, not flesh, padded press of fiberfill prolonged combine of awkward pain with mingled pleasure forty-minute train trip together not speaking, yet subtle communicating two-way consciousness concentrated. Chance connection fleeting unforgettable, exhilarating in time.
Sweep Me Off My Feet, Will You?
© Helga Ross 2003
Ah, to be swept away by a tidal wave of inspiration!
To be stormed by a sea of words
awash with thoughts
deluged in dramas
torrents of imagination
pouring forth as waterfalls spilling dreams
drowning in windblown stormy scenes
spinning lovers
tempestuous fascinations
fighting hazards challenge fraught.
Oh where, oh where, is the poet in me?
I wish!
I dream
I recall ...
Pyramis and Thisbe
Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty
Romeo and Juliet
Tristan and Isolde
My own regret
love ballads unsung
love scenes remembered
secrets untold.
Once upon a while she was mad for one
who made her swoon
they sank in surrender
under sultry moon carried away
in passion undone.
What would become of them
under daylight’s unforgiving sun?
Their feelings unbidden
belonging different worlds and religions
unbecoming romantics far-flung.
Liaisons hidden
till parted forever union forbidden
hers’ pledged another’s
hopes banished but forgotten, never.
A glimpse of reminiscence from the “sex and sand” genre ... Would that I could tap the romantic soul in me ...
Through a Child's Eyes
© Helga Ross 2003
What garden of earthly delight!Back to top
The scrap of backyard behind her shabby tenement
for one lonely
little towheaded tyke
The flat she lived in boring bare bleak
except lively occupants mommy and daddy.
She, time spent alone quite a lot,
entertained her soon-to-be-sister, pretend best friend,
stuck indoors, most days,
not their fault.
Home’s secret favorite spot, parents’ special treat
all the playground means affords, with walks in the park.
Private welcome to the natural world;
tangled trees, unkempt lawn’s wildflowers n’ weeds;
splendid arrays of sights, sounds, smells.
Little girl, tiny yard,
inside sagged, paint-peeled, picket fence.
Through a child’s eyes: Perfect Eden, glorious retreat!
Kneeling close on hands and knees
our pint-size explorer inspected, wide-eyed wonder
the drama unfolding beneath.
Eyes could see
White Daisies, Black Eyed Susans, Yellow Buttercups,
Assault of pretty butterflies, tiny birds, busy honeybees.
She delighted in attracting Lady Bug luck,
sighting fuzzy caterpillars, grasshoppers, dragonflies, moths.
While curious, learned caution, with tender touch.
Limbs and fingers bare,
naked arms outstretched,
skipped thorny thistles, toadstool, snakes n’ spiders, ugly slugs.
Ages spent searching carpets of green,
for Four-Leaf-Clovers among the Three,
she discovered there tiny ants wending through grasses
they couldn’t see.
The cosmos in miniature.
Her childish intuition understood...
Garden: Gateway to what the universe is, how it appears to us.
Venus of His (Petrarchan Sonnet)
© Helga Ross 2004
She’s such a pretty thing her smile’s a sin,Back to top
Venus of his, budding siren-sweetness
Botticelli-like; luminous likeness,
cerulean eyes, alabaster skin.
Long curled lashes shielding shyness, her twin
orbs no more reveal than naked neatness
she’d unveil and yield to lust’s completeness:
His loss, the longings misgivings have been.
He smolders, she fires his desires.
‘That was then’ tenders reminders again;
how he’d press his lips on her pounding pulse,
enfold her; thunder what heart drowned out, when
in the flesh, (which her image inspires),
he didn’t shout he loved her, last impulse.
