Best Mawr Poems
Poetic intention,
hiding in Prose
Misplaced and misspoken,
as every Bard knows
A narrative run on,
words littered about
Neither beauty nor truth
—masked in self doubt
(Bryn Mawr College: February, 2020)
Not so much
a lie
with little
truth to tell
Not so much
goodbye
with greetings
gone to hell
Not so much
romance
with feelings
dead or pawned
Not so much
to dream
with sleep
— bereft and gone
(Bryn Mawr College: May, 2025)
Another morning gone. The warp and weft
of kids and errands seems a sort of theft.
I love to listen to the phone-in show,
Peoria Euphoria K Seven, Illinois,
the kind of thing that housewives can enjoy -
Andrea Doria, Eva Longoria -
but parents don’t have rights. I’ve got to go.
Another morning spent. The spare room painted.
I poured the soup away, since it was tainted.
He mixed his caustic soda in the bowl,
with Pennsylvania always on his mind
(Bryn Mawr mainliner – guess you know the kind –)
Brainier, mania, Lusitania
and wiped it once around with kitchen roll.
Another morning done. The suit dry-cleaned.
A neighbourhood committee’s been convened.
Initial meet – the Wilsons’ brand new deck –
how was it financed? Heaven only knows.
Seaworthy credit? Like the Mary Rose!
Wegmans, Wayfair, Wakefern, Wickes …
(Let’s hope the builders wait to cash the check).
Another morning over. Turkey basted.
Last night, the almond cupcakes went untasted.
I don’t know why I go to all the trouble –
they raid the fridge for fudge and mayonnaise:
don’t call it eating. Kids today just graze.
Athletic greens, soya beans, proteins –
I sometimes think I’m living in a bubble.
Another morning down. The carpet hoovered.
The garbage bin unemptied, outmanouvered.
It looks so comfy, nestled in its cleft.
The city elders park outside their own,
so why can’t we? Is this a yellow zone?
Organic waste, paper chased, cadmium-laced.
Another morning gone. How many left?
I know you see me from up there,
from halfway up the steep and twisting lane.
In early half-light as you take your walk
I no doubt seem to loom as you descend,
appear to grow, to rise from earth,
my boxlike rectilinearity,
severe and unadorned geometry,
a silhouette against the solitary sodium source.
I once hosted fiery-throated hymns
from dedicated souls in Sunday best:
“Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus”,
“O! Iesu mawr, rho d’anian bur” –
voices rich and raised and resonant,
so filled with faith, so gorged with God.
My pitch-pine pews were polished
by coat and skirt and trouser twill.
Abandoned now, unloved, slab-still,
void and stark and desolate,
with quarry-tiled floor that would resound
with joy were anyone to walk upon it,
I present gaping emptiness, a thing felt,
a cave whose darkness, palpable,
is peopled by retreating echoes of my past,
like timorous ghosts far too afraid to speak.
But there is One I must not name –
though He might be known by
the four letters of the tetragrammaton –
who lodges in my roomy quarters,
cowers within my tight square corners,
seeking shadows when the sun stares in.
I hear Him breathing as
He sweats in His remorse, a thing smelt.
He hides from the accusing eyes of every nation,
the eyes that witness daily His forlorn creation.
(The chapel speaking here is in a small place in West Wales, UK)
(Translations: “Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus” = "Ride on Jesu, all victorious"; “O! Iesu mawr, rho d’anian bur” = "O Jesu, let Thy spirit bless")
Doctors (particularly biomedical engineers)...
really trolley train hard to keep track of patients
Eye tell ya we (spuds)
pulled up stakes after four yar
and zero scores ago living in Bryn Mawr
salutary heart and lungs figurative
storied Main Line Health medical network
latter part of June tooth thousand seventeen
approximately July first
same year bidding au revoir
bid good riddance account
to slumlord - hood did spat and spar
moved to Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
unsafe to ride bicycle without handlebar
economical, geographical, practical...
subjected by Grosse and Quade tyrannical czar
dom low income facilities housing
nattering nabobs of nihilism whose intellect subpar
candidates vetted by Jaclyn Geiger registrar
courtesy nepotism unexceptional manager
thanks be to her papa, she drives fancy car
unlike this pauper and the missus
limited to schlep near and not far
afforded by rattletrap motorcar,
no driving prohibitive number of miles,
crossing sketchy territory warning signs
picturing dangerous avatar,
(especially during inclement whee thar)
determining risk to forego
top manic kin Michelin
money grubbing cannibalistic
surgeon's earning equivalent silver star,
or comparable civilian rating touting specialists
while bonafide topnotch indivisible tailors swifty
stitch ink, viz tattoo back parlor shop whar
exemplary Patients Matter Always
buzzfeeding, inoculating, kickstarting...
healthy medical network,
hobnob, kibitz, schmooze...
drown lackluster lovelife at the bar
parting paramour with such sweet sorrows par
for the course during pouring rain how bizarre
necessitated our lucky find locating physicians
supreme nsync with Google high reviews
receiving, scoring, nabbing,
incorporating... truevalue re: vector and scalar,
we veteran trooper seasoned renters
luckily blessed chance
cost us pennies on the dinar
general bang for buck amazingly
found yours truly strumming his air guitar
pleasantly situated among picturesque poplar
resort within Skippack Village, a tourist
mecca for devout or
secular gourmandizing, earning
catering and acquiescing savoir
ole mighty faire Benjamin
legally tendering expensive bazaar.
Days weave together
as night tears at the seams
Light as it vanishes
deserting my dreams
The sun making promises
darkness reneges
The truth stays an orphan
that both will misgive
The rooster to signal
that devil’s retreat
Hope spawning a sunrise
where wishes beseech
All joy upon waking
released from the pall
The clock now a weapon
that hangs on the wall
In mutual exclusion
our psyches must live
A damned symbiosis
all take and no give
But hands will fall southward
the shadows reborn
This daydream a nightmare
—as twilight sojourns
(Bryn Mawr College: April, 2023)
Down this once famous graveled road
I drive by day and drive by night
my mind replaying stories of times past.
As if thinking about them
can make them real again.
Buildings standing with new faces, signs.
I see them now only as they once were
in my childlike memory, mind.
Each corner sparks a lost thought.
Transparent faces of townies crossing cross streets
a blur of long gone friends and schemes
living only in my most selfish dreams.
The Devon Horse Show grounds
where the Main Line's best show off
at its annual celebrated competition.
Villanova University where I honed my hoopster skills
a high-schooler sneaking into the gym on snowy days.
The Bouquet Flower Shop where I summer jobbed.
The Bryn Mawr Deli where I waitered posing for
giggling girls of crosstown Harcum College.
"Good Counsel" church, my reverent gothic fortress
for those important beliefs that later would fall away.
The Bryn Mawr Trust Bank that juts out proudly
on the main corner, a gray stoned prominence
where accounting of my money's worth was kept.
It too a dream. A dream of a future now lived.
Sepia shadows of decades ago.
A feeling of loss wells up within me
of time I want back again.
To right lost wrongs. To try again somehow.
Sometimes I turn away so not to remember.
But I have no way of getting there.
Street after street, ghost after ghost
looking down alleys and ways
in my haunting trance.
So many visions with no redeeming consequences.
Simple reminiscences of my time, my simple life
and this once famous graveled road.
never could this baby boomer papa –
lviii orbitz round mister sun as I write while wife
at present (takes her siesta) imagine
dragons, killer Queen Latifah countless ways,
thee first of deux daughters
would in vite learning how to comprehend
unfamiliar infant siren ear splitting strife
and mandatory pronto reception,
unwittingly ineluctably altering my life
prior to parturition of our eldest heiress,
ah wanna let
chew in on a bit about mess elf
before becoming a papa
no emotional, financial,
nor physical obligation dim manned did
obliged, nor required this bard **** to in debt
any of his waking and sleeping second,
minute, quotidian hour,
et cetera on behalf of another person Yukon bet
char sweet bippy, that despite initial onset
of anticipatory anxiety (no pet
tee personal issue; burping baby,
diapering, swaddling, et cetera fermi person
easily got shucked off), hitherto
didst any phenomena until then
force displacement of personal habits
to become secondary, and obviously,
seriously visibly up set
status quo, where embedded fixations
housed within this scribe
required reassignment of tasks
until salient event forced him to vet
any less important issues
to an unspecified future
date and/or time, which role
i.e. forsook luxury sans,
affordable focus on me,
and immediately didst force crash course
to keep figurative whet
stone sharp every waking
and sleeping moment of me life, yet....
though a crash course imposed role
viz immediate adjustment of mister mom
(which obviously necessitated significant sacrifice
upon the head of this major Tom)
never before until that juncture
such selfless experience ever met,
but in retrospect salutary outcome
found thoughts linkedin whereby
time never divided, partitioned,
or sectored off to another livingsocial being
I never took care of an infant,
when her crying heard
yet, the birth of E_ L_ H_ incurred
(born at Bryn Mawr Hospital),
Losing connections one by one …
my mind has drifted back
This moment caught within a cloud
the past sharp as a tack
I reminisce in present tense
new frames of reference gone
With that most recent going dim
but still—I hear that song
(Bryn Mawr Hospital: March, 2023)
In the Spring
memories blow like wind
through the corners of my soul
replacing the dark winter
which time has now beset
Playing its distant lute
change is thrust upon me
rebirthing what fall had rightly claimed
and buried in the past
Visions of dancing June bugs
they fervently surround me
mating my wonderment with joy
as summer waits untilled
The whirlwind dharma
that so haunts my dreams
left comatose and vacant
freeing me for what’s to come
—and what has always been
(Bryn Mawr College: March, 2023)
Belated condolences extolling fateful tragedy...
befalling beloved Khurana's
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/
Montgomery-County-Small-Plane-Crash-527480941.html
Published Aug 8, 2019 at 7:03 AM |
Updated at 1:14 AM EDT on Aug 9, 2019
The missus shrieked
with horror watching
and hearing in
disbelief and shock
catastrophe costing
three precious lives,
Macbook Pro laptop
wallpaper agonizing reminder
(though poem previously written
subsequently mailed to
immediate family relations),
I still feel numb
(albeit NOT comfortably)
reconciling inexplicable reality
with recollection to distill
their true value
when yours truly and kin
(sleeping spouse plus,
our two grown daughters)
lived on Greentree Lane
about three doors up
quite some years ago,
yet their untimely deaths
affect me weeks later
thus poetic memoriam
culled out and begged
express impossible mission
attempting to comprehend
profound loss community
of medical professionals
still must experience
stunned with grief
already latter half month
of August 2019 elapsed.
Though only casual acquaintance
husband/ wife doctors
Jasvir Khurana professor of pathology
and laboratory medicine
at Temple University
Lewis Katz School of Medicine
with a focus on bone pathology
and Divya Khurana (respectively)
a professor of pediatrics and neurology
at Drexel University
College of Medicine,
specializing in pediatrics,
sleep medicine and pediatric neurology
earned national recognition
as decades long leader in epilepsy
and mitochondrial disorder.
Nineteen year old daughter,
Kiran Khurana
youngest of two daughters
graduated Harriton High School
two thousand eighteen
in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
sadly also perished
single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza
crashed behind homes
along Minnie Lane near
Morris Road in Upper Moreland.
The power of poetry
to drive away love
A surrogate impostor
indentured above
Whether spoken or written
its message the same
All feelings imprisoned
in words that explain
When waxing poetic
the birds and the trees
Laughing not with you
but at you it seems
Intention enamored
from rhyme to blank verse
With hearts on the run
—and heaven to curse
(Bryn Mawr Pennsylvania: May, 2023)
Convincing myself of my own importance
—I became an audience of one
(Bryn Mawr College: Pennsylvania: January, 2014)
Man is predestined
to destroy his world
Consciously damning
‘free choice’ unfurled
An apex predator
upon himself
No rhyme or reason
or logic dealt
Self-destruction
his stock in trade
His nature foreign
to all else made
Killing his brothers
killing his sons
Shakespeare prescient
of what’s to come
Time irreverent
he never learns
What sets him free
his folly spurns
The clock is running
the hour late
His words now toxic
and filled with hate
And when it’s over
but one thing changed
A new world order
—with life reclaimed
(Bryn Mawr College: June, 2023)
There’s a clarity that comes with age,
confusion on the run
The light much brighter deep inside,
no writing on the come
My youth endeavors, drifting lines,
those hedges where I’d hide
Have all been trimmed or taken down,
left nothing to deny
There’s a clarity that comes with age,
lens sharpened, filters off
Regrets left bleeding where they fell,
to die amongst the frost
When morning comes my eyes are clear,
the past a long goodbye
My vision focused on my dreams
—no longer asking why
(Bryn Mawr College: April, 2020)