Short-lived was Eva Hesse
with hand-made art no less
Bindings&string & rope
her usp motif trope
H-appy
E-xpression
R-elieves
M-ind's
A-nguish
N-icely
N-egating
H-eart's
E-xasperation
S-o
S-pirit
E-ndures
Topic: Birthday of poet Hermann Hesse (July 02)
Form: Vertical Monocrostic
The Oneness of All
Depths of wisdom
Hermann Hesse
Spirituality’s quest
Soul’s transformation.
Enlightenment assured
Corporealization
The oneness of all
Siddhartha’s realization.
Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved,
June 18, 2017 (Double Dactyl)
As every blossom wilts and every youth
Yields to old age so manifests every stage of life,
All wisdom and every virtue
Has its time, and cannot last forever.
At every call of life, the heart,
Wrapped in bravery and without regret,
Must be ready to take its leave and start again,
To embrace each new adventure.
For a magic lives in each beginning
That shelters and helps us to thrive.
Let us move calmly from place to place,
Clinging to nothing as if it were a home,
The “Age” does not chain or confine our dreams,
It guides our steps toward increased opportunity.
But homelike surroundings, creature comforts,
Tempt us to let down our guard.
Only those prepared to let go, to love revolution,
Have a chance to escape crippling habits.
Perhaps even the hour of our death
Will open fresh new vistas to challenge us,
Might life’s call to life be never ending then?
Let it be so! Heart! Take your leave and health!
Herman Hesse – From his novel, The Glass Bead Game
Translation by Brian Johnston
April 3, 2017
BIO Of A Simple Man Called Me
Coming from a normal family
Perhaps not by today’s standards
I had two loving parents who stayed together
They lived and died together, that was their choice
And molded me to be a humble man of virtue
Most friends and family call me “gullible”
I believe anything you tell me… but only once
My parents named me Earl and wished me luck
Short stories, plays, novels, and sometimes poetry, is my way of life
I have nothing published but I still like to write
No one will pay me for reading books, so I played the game
Giving people subpoenas, travel documents, all in the same day
A travel manager by day, a constable’s officer by night
I’ve led an interesting, sometimes dangerous life
I’ve even had a wife or two and a couple of children along the way
I love chess and Zelda video games and played for hours
The Beatles are the best of the very best for music pleasure
Kafka, Samuel Beckett and Hesse are still such fun to read
People still call me gullible and lame
But I’m still standing, still playing in the game
Created on 10/09/14 for BIO Poems -Poetry Contest
...inspired by 'Piktor's Metamorphoses' by Hermann Hesse
Stepping through a vale she spied an oak,
its branches scratching heaven's glow
and anchored to the earth its twisted roots
clawed deeply through the soil below.
Embracing now its weathered bark she found
her scrawny body stretched from stern to stem,
her very blood the sap which seethed within
and energized the giant denizen.
She was at once the tomboy and the tree,
photosynthesis and flesh and bone
to reach the spheres, the bowels of earth
both bodies joined, the fusion done.
She was one with insect and with bird,
the wind and rain conjoined and made her wife
to all of nature, sea and sky,
to hail the consanguinity of life.
Tuesday Lobsang Rampa made
tea so his Third Eye could open
to see dreams fortifying in aspiring hearts
as they reach for the next beat in their comings and goings
Socrates played the lyre by
banging on the strings while
humming and hawing about the trouble of
always stressing and straining against the chains
though he loved Phaedrus in the Symposium
it was Xanthippe that made him a muse
Hermann Hesse spoke in tongues
while translating the synapses of a goatherd
who arranged new ideas like glass beads
which almost always came undone
except when Siddartha played the lute
in exchange for his crooked staff
Nietzsche saw the cunning linguist
would never solve the puzzle of the dead body
which Zarathustra carried to his bed like a wolf
where he lay dying of syphilis wrapped
in the wool of many sleeping sheep
Sibelius finally gave in to the seduction of despair
when for many restless nights he looked up at the
stars in the same Elysian fields where
the goatherd lay asleep
dreaming
A
poem
or a dream-
transforming our
needs.
Ekphrasis after Herman Hesse
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