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Time
Time is hard to comprehend
(as is anything without end)
but seeing this rusted old cookie can
I wonder how many grubby little fingers
that once snatched chocolate chips
and fresh pecans now hang on the brown,
paper-skinned hands of old men.
This small wooden horse now bare
of even paint anymore, whose happy young
rider died of old age forty years ago,
made me realize that my own mother’s
cookie cans, my grandmother’s rocking chair,
even my own once precious toys,
might be on shelves for sale somewhere.
I realized that time is hard to comprehend.
(as is anything with an end)
Last edited by GaryBFitzgerald, Feb/21/2009, 1:43 am
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Feb/17/2009, 10:49 pm
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Re: How to read a poem
So, Gary, I cannot say that Arnold, Browning (Robert and not Elizabeth), Tennyson, Pope, or Dryden ever actually succeeded to the point of opening my eyes. Is the fault mine?
Tere
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Feb/19/2009, 8:40 pm
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Re: How to read a poem
So, Tere, I cannot say that I ever actually succeeded to the point of understanding your point.
At any rate, my post above was not intended to be a poem. It just came out weird. I was responding (obliquely) to another post and only wanted to make the point that a good poem should be read out loud.
I plan to replace the post above with a new poem tonight anyway provided I get drunk enough to do it but not too drunk to forget to.
GBF
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Feb/20/2009, 10:43 pm
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Re: How to read a poem
Promises, promises.
Tere
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Feb/20/2009, 11:46 pm
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Re: Time
Layered thinking succinctly expressed is what comes through, Gary. Here is a memory your poem brings to mind.
Once when I was taveling I didn't have a home and I didn't have a steady job. I was staying with a relative for a few weeks who was a retirement home director. To help me earn some money she paid me to paint walls in the home. I painted a lot of hall walls and a large, communal room where residents gathered to chat and watch television. For some reason I had to work at night. Maybe because, then, there would have been less activity. I remember this one resident's room where an old woman was bed ridden. I never entered the room. But from the doorway I could see this woman on her bed. I don't remember ever seeing her move. On her door was pinned a photograph. It was of a young woman, a girl really. She was sitting in a straight-back chair. And she held upright in her lap a violin. The girl had long brown hair coiffed in a way that might have been the style in the thirties or forties. The picture had a caption written across its bottom-half. It read, "Love, Elizabeth."
I think maybe I fell a little in love with Elizabeth, even as she had become bed ridden.
Tere
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Feb/21/2009, 3:02 pm
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Re: Time
Thank you, Tere, and God bless you! There is nothing more gratifying to a poet than knowing that they have sparked a thought, a feeling or a memory in a "Gifted Reader".
So, on the same subject, I wrote this poem about two years ago:
My Book
Yes, I’d hoped that all those thoughts,
all those words and rhymes would reach
or touch or even teach someone someday,
and though not bringing fame or wealth,
at least some appreciation or maybe pride
in knowing that I made somebody think
or smile or even feel on that one day.
But nobody noticed at all.
A leaf fell in the forest and no one noticed.
It was just one in a million.
.
Copyright 2007 - Tall Grass & High Waves, Gary B. Fitzgerald
Last edited by GaryBFitzgerald, Feb/25/2009, 10:26 pm
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Feb/22/2009, 1:16 am
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Re: Time
Gary, I confess I find it difficult to follow the thread. If now I respond to the most recent poem posted, the way I did to the first poem now replaced by another, will the poem too be replaced by another, rendering the exchange nonsensical?
Something to think about.
Tere
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Feb/25/2009, 5:42 pm
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Re: Time
Sorry.
You handled it pretty well, though.
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Feb/25/2009, 10:27 pm
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Re: Time
You are your own man, Gary. That is for sure. I'll try to keep up.
Tere
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Feb/25/2009, 11:16 pm
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Re: Time
GBF,
I couldn't really follow the flow of the dialogue between yourself and Mr. Terreson, but it was interesting. Kind of like finding a flyer about some famous band or circus troupe that had played or performed in town two months ago. Well, the poem itself (meant or not meant to be a poem? You said something about the subject in your comments), it reads well and actually says something concrete. The post modernists in one of the other sites would condemn it for being time-worn and cliched. You need not worry. Everything is time-worn, in a way, and if it resonates, that's what matters to me. It seemed mundane early on but it gathered force and was successful in the end IMHO. Zak
quote: GaryBFitzgerald wrote:
Time is hard to comprehend
(as is anything without end)
but seeing this rusted old cookie can
I wonder how many grubby little fingers
that once snatched chocolate chips
and fresh pecans now hang on the brown,
paper-skinned hands of old men.
This small wooden horse now bare
of even paint anymore, whose happy young
rider died of old age forty years ago,
made me realize that my own mother’s
cookie cans, my grandmother’s rocking chair,
even my own once precious toys,
might be on shelves for sale somewhere.
I realized that time is hard to comprehend.
(as is anything with an end)
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Feb/28/2009, 10:19 am
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Re: Time
"The post modernists in one of the other sites would condemn it for being time-worn and cliched. You need not worry. Everything is time-worn, in a way,..."
- Zakzzz5
For You Not Yet
As I write, right now, your mother
is the size of a pea.
She will grow and be born
and not hear of me.
You at this time
do not even exist and only
by luck and grace will you be
if your mother survives
and gets married.
But I write not for your mother
or even right now.
Now knows nothing of me.
Now knows not what I do.
I write for tomorrow, for they
not yet here.
I have written for you.
Copyright 2008 - HARDWOOD-77 Poems, Gary B. Fitzgerald
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Mar/1/2009, 9:45 pm
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