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Don Schaeffer Poem
Creatures of
spirit, poets are,
softness, invisibility,
things whose existence
extends in time.
Hard things,
of the eyes,
of the earth, of matter
are for cynics,
humorists and critics.
Poets are lovers,
engrossed in love
and memory of love,
in sad recollection,
and mourning.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2013
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Don Schaeffer Poem
(This is an evolving story. I keep adding verses until I'm done.)
When I was
eighty-two,
I went to live alone
knowing the money would
forever be coming.
Going away felt appropriate
for a man my age.
The closest analog
to the womb
and to death.
To be alive,
clothed in the
warmth of certainty
amid my own unchallenged opinions
during the age of ending,
out of the business
of a bright, moving planet
my own part in the world
outdated and roots
severed.
I found a place
in the middle of the trees
with a thin asphalt egress
that made it easy
to cycle to the village.
I was surrounded by
the aliens of the earth
with their secret languages
and concentrated lives.
I truly lived among strangers,
not those wanting to know me
or able to know me.
It was like the world
before I opened my eyes.
It was here and far away.
Delivered here in a storm
under which the taxi
and me
and the driver
were as tiny as sugar molecules.
The driver introduced himself as Charles.
He is a black man from Aruba,
Charles an English royal name.
I ran to the door
holding a newspaper on my head
as Charles soaked himself
carrying my black bags.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2013
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Don Schaeffer Poem
Protected from the past,
insulated in a box
made of star-dust,
closed where it
points to the earth
but open toward the
vacuum of the sky,
why does he
bring the old world back
when he creates his dreams?
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2012
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Don Schaeffer Poem
He told me
his last
real conversation was in
nineteen-fifty-five. And that was
thirty minutes
on the sidewalk
with an interested stranger.
Those that love him
respect his silence,
keep him to a fifteen word
maximum. That allows them
to get along. Silence is the juice
of that loving home.
He told me
how he dreamed of
lectures, long and
deep draughts
of speech.
He dreamed of
eyes bright with
the lights from his stage.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2014
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Don Schaeffer Poem
I chug upward
as the air
thins, the sky
blues the stars.
Then it, at the peak,
stops. Music
is not like life.
Envisioning the rhythm of time,
when the now point arrives
there is no view.
I have to tumble
slide down
letting out
the melody
of my breath.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2013
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Don Schaeffer Poem
It could also be a return to something simple,
a world of closed loops
where kinks and corners weren't invented,
where animals mixed and organelles
slipped through each other,
eating inside each other
within impossible rooms of gelatin.
Out here, we hold the line
cold and fast. We lock and crimp sharp.
The circle is only an ideal we can't match.
The thought comes up
from the tube of body and brain.
And I want to make vows.
Promises give bones to my ameboid nature,
freeze me into a shape. Keep time from
spreading me.
I can imagine leaning back
into someone I can trust,
someone loyal. I would vow first,
pledge allegiance, then
assume it would forever be
the same and equal, a stasis.
Days would pass and pass,
morning first judgements,
afternoon fulfillments,
evening muddled driftings
and slow, graceful nights.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2013
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Don Schaeffer Poem
We live in a little valley
once famous for cedar trees.
The name is no longer a label
but celebrates the past
as do most places in this country.
It is a place with monuments
old but not ancient,
unkempt mansions that
cling to use,
solemnized as party sites
for weddings.
We can't deny its beauty
that lives beyond the ruins,
the joyous harbor that
harmonizes generously with sun and clouds,
the great meadow, the people with their
strange but utilitarian costumes
who build their bodies along the road.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2013
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Don Schaeffer Poem
The purpose of the world
is to tell you what you can't do.
The world is made to
keep your ambitions scarred.
You will not get
what you can't move
past the filter of the world.
The standard is set high,
too high for me.
Maybe I should have
rested a long time ago.
Maybe I should have
slept without fear.
Now I know how I lost. I am
made real by knowlege.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2014
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Don Schaeffer Poem
When I am seventy-four
I will apologize.
It will be a narrative
of explanations,
an elaborate blush.
I will say
“oh God”
to smooth the past.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2014
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Don Schaeffer Poem
They will make
glass cells
filled with small
bugs that
believe in tiny universes.
They will
harvest the hydrocarbon
gasses bugs
spawn from the sunlight
to heat their coffee cups.
Copyright © Don Schaeffer | Year Posted 2014
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