Best Safar Poems
Sometimes we look to closest friends,
Expressly those who think we're ace:
Let them confirm our worth but still
Forget, inside us lies the proof.
Actualization calls for a
Command of strength and keen logic
To shape ourselves, at last, to get
Unknown rewards on our plateau.
And with revealed goals, we take a
Lone journey through heart and soul
In our quest...a long safari,
Zestfully seeking life's pizzazz,
And a fruitful new arena
That hones our talents as our gift.
Inner joy promotes stimuli
Of further searches, that lead to
New trails of self-completion.
Sandra M. Haight
~First Place~
Premiere Contest: Self Actualization Double Acrostic
Sponsor: San Woo
Judged: 11/13/2016
I looked into the face of my late mother,
and from her pure, placable eyes
I saw the light
reflected
from the paradise hearth.
I am kneeling beside her deathbed,
ardently looking at the sky, praying to the
guardian angel
to lend its wings to the soul that fell asleep,
so it would
fly into the sky, too.
But the coffin is closing,
and the night wind, a sullen and very austere
guardian,
wakes in his watchtower,
as if tending to a hungry death.
I held my hand upon her heart,
and a silent tear slid onto her
face,
sparkling like the morning dew.
In my chest, my heart is beating so coldly.
In this state, some higher Invisible hand
could have animated me
to set my sight at the
sky;
to set my hope at the
sky
where we shall meet.
© Walter William Safar 2010
THE STATIONERY BOY
His little dark street
Is at home in the silky cobweb;
His little dark street
Is only loud in the missionaries’ prayers,
It elicits a gaze in very few people,
It is but an uninvited guest to life.
The stationery boy hands out his beautiful fliers,
Like a messenger of his little dark street.
In his big clear eyes a tear is born,
Not as an accusation,
But as wonderful love,
His heart is young and full of hopes
That someday his big silent tear
Shall drop onto someone’s palm.
A new day is born in his wonderful spirit,
Perhaps somewhat cold and strange,
But a new day, still.
Oh powerful destiny, listen to your unloved son,
Wake up the sleeping star;
Wake up the sleeping sun;
Wake up the sleeping hearts of men,
So that the new day may be a friend to your unloved son.
In the inaudible shadows, he has his faithful listeners,
In death he has a faithful visitor,
His young beautiful eyes are more familiar with death than life.
When so many happy children gather around the city’s Christmas tree,
His dear young heart is loudly beating into the deaf nights,
Like a silver bell,
So that his small, dark home would be alight with a gaze.
When the wonderful northern wind brings
Happy children’s voices from afar,
Like a modest Christmas gift,
The stationery boy is building his little kingdom of happiness
In his vivid imagination,
His days and nights may be cold and dark,
But his imagination is bright and completely wonderful,
It shines in the darkness like an angel.
His silver bell is ringing beyond the heavenly dome.
If you want to show a real angel to your kid,
Hurry towards that little dark street,
And you might be lucky enough to see the stationery boy
Before he gets his silver wings.
©Walter William Safar
MY HOMELAND
People say that a man without a homeland
is a dry tree without roots,
but I tell you:
"I do not want to be a heartless,
soulless,
and mindless tool.
To a poet, such a homeland
is a prison and violent submission.
The poem is my homeland,
and a verse is mankind."
The world wonders:
"What does a poem mean to a poet,
is a poet equally important to you
like a homeland?"
I believe in only one homeland.
In the invisible one we build
on our thoughts and our love
all by ourselves and in ourselves.
The poem is always stronger than any notion.
I tell you:
"Tomorrow, the day after,
tens, hundreds, thousands of
poems
shall bloom here, in this shelf,
and each of them shall be dear to me
like the first one."
And I know, someday,
somewhere, sometime,
someone shall pull out that shelf,
and I will know that this poem shall
travel
and travel...
until She eventually finds it,
because, the true and only
homeland
of the human heart is
love.
Walter William Safar ©
LIGHT AND LOVE
You covered your mourning face with a black veil.
They say that you are sad,
so sad
that the birds no longer sing next to the window
where we used to dream of
freedom
which was so vividly reflected in the eyes of the birds
who found their little home
in the buds of your wild roses.
Forgive me, my dear,
for not being with You now.
I know that your mourning veil is weaved from sorrow
and watered by salty
tears.
My golden one, don't give our love slip away
into night's embrace,
throw away your mourning veil into the night's embrace,
let a glowing star from the sky shine on our love,
because light cannot be against love,
light must be for love,
because it doesn't harden hearts,
but soften them;
Because it does not battle like darkness,
but comes into hearts like a dove.
© 2010 Walter William Safar
WILD ROSE
The wind is quiet, wearily quiet this evening,
(and they say that winds do not age)
and I,
I am fondling the wild rose
with the inexplicable hope
that I shall find your tear on its petal.
Since you have gone, many a night has lost its brilliance,
and they tiredly walk my dark paths,
as if they grew old too,
just like our memories.
Those wonderful young nights
- in which we used to look at turquoise nets
woven by singing crickets during silky nights –
now they became completely tired and dark,
and they aimlessly wander my dark paths.
The wild rose's petals have long since stopped dancing,
because the wind no longer touches them.
They say that winds do not age,
perhaps not the desert winds,
but the cemetery winds certainly age and die
along with people and flowers.
It is so quiet and dark
in nights without you.
Everything died inside me
apart from the hope
that I shall see your tear on the trembling face of the wild rose,
the same tear
that was conceived in your dear, warm eyes
when I first kissed you.
How the night shone, how the wind was singing youthfully,
and the rose pensively sighed
when your tear slid onto it.
But now, everything is so quiet and dark,
and that wild rose
you used to fondle during storms,
like a lost child,
is perfectly quiet now,
perfectly abandoned.
Our wonderful young nights
grew old amidst our aimless wanderings,
just like I did.
The wind is so quiet this evening, so tiredly weak,
it pushes the night along my dark paths like a tired old man,
and I,
I am courting death like an aged old man,
because I know the end is near,
that our young nights shall become older with each new day,
and that your wild rose shall fade and completely disappear.
© Walter William Safar
THE WIND, THE FIR AND THE ROSE
While the wind walks up and down the village,
all the time at the same speed,
I looked at that fir,
bent down to the ground by the wind.
It must be very, very old,
but it's still so beautiful and
dignified.
And the wind, the prince of Freedom,
looked at the wild rose
and started to caress her red face,
asking her
to agree
that he might propose to her
to get engaged.
The rose suspiciously listened to it
bending its head a little from time
to time.
Now the wind bends the fir tree to the ground again,
so it might say a few words on his behalf,
and the fir tree started fondling the face of that village beauty
with a motherly tenderness,
showering drops of a bygone rain all around her,
- glistening on her noble face like pearly dew -
so that the rose might have its grace as a dowry,
and the rose majestically nodded to the
prince of Freedom,
like a princess of love,
agreeing to become the princess of Freedom.
And I thought:
“If men could only bend to the ground so easily,
like a fir tree,
there would be more love left for all of us.”
© 2010 Walter William Safar
In a dreamlit night, I looked at a star
Like a bird without a flock.
I do not want to call solitude
What it is,
Because there are other flockless birds
Somewhere in the distance.
Yes, my friend,
We do not have to see each other
To know each other,
Because you cannot see solitude,
Yet you still know it;
When solitude wants you,
Look upon a star
And you will know that you are not alone,
Because many a gaze is friendly with the star;
When you pass a flower,
Know that it is your friend too,
Because you did not thread upon it.
When you see a bird in a cage,
Let it loose,
Because it sings its most beautiful song
When it's free;
Yes, my friend,
Friendship is like freedom,
Boundless and limitless,
Like space in human thoughts;
When a raindrop falls on your palm,
Know that it fell on the palms on many
Like a young friend;
When sorrow comes knocking at your door,
Speaking of the world's injustice,
Know that you are not alone,
Because my heart beats
Just like yours;
When the wind whispers to you
About its thousand years of wandering
And loneliness,
Know that you are not alone,
Because it whispers to me too.
Yes, my distant friend,
Solitude is not ugly
If it isn't forced upon you,
Just like friendship
Isn't friendship
If it is forced upon you.
Wonderful is the friendship
Linked by spontaneity
Like a bird's link to freedom;
Wonderful is the friendship
Linked by space
And nature;
Yes, my distant friend,
We do not have to see each other
To know each other,
Because if we do not meet during our lives,
Our souls will doubtlessly
Meet in the white heavenly fields.
©Walter William Safar
OLD OAK
In the shadow of solitude now I see Your eyes,
that so faithfully carry about the light
through my thoughts so dark,
and the pen trembles in the hand,
waiting for the prodigal son's acknowledgement.
My one and only, acknowledgements arrive in solitude's embrace,
just like tears, and where there is a tear, there is love,
always faithful and unbribable, invisible but so real
that you can touch it with thoughts
and with the fiery breath in the infinity of solitude.
I admit to using my verses as ransom for my guilt,
(and guilt is my silence),
and I listen to the rumor
that perpetually, like a bat,
whirls across the lonely poet's street.
They say that me and You,
my one and only,
are fantasy, but a pen immersed in ink.
But You know, don't You,
that me and You are perfectly real, full of wishes,
dreams and memories.
My one and only, I am listening to the whisper of the wind
in this warm, dreamy summer night...
It is silent, horribly silent without You,
and the wind's whisper is dying down, farther away, oh so far,
as if called by death to its black hearse,
and I have waited for so many days, months and years to appear,
to bring Your voice to me,
gentle, soft, warm and yearning,
but it is so silent, oh so silent now,
that I can hear the screams of solitude
chase away memories
into this warm summer night,
my one and only, I am standing in the shadow of the dignified oak,
and I am looking into his empty sleepiness,
as if its playfulness left along with You,
it is silent like the wind.
Its dear, green, eternally waking young leaves,
who used to whisper in Your vicinity, untrammeled and confidential,
are completely silent now, completely dead.
Now I am trembling in the shadow of our oak,
fearfully looking at it as it drags its dignified old face along the ground,
its memories are as lively as mine.
Once, yes, once the memories,
who live so inaudibly,
shall become so weak,
so humanly weak,
that they shall find their dark home
next to our wooden crosses.
© Walter William Safar
I'm limping in the Savanna
With my safari hat askew
I've never been to Africa before
So this experience is new
I can see an elephant in the distance, far, far away.
My legs have started to tremble,
I hope that's where that elephant will stay.
I get out my binoculars, hoping I look like a pro,
I dropped them in the dense grassland
And did not see them go,
I knelt on the ground to see if I could find
My binoculars as I did not want to leave them behind.
I looked for ages until my poor knees ached,
I soon ran away as I heard the slithering of a snake.
The snake moved fast, getting closer and closer to me.
I clasped my arms around an enormous tree.
The snake slid by with a look of disdain.
When overhead, I heard the motion of a plane.
I whipped off my jacket and waved it fervently.
Screaming at the top of my voice, please come and save me.
I could see the pilot wave, and much to my delight.
I would be safe before the dark of night.
Did I enjoy this experience?
The answer is NO
Home Sweet Home Safar is I want to go.
STRAW MAN
The straw man guards a golden field,
His eyes are empty, like its head,
A golden heart shines in his chest. Whose hand
had put this golden heart into his chest?
Can this heart put his body into motion?
This is what the crow is thinking about, and only the wind knows
the whole truth, that the girl with the golden hair
sat at the feet of the straw man,
waiting for the fairy to promise her
that she shall provide a heart for the straw man.
Like a man made of flesh and blood,
he loves it when the wind fondles his face,
and even more when the girl with the golden hair
is sewing a green shirt made of grass leaves,
so that someone might love him too;
When the sky darkens,
when the dark clouds come down like a led curtain
(to bring our story to an end) the straw man
is standing alone in the golden field, waiting for his death.
He opens his mouth, but all that comes out of it is silence...
treacherous silence.
I cannot hear him, I don't know his thoughts,
(after all, how can an empty head bear a thought?),
but I know for certain that he can feel, and I know what he feels,
I know what he wants:
For me to take him away
into distant golden deserts,
where the sun is eternally warming;
Where there are no crows to pick his eyes,
where there is no thunder and lightning, just the golden sun
and the girl with the golden hair. It is late
(I cannot save him, being just a poet outside the story),
the fireball is coming down from the sky
to burn the straw man.
©Walter William Safar
WITHOUT YOU
Without you, my only one, I was a prisoner of solitude
waking over my fate
like a listless guard.
Without you, my only one, my poems are dying in a coffin
next to the old trunk
in which my memories are,
memories that brought no joy
to anybody's heart.
While I lay there in the cold bed
like a solitary character from the saddest love
poem,
My dreams roam the unfinished verses of the saddest love
poem.
Without you, my only one, for many and many times, day and night,
I have rested my head on the same pillow
where you were sleeping all those blissful nights.
I kissed you in a dream,
I thought of You
as of a falling star
that left its trace on the face of the lonesome night,
just like You left a trace in my lonely heart.
Without you, my only one, I was but a trace without a trace,
I was a tear made of black wax;
I was but a shadow
leaving behind as much visible trace
as an abandoned orphan.
Without you, my only one, I was but a word
in an unfinished verse of the saddest love
poem.
© 2010 Walter William Safar
DREAMS
Travel in peace, dreams of mine,
Into the land of color, the wonderful land of noble memories,
So that my blind spirit might see through the turquoise moon's eyes,
So that my tired spirit finds its peace in your sacred cradle.
Fly with the breath of Freedom,
So that you may sow the seed of young hope
In the courtyard of heavenly gates.
Travel in peace, dreams of mine,
To honor the many tears haunted by memories,
To honor the many stars haunted by lonely nights,
To honor the many winds haunted by prayers of the unfortunate.
Oh, Destiny, how heavy the cross must be to a dreamless man.
If I had to be born again
In a poor cradle,
I would once again agree to walk the dark streets of poverty,
If only my dreams would not abandon me.
Travel in peace, dreams of mine,
Into distant valleys of saturnine silences.
Find your humble home
In the infinity of human tragedies,
So that you may fraternize many unfortunates
With your merciful existence,
So that my lonely spirit can see the magnificent light
In the fraternal souls of people I hold dear.
©Walter William Safar
SILVER TEARS
You say that you have long since
turned off all the lights but one,
the light beneath which
I have kissed you
while pearly dew glittered
all around us,
a breeze was blowing,
and the birds were not silent,
but singing at the top of their lungs.
You say that you have long since
turned off all the lights but one,
beyond which everything was freshened
with tears gone by,
which still shine
outside the door of the old house
like fairy silver tears.
When you think you're alone,
know that a calm person
is still walking towards your home
with calm and measured steps,
the person of your poet's
barefoot solitude.
A long, long time has passed
since we used to see each other often,
and since all the lights were glowing
on earth
and in the skies,
and since the moon was,
with its expression of dominance,
power
and enchantment,
self-consciously sitting up there
- surrounded by the stars
that give him the eternal magic of youth –
and watching
the fairy silver tears
sliding down your face,
as if you were the saddest woman
under the heavenly dome.
You say that you have long since
turned off all the lights but one,
beyond which love was
so impatient and capricious,
in the desire
to go from hand
to hand
of all those who are in love
around the world,
so they, too, would feel the love
I feel for you.
© Walter William Safar
IN THE NAME OF ETERNAL LOVE
Since you have left, my one and only,
the sun became perfectly cold.
Its golden heart,
completely forgotten, lies in the golden cradle:
Oh, Lord, the sun is so cold,
it wrapped itself around my heart,
like a vampire's golden claw.
Its cold fingers of gold
are ripping off parts of my heart
and throwing its bloody food at death's feet.
I am looking for the shadow to save me,
the same shadow
in which you used to read my poems,
whose verses were so touching and yearning,
so perfectly life-like and human
when your soft voice sent them on their way to people's hearts.
If I knew that I'd touch the sky with my verses
and revive you
to warm my cold heart,
and the entire cold world around me,
I would agree at once to brand my verses with my own blood.
But the sun is still so cold
and shining like gold:
cold and deadly blinding;
They say that the night,
the dark night,
is the right place for dying,
but you know, my one and only,
that this is not true,
because you left me when the sun shone at its brightest,
and when the golden stream murmured across the white heavenly fields
gilding our verses.
Oh, Lord, death in a golden dress must be so noble,
when it takes the soul to meet the angels.
You know, my one and only,
that our verses
that joined us with an unbreakable brace of love and immortal memories,
these dear and painfully lively verses are my only link to you now.
While solitude whips me, I voice myself in our verses
into the sky,
to approach you
so closely as to hear your voice
when you read our verses to angels.
While the present haunts me to the past,
I am chasing my spirit towards the golden cradle
to become a blood brother to the newborn verse,
because my end is near;
They say that the night,
the dark night,
is the right place for dying,
but my place is on the golden hearse,
right next to the golden cradle,
right next to the newborn verse,
when the sun is at its warmest and brightest,
when the sun's golden hearts is lively ticking in fiery breasts –
so that death may await me in the golden cradle,
like you, my one and only,
so that we may sow our verses
along white heavenly fields:
because it cannot be any other way,
it should not be any other way
in the name of eternal love.
©Walter William Safar