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Best Poems Written by Gerald Buss

Below are the all-time best Gerald Buss poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Bricabrac

Bricabrac. Old and sick in Krakow, Czeslaw complained of his to a fellow (Irish) Nobelista. My fate too (though I am not a poet, I think, and so do I deserve it?)? Like alphabet soup. Lots of letters. Enough to make a small book. Swimming, refusing to join others in the sparest, most economic, incarnation - a monosyllabic word. Let alone a sentence that might be read front to back. Bricabrac.

2016 June 29

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Mourning Dove

The mourning dove visits daily, comes for her noontime meal. This sweet-faced bird also has the sweetest song, a haunting melody. But what is most endearing is her politesse, her courtesy, her hanging back, while others eat ahead. She doesn't "push or shove," nor does she intimidate, as the blue jay does, or seems to at any rate; she waits and, for that, and for what it is worth, the mourning dove has drawn from this bird-loving bird-feeder an abiding love.

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Saturday Downtown

Saturday Downtown

A sister and brother walking downtown, shops and shows and trolleys; smells of dimestore popcorn, caramel apples, warm nuts, candies, lunch counters, blue plate specials. 

Sheltered beneath the overhangs and awnings, they, sister and brother cling, walking cautiously, as if to touch a stranger might bruise and hurt; he, weak, sickly, leans on her, she supports him, with body, both arms, both hands. 

He's in a cheap pair of dark gabardines, a white starched cotton shirt stained here and there with rust; she's in a stiff dark dirty skirt, white blouse, funny little hat; both down at the heel.

Handsome though, but for the fear apparent on their face, the fear of touching, being touched, of being seen so pained, so poor; of not being seen at all.


2006 July 14

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On Reading Campo Dei Fiori By Cm

You, Czeslaw,
like a brook of the earth,
welling up to the skies and more,
swelling up even to the sun and the stars
and all unknown, uncounted galaxies
and more, more than we can yet know
or ever will, till in timeless space
we dwell in a place where
our tears mingle with your own,
making of themselves and all
their visions and their dreams,
one endless, downpouring stream,
breaking through both time and space,
cleansing, clearing perhaps one small part
of one small heart of the human tendency
to be a living witness of evil, and not care.

2006 July 11

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Dirge

Now at this hour 
on this day and 
time of year 

cracks of light 
leaves of green 
buds and birds

possibly everyone 
and everything 
augur spring 

I look out upon it 
open my mouth 
move my tongue 

nothing comes out 
no lyric no music 
no song can be sung 

save a lament 
the eye all I 
my imprisonment

2014 February 24

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This Loneliness

Sea, where are you, and
when will you appear,
ready to overwhelm
this loneliness?


2005 January 22

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Learning

I’m learning how to recognize 
the disfigured, defaced, disguised, 
multiplied, masked, dehumanized –

my companions, scantily clad 
in the social fabric – 
do you recognize me?

2004 Fall

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Second-Hand

How much affect is second-hand,
used to mime a mood,
impersonate a man? 

2004 Fall

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His Oeuvre

Looking for
someone great
whose work
he won't denominate
his Œuvre;
something plainer
smoother for
this simpleton's
simple tongue

2009 July 4

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Poetry Howls

When I first heard of “poetry howls,” I said to myself, “how sad”; is poetry meant to wake the dead or liven the living (though I’ve read of the living dead)?  haven’t we enough noise around to confound and confuse a universe of smaller sounds, en train thoughts, low sung birds?  haven’t we sufficient “icy pandemonium” (in S. Weil’s words)?

I would propose “poetry whispers” instead; of poets living, of poets dead, sharing a find, perhaps one supposed all spent, a jewel borrowed, or one discovered in a rent of the Self.  And if unable to express epics lying buried within, begin by sharing a briefer line that – who knows? – may become the wine that loosens another’s tongue.