Bergman Poems | Examples

Sweden today

Sweden today
 
What happened to Sweden throwing off her neutrality like it was an old overcoat and to make matters worse joining old NATO, that is a moribund military organization.
I remember Ingrid Bergman, a great actress when I see her, I wonder, why Ricky had 
a nightclub in Casablanca 
There were many famous Swedes, such as Alfred Nobel, and Ingmar Bergman, and not forget Birgitte Nielsen married to an actor named Rocky Stalone, a screen hero
I remember Malmo where I bought coffee cups
With flowers on, now this town is full of angry belligerent Islamists wanting to enforce Shari law and run around with big knives
Of course, there is the forever teenager Greta Thunberg who wears a permanent scowl when marching in protest against the EU or if not something else; one wishes, she would fall in love, have sex with a young man, and go back to school

Hollywood's Golden Years

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
And those old black and white movies
Some were cinematic disasters
But some you could call quite groovy

Even now, my heart skips a beat
When one appears on the late night screen
I choke up a bit seeing John Wayne
As he swaggers in and out of the scene

Today with its technology and trickery
We don't know if people are real
Or made up computer animation dudes
To me, it seems way too surreal

Take me back to the Spaghetti Westerns
The gangster films of Cagney and Bogart
The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello
Loved them all, that was cinematic art

The stunning sensuality of Ingrid Bergman
The glamour of a young Elizabeth Taylor
The bombshell beauty of Marilyn Monroe
Bardot, Betty Grable and more

The newsreels, the cartoons, the travelogues
And the giant blockbusters of the time
Sure was a lot for twenty-five cents
Plus popcorn and a drink for a dime

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
Great musicals like “Singing In The Rain”
“An American In Paris” with Gene Kelly
Sure wish I could go back there again

Casablanca Exceeded Expectations

The New Yorker said Casablanca was “pretty tolerable”
No one expected it to do great things.
It was surprising when it won Best Picture of 1942.
Eighty-one years old, and it is now iconic.

My husband has a six foot poster of it in his office.
He watches it six to ten times a year.
I remind him that Bogart had to stand on a couple of blocks.
Ingrid Bergman was over two inches taller than he was.

Paul Henreid aka Victor Laszlo called Bogart a mediocre actor.
Bogart called Paul a “prissy prima donna”.
“Here’s looking at you kid” is attributed to Bogart.
He said it to Bergman when he taught her poker in between takes.

Hollywood's Golden Years

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
And those old black and white movies
Some were cinematic disasters
But some you could call quite groovy

Even now, my heart skips a beat
When one appears on the late night screen
I choke up a bit seeing John Wayne
As he swaggers in and out of the scene

Today with its technology and trickery
We don't know if people are real
Or made up computer animation dudes
To me, it seems way too surreal

Take me back to the Spaghetti Westerns
The gangster films of Cagney and Bogart
The newsreel of the day plus a cartoon
Loved them all, that was cinematic art

The stunning sensuality of Ingrid Bergman
The glamour of a young Liz Taylor
The bombshell beauty of Marilyn Monroe
Bardot, Betty Grable and more

The newsreels, the cartoons, the travelogues
The giant blockbusters of the time
Sure was a lot for twenty-five cents
Plus popcorn and a drink for a dime

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
Great musicals like “Singing In The Rain”
“An American In Paris” with Gene Kelly
Sure wish I could go back there again

Bergman Film, 1963

It was a Swedish film they said,
Mixing real life, truth and art,
A little bit expressive they said,
Which for us was a jolly good start
And when Sunday the good Father
Preached to go and see it was a sin
The street outside was crowded
As we quietly queued to get in.

This was the early 1960’s
When standards had to be preserved
What was outrageous then would
Now be considered quite reserved.
There was Sex and there was Symbolism
There was Fear, Anxiety, Angst and Doubt.
I watched the whole film enthralled
No idea what it was all about

At later showings we found 
Due to the films”s notoriety
And to enable a continuing 
Sense of community propriety
At a given signal they had to hold
Sheets of paper before their eyes
To avoid seiing certain scenes
And keep Innocence uncompromised

But, it was Art and it was Sex,
Displayed on the silver screen
And despite the Father’s warnings
Me and most of the village had been.
It was never mentioned in the bar
Later on when we went for a drink,
Just the odd embarrassed grin
And the occasional knowing wink.

The Confidence of Ten Men

marguerite bergman, small town Iowa girl
ran off with a Texan at age sixteen in 1916
ran back home after he beat her in 1917
divorced husbands numbers two and three by 1925
Became my father’s mother in 1928, now happily married.
A woman with the confidence of ten men.

Soldiers

We ran deep into the woods 
 from the other side of the wire
 an enemy came with me. 
Stripping our uniforms bare 
we hid in the river
A mouthful of oxygen from an enemy's lung 
And in an embrace ,
We floated in the liquid sky 
Above us the fire flowered
With its thousand tongues 
raving in riot.

We ran deeper and in the night we made a fire huddled around it
I sang a song
I don't think he understood a word 
He liked it though 
I can tell .

Deep in the woods
The enemy slept peacefully
 as I kept guard
The fire weakened 
I let it wane 
And in a dim light
The movie started 
In the forest ,
By the lake
I watched for hours 
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman dance.
Deep in the woods, 
We were all in Casablanca


(...
the fundamental things apply 
As time goes by...)

Synonymous : Theatre and Cinema

Theatre
auditory, expressive
producing, setting, critiquing
 Miller, Olivier, Azmi, Bergman
directing, acting, entertaining
visual, scripted
Cinema.







------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 22 / 10 / 2016

Tv

Television  

My sister, a seamstress was the first in our street to buy TV, an ugly, 
shiny mahogany box in the corner, and since it was early afternoon and 
no program on, stood there blinking as having dust in its eye. 
Monday, film night on TV, the whole neighbourhood came and brought
things to be sewn; curtains were drawn even though it was summer and still
daylight, we sat in darkness, in silence caused by our awe.
Back then the TV was run by people who wanted to educate us and we
resisted all the Bergman movies, yet we watched enthralled by 
having a cinema at home that brought news and weather forecasts    
Glistening cars in the rain, where her house once stood there is now 
a parking lot; I’m the only one alive, but every face, the evenings are
 etched on my mind, glass clear in black & white

After Ingmar Bergman

After Ingmar Bergman 

And now that it is dawn
And the sun will soon come over the mountain
My wife’s warmth keeps me warm 
My screams of fear is now a murmur
She dries spittle from my beard and speaks softly 
Soon she will get up and make coffee
I let the aroma envelope me 
The terror of the night and death subsides and
I will try to be kind and
Believe in a god that will lift me up to his heaven 
And let me live forever.
But who will publish my poetry collections?

Bergman Numbers

Bergman Numbers


... there are no uninterest—
ing positive whole numbers—
“because if there were, there would—
be a smallest one, and the—
property of being the—
smallest uninteresting
number would be…be? You see?”

Thanks to Prof. 
--- George Bergman
	  Emer. Prof. Math. 
        UC Berkeley
*Poetry&Mathematics—A square: the number of syllables in a line equals the number of lines.

Hollywood's Golden Years

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
And those old black and white movies
Some were cinematic disasters
But some you could call quite groovy

Even now, my heart skips a beat
When one appears on the late night screen
I choke up a bit seeing John Wayne
As he swaggers in and out of the scene

Today with its technology and trickery
We don't know if people are real
Or made up computer animation dudes
To me, it seems way too surreal

Take me back to the Spaghetti Westerns
The gangster films of Cagney and Bogart
The Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello
Loved them all, that was cinematic art

The stunning sensuality of Ingrid Bergman
The glamour of a young Liz Taylor
The bombshell beauty of Marilyn Monroe
Bardot, Betty Grable and more

The newsreels, the cartoons, the travelogues
And the giant blockbusters of the time
Sure was a lot for twenty-five cents
Plus popcorn and a drink for a dime

Ah! The Golden Years of Hollywood
Great musicals like “Singing In The Rain”
“An American In Paris” with Gene Kelly
Sure wish I could go back there again

© Jack Ellison 2014

Moving Pictures

Soul
to soul-
free of the 
control of the
mind.

Tribute to Igmar Bergman

Everything But Nothing

Compared expressions of you as 
nothing ever will
Treaded outskirts of atmosphere
Intense of culminated proportion
Chameleon Ingrid Bergman stares
beget faceted hours in brood
Pining a slice of affection
Reside my precious jones’s retinas 
Pupils behold, widened as oceans
Mere sight share butterflies
Glides acrobatic feats
Discreet rituals where sensibilities
spill precious savory elixir in opus
Faint cries mustered from guttural core 
Wrung out where there lies everything
but nothing more, lover…
My heart do reciprocate

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