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Best Poems Written by George Tally

Below are the all-time best George Tally poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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We Are They

Their future is ours.
And ours is them.

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The Circle

I think I’ve come full circle,
Though you’ll call it round the bend,
When my vision of the future,
Is really of the end.

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The Newburghers

The Newburghers

(A Jazz Talk in Six Parts  -

   Dawn  -  Introduction
   Waking  -  Enter Von Newburgh 
   Genesis  -  The Development
   Career -  The New World
   Vision  -  Vision
   Dreams  -  Conclusion)

	Dawn

The Realization 
Came like a dawn,
Overall, 
For all eyes to see.

What a word, is realization!
Does it make its object real? 
No. 
It is wholly subjective; 
The near bridgehead,
The essence,
Of revelation.

The broadest dawn it was.
In ‘customed silence led,
By invisible degrees advanced,
And, like solar dawns,
Ascribed to single moments,
Somewhat past their inklings,
Which astronomers then assign 
And historians debate.  

The realization, 
Like all dawns, 
Came not with the new light, 
But first, the fading of old stars.  
A sense of darking, 
Before the light.

The sense of passing of our stars, 
On which all reckoning was built, 
Gave presentiment before light, 
And inner watch a pause.  

What is that sense, 
Not of the senses, 
Of impending realization?  
Night’s sands wiped from eyes? 
A momentary tickle?
Perhaps to shunt from further notice?
Having come unbidden?
And unwelcomed?
Perhaps an aeon of its own;
An epoch in the twilight zone.

Too brief are solar dawnings 
To give us to reflect.  
But an immense dawn,
One unique, 
May well stage, first, 
A wondering.

Such a pause was this.
Swelling long,
Disturbing thought,
Before finally broaching it.
The realization so great,
Its foreboding was full summoning.

Widespread anticipation,
Eluding reason abstractly,
And history, obliquely.
And coming, 
None conceived it fullness, 
But all were swept along.

And, like days’ dawns, 
Its light is not upon itself, 
But upon all that is seen.

This, then, tells the story, 
Of the dawning and the dawn, 
And forecasts a zenith, 
For ours and all to come

Now, metamorphosis  -
Realization advancing into day, 
And orphan men’s becoming Man.

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Cat's Embassy - Fragments of the Too Long Thing

I’ve died many times
And not been reborn.
Nine lives were mine; 
Now two.  Or three.  
Or one; 
This one, the last.
I am the cat,
But that’s not the answer.

I am for you to tell.

My kind did not evolve
Over long course, as yours, 

    *   *   *   *

My kind was not born 
Of wise agency, as yours.  

    *   *   *   *

Mine swim in an ocean; 
No top, walls, nor floor.  
What comes, 
An anonymous gift; 
Our excrescence 
Fades ‘neath our ken.

    *   *   *   *

Motion and stasis, 
Matched, make my third, 
As I, to yours, a third do amend.  
I am desperation, 
With companion and host, 
Mind that binds.

Or is it just my imagination?  

Look.  That’s me, 
Cross dusk– bound path, 
Up the third tier, waving.

Come, wisely built, 
And you, void’s outcast; 
I‘d know your ways, 
And know you too.  

    *   *   *   *

“I can see my house from here.”  
But not I mine
So begin our journey
Outside my door.

And on that sea, 
No way for me, 
But I’ll add to your store.  
Not what you would, 
But a brief anchor; 
Nor a guide star, 
But a point passed, for marking.  

A sense of bearing, yes, but only on your desk.

    *   *   *   *

Cast out from nonbeing, we, 
	And crave it surreptitiously.  
Our paths will wend contrariwise, 
	And find the same demise; 
Accomplished, as we cannot resist.

    *   *   *   *

On your planet, 
From now till none, 
Lest lucky nine avail, 
I’ll go your wise, 
Designèd man.  
And join yours too, 
Spur of old trunk, 
For frankly, 
I can’t tell you apart.  

And though I cleave close, 
Know I’d be closer still.  
I would be you, 
Men sublime, 
Of waking god
Or abyss of time.

We, from lost countries,
Meet here
And share, or would,
Our vision till one.  
But finding unable, 
The willing’s our house 
And common stable.  

Knowing it’s there 
Is one hair of there being.  
From disparate caves, 
Our mind our commune, 
We’ll scout the place 
For ones just arrived.  

    *   *   *   *

We fabled orphans will be 
Not ourselves only but eternity
Cells’ little thoughts
Through countless divisions  
Energy wasted?  
Not lost; underpinning. 

That froth, though unstable, 
Supports us in ways, 
Not to be reached,
But a prospect quite charming, 
Enough to rouse space, time and being.  

From here, no externals. 
No turning can be 
	To ourselves, an unveiling,  
But strive to reach outward, 
	Past guiles of obscuring, 
Recalling, afresh, 
	A new member of us.

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Time

Time

I am a mountain.
Children ascend me,  
Eagerly climb, 
Walk, and love, 
And lie still.  
Some fly over;
I hope they talk.  

One reaches zenith.
From her I crave wisdom.  
For half haunted heaven is hell.  

She does turn, avian,
And gives me a squawk.  
Ah, that is wise,
But can’t realize.  
And ‘top the rest lay it,
Augmenting my dust.

What mountainous gravity holds us so?
But, our attraction to what’s past.
Then does not attraction, too, 
Pull us forward?  
No.  

But with each gossamer moment 
Of creation blown over us, 
It is avoiding interment
That stirs our feet – 
The press of events,
To rise a shade higher –
Later, latest, 
Now.

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I Am

Who I am is not a Who, but a How.
Where I am is not a Where, but a Way.
That I am is not a fact, but Aspect.

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What a Long Strange Trip

What a long strange trip it is
And when it’s done
I’ll be here
But you will not

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Clay

They do not tell you,
When you're cast to clay,
That you will come to find,
Clay so estimable.

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The Human Prays

Two times
The Atheist doth pray
Once at sea
And once at day

(And given the freedom
To express it here
In fourteen thousand letters
I'd show us our best fate)

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Seeing

There is none more beauteous than me; 
Not for how I look but how I see.  

If you could see yourselves with my eyes, 
You would never be afraid.  

Angels crowded close 
Despise one another, 
While singly they’re adored.  
So find, each one, yourself, 
And loving that, love all.  

Love that and all, 
One act indivisible, 
For your angst is ours
And requires it.

Else, blindness, indiscriminate, could spare, 
But lose in oblivion.  Ware!
Nothing outside means nothing within.  

Death of the body’s no sin, 
Even self-chosen.  
In life, choosing blindness 
Is bad as can be.  

Then dead flesh will calamity bring.  
And, spreading, more sorrow,
Till, taking all, 
The moment arrive
When none sees –  
The Fall.

Are eyes so sore that lids prevail?  
Then use mine for a while; 
Forever, or till love’s restored.  
Your sorrow we’ll share
And blindness forsake.  
Our vision’s our duty; 
God’s act.