Best Bergman Poems
There was a time when I was young
To share an era that begun
From music to the fashion trend
TV shows and history
Fads and other mysteries
I saw them all as time moved on
From classic pop to rock and roll
Bill Haley and the Elvis craze
And four years in my Air Force phase
But Jitterbug still hung around
The big bands had that unique sound
Time moved on to start the clock
European cinema
Fellini, Bergman made the mien
And Japan added to the pie
To film The Seven Samurai
Brando, Newman and James Dean
newly captured on the screen
Television's Golden Age
All the programs set the stage
For Gunsmoke and the Twilight Zone
I love Lucy, I married Joan
TV tubes were changed a lot
Wrestling shows were really hot
Mantle, Mays and Robinson
Took baseball to another rung
The coonskin cap and hula hoop
Duck tail hair and snapper soup
I wore one with a thick pomade
And ate the soup that Momma made
My fashion sense left much to judge
As if I had good taste for fudge
Pegged pants with a six inch rise
Ladys skirts were different then
Lengths that came down to their shins
Three inch higher was a sin
Still dirty minds existed then
In Belgium back in 58
I saw an exhibit on that date
The Sputnik with a cute stray dog
was launched so high up in the air
Before the U.S. could get there
Then the race to conquer space
McCarthy hearings, lives destroyed
The Cold War was our only plight
The Commies kept their nukes in check
And Castro entered on the scene
There were no hot wars left to fight
Days still continued as well as night
I share a new millennium
But today the future's not so bright
No more long hand, the laptop's here
Facebook and Twitter have conquered our sphere
The death knell has tolled for how life was then
Rekindle your past and live again
Ralph Sergi February 19, 2015
Decades by Kelly Deschler
Categories:
bergman, remember, , cute,
Form:
Rhyme
Marquees are bright with neon lights, where crowds line up for movie night
Holding hands, we're in 'The Strand'. The velvet carpet guides us in
Popcorn smokes, .. we're drinking cokes,... and cracking jokes with Bing and Hope
Lamour's along with more sarongs,... , her luscious lips, and cigarettes,
She fills ashtrays with smoking tips, and tosses guys like poker chips
'Movietone' intrudes with news, and soon we're in somber mood
Third-Reich goosesteps march again, ... an evil presence in the wind...
Cary Grant , (a news reporter), loves his girl, and his typewriter
"His Girl Friday", plot is witty, sometimes crazy. But Cary loves this ditzy lady....
William Powell and Mryna Loy..., Asta barks, and finds a toy, ...a ploy? a clue?,....
...an earring gold. The mystery is clearly solved.-- A crimson sun, is rising cold!
Movietone in black and white,... graphic scenes, where soldiers die
Another night, suspense on chart. 'Correspondent' , Joel McCrea.
Saves Lorraine, and claims the Day. BUY WAR BONDs !! They'll pave the way
Bogart, Bergman bring to light, a valiant flght , within their grasp
Airline ticket, in her hand, they must part, and do what's right, no questions asked
----
It's movie night, but you aren't here, a troopship took you far from here
Allied troops are moving tanks. I wait for you..God give me strength
I'm in the Strand, within the dark, there's no one here to hold my hand
I'm all alone...........I heard the news....................You left it all in Anzio
_____________________________________
For Contest Chopped III Sponsored by Craig Cornish
11/23/14
Categories:
bergman, dark, film, history, military,
Form:
Free verse
Lights are low. Reflections flicker on the wall
Mirror images of those from long ago.
Dead so many years, yet who are still alive...
Here,...in black and white, ...in this dark room
Bergman and Grant. I watch them as they struggle with emotion
She deceives him. He believes betrayal...
How is it possible...that he cannot see that her love for him endures?
My small screen evokes such love, bitterness, sadness and pain...
But once again...our heroine will be redeemed, and saved...in the end.
Oh yes! I know the outcome. I've seen it many times before...
Even so..I must watch again...how love conquers all....
Oh Mr. Grant! You must see how she loves you!!
Why can you not see how her heart breaks??
Ahh.....finally, yes...he carries her in his arms down the stairs to safety..
And I am curled in my chair...breathless once again.
Bergman, Grant, Stewart, Hepburn, Bogart...the list goes on and on.
We have lost them one by one, ....yet...we never really did...
They have left their presence in black and white for us to relish, ...again and again...
To take us to war torn places...to the Rhine,...to Casablanca...to the ends of the earth...
Yet we've never had to leave our chair
Those beautiful faces that never age
Like black and white etchings, that can be brought to life..
Tonight brings a teardrop, or terror, or a love like no other...
Tomorrow, they will take me to another place...another time...
As they live on and on and on.....in black and white...
____________________________________________________________________
note....Just watched one of my favorites last night on TCM
Categories:
bergman, art, imaginationlove,
Form:
Free verse
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.
Categories:
bergman, math,
Form:
Shape
On the sandy knoll he stands, a solitary, forlorn figure gazing at the sky. It’s a clear night, and hundreds of stars shimmer like fireflies pinned to the firmament. His eyes fix on one of them, a twinkling pinpoint near the center that seems to give off a faint amber glow. Looking at it distractedly, he wonders what star it is, which galaxy, how many light years away. He has been mired in a persistent gloom brought on by a bad breakup which life in general has done little to lift, and in his pensiveness, he yearns to be where he is not.
Stars congregating
A salve of reticent lights
Melancholy vaults
He imagines not only life but a much more advanced civilization on the amber star (the distinction between a star and a planet he’s in no mood to dwell on), an unknown utopia in the wilderness of space where unhappiness has been bred out of the entire race, and where there’s no war, no loss, no hate, no love, just a perpetual lightness of being maintained by wisdom and moored to omnipotent technology. He wishes he could leave everything behind, and go far, far away to that beckoning star.
Soul with starry eyes
Thoughts retreat into night sky
Fantasy of flight
The star he’s gazing at is in fact not a star, but a planet in a spiral galaxy 4.5 million light years away, which would not be visible to his naked eye if it weren't for the light from over 5,000 near-simultaneous explosions that have obliterated civilization there in a nuclear apocalypse. Before life was extinguished, the planet’s inhabitants called their galaxy the Milky Way, and the planet itself, Earth.
Man-made suns flashing
Perpetual night descends
Light flees into space
Inspired by the song “So Many Stars” by Sergio Mendes, Marilyn Bergman, Alan Bergman
Categories:
bergman, leaving, life, night, sad,
Form:
Haibun
If it were only me, I will be doing anyhow
Nobody would have been there to challenge me now
Now I look back into the face of the future,
What I see, golden grains, people of peasant pictures;
Red roses rooted in the soils of 29th August,
Some still sailing other down in the dazzling dust;
Blessed blueprint on earth pages by sincere sages,
Firm footprint by men with messages for all ages:
Ingrid Bergman, the mother of motion picture
Won worldwide awards, with firm face and features.
Michael Jackson, king of pop, sensational singer,
Dances and drums, thrilled the throng with Thriller*
Isabel Stanford, first African American, actress- leader
To win Emmy Award, Guess who is coming to dinner*
William Friedkin, award winning American producer,
The French connection*, the exorcist’s*… super screenwriter.
Richard Attenborough; British born, powerful TV producer,
Multiple Award winner for Gandhi *: a daring drama.
Rebecca De Mornay; an American film and TV actress,
Thrilled in the Testament* and her roles in Risky business*
Oh, Lauren Collins; an alluring actress, a colorful Canadian;
Thrilled in The Next generation*; she shares my day: a Nigerian.
John McCain, an ambitious American politician, a senior senator,
From Arizona, lived a lively life, formerly an active aviator.
Thom Gunn, a passionate and multiple award-winning poet,
For priceless poems collections…the man with night sweats*
Charles Kettering, American, an inspiring, intriguing inventor,
Invented automobile self starter and engine-powered generator.
Too many to mention: poets, actors, sportsmen and philosophers
Men and women: wise, wild and wonderful; lively, not loafers.
Adeite Adeleke, see the soaring stars who share thy dear date;
Learn from their fame, faults and frailty, focus on faith and fate.
Categories:
bergman, dedication
Form:
Couplet
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
Categories:
bergman, film, , western,
Form:
Quatrain
Theatre
auditory, expressive
producing, setting, critiquing
Miller, Olivier, Azmi, Bergman
directing, acting, entertaining
visual, scripted
Cinema.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 22 / 10 / 2016
Categories:
bergman, art, film, inspiration, tribute,
Form:
Diamante
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...)
Categories:
bergman, courage, friend, friendship, humanity,
Form:
Free verse
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?
Categories:
bergman, absence, age, appreciation,
Form:
Blank verse
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
Categories:
bergman, fun,
Form:
Rhyme
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
Categories:
bergman, blue, city, class,
Form:
Bio
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.
Categories:
bergman, nostalgia,
Form:
Free verse
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
Categories:
bergman, love, passion,
Form:
Free verse
Soul
to soul-
free of the
control of the
mind.
Tribute to Igmar Bergman
Categories:
bergman, people,
Form:
Epic