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Best Poems Written by Art Fasbender

Below are the all-time best Art Fasbender poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Sitting, Breathing, Learning

Sitting, Breathing, Learning

Mountain breezes riffle Cottonwood leaves
on the towering tree
outside my window
they rescue my focus from work 
as deep memory calls forth
a poem by Allen Ginsberg
written at a Buddhist retreat
musing about exhales
in Grand Teton National Park
and their travels around
a spinning planet
before returning to sharp
craggy places of origin
waiting in line patiently
to once again become inhales
off to make  
the same journey of roundness…
even the examined life
is like that you know,
repeating the same dances
making costume changes
re-doing make-up
in order to fool us into thinking
experiences are new and fresh
like juicy ripe fruit, just picked
when in truth it’s just
another face on the same old same old
for me to repeat until I finally touch
the essence of the exercise
one fine day perhaps
just sitting, breathing and learning, as
mountain breezes riffle Cottonwood leaves
on the tree outside my window…

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A Chair With Benefits

A Chair With Benefits

There are times when
I sit quietly in my oversized chair
And daydream in discursive
Patterns, running in full color
Surround sound and three D
Onto the blank canvass between my ears
Stories unfold in blazing imagination
Old experiences back with new
Twists and unexpected characters
Making for juicy memories and
New endings for long gone tales
Those twenty-minute zone outs
Energize me and fertilize my life
For waking real-time adventures and
The older I get the more often
Those moments wind up being
Poetry or the seeds of short stories
If I remember a snippet as I wake,
And it tickles my creative muse
That there is no price to pay for
Inspiration coming while I daydream
Sitting quietly in my oversized chair...

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A Boy In Heat

Young Boy in Heat

I remember when I was a kid
Maybe twelve or thirteen years old
Just on the edge of pubescence and
Becoming aware of my own sexuality
Drawn to girls for the first time and
Finding them compelling and different
Every sense jumping up when one 
Entered a room I was hanging out in
Leaving me with an odd feeling in 
My lower belly, confusion reigning
In my brain and emotions as to why
And it wasn’t long after my awareness
Of girls that I discovered women
I was a Libra with hormones rising
And almost anything became the fodder
For major teenage sexual fantasies
I was checking out my mother’s friends
Not to mention my friend’s mothers
I was obsessed and testosterone ran amok
The scent of perfume or powder
Scrambling my neurotransmitters
Smelling like notes from a smokey 
Jazz record on an old phonograph
Prominent in a picture on the wall
I’ve chased that mystery since the 
First hair appeared on my chest and
It’s rendered me a very happy man...

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Altzheimers:Thief of Light

Altzhiemers: Thief of Light

My good old friend is a prisoner
tortured by his own sharpest tool
The shadows of Altzhiemers
Throwing a cloak of darkness
Over his bright green eyes
Eyes that I regularly looked to
For wisdom and sage advice
Forty-five years of our adventures
And brotherhood still live in
His soul and somewhere in
His ravaged brain, bringing
Smiles each time I come to visit
I can’t hold his hand in mine because
even light touch makes him wince in pain
But, I tell him stories from
Back in the day that brings him
To laughter and visible joy for
One fabulous moment of recognition
He is an incredibly wealthy man
Whose family built great railroads
That connected the country from
Coast to coast, governed states
Served as wartime ambassadors
Founded banking dynasties and
Designated him a black sheep
We spent lots of time at his beautiful
880-acre ranch at almost 9000 ft in
Buckhorn Canyon, on the 
Border of Rocky Mountain Park
A 150-acre farm in Bellevue as well
As a home in Belize for diving trips
I sit at a table with him before a
Picture window that looks out at
The Bellvue Dome cliffs where
for many centuries of verbal history
Native American tribes chased herds of
Bison off the edge for the women
Below to skin, stretch and preserve 
wisely preparing for winter to come
As I get up from the table to leave
I’m overwhelmed by grief because
My old friend is lost within his shadows
And I have no idea if I’ll ever
See HIM again...

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Snow and Paintings

Snow and Paintings              

The snow began to fall
late yesterday afternoon
first the big flakes
dropping leisurely and
building up on
the grass but melting 
as they hit warm streets

Temperatures plunging 
in the night make for
black ice on morning roads
spinning cars at slick corners
school buses crawling along
white knuckle drivers with
foreheads creased in tension

I watched it fall before
going to bed, last night and
dreamt about paintings
nine-degree latitude sunsets
light bouncing off  Caribbean waves
flocks of Parrots and Frigate birds
making there way to safe havens

Paintings of Dolphins playing in
the wake of a boat drawn by
the hum of the engine and 
people’s laughter, making eye contact
in that instant you feel their awareness
a connection between sentient beings
acknowledging each other’s holiness

Portraits of tropical expats
one hand wrapped around an icy glass
the other on the ass of someone else’s wife
portraits of  outlaws in the jungle
building houses that will be locked 
down against indigenous thieves and
unwanted guests with darkness in their hearts

I awoke to the snow still falling
now pushed by winds in a hurry
to get wherever they are going and
almost forty degrees colder than yesterday
no expats, no dolphins, no waterfowl or Jungle
just snow and cold out of my windows and
paintings of the tropics warming my soul...

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Retirement

Retirement

Retirement sounds so appealing
Perhaps a time to regenerate
Gather energy rather than spend
It on the labors of mid-life and
The needs of those we serve
Stay a while play a while
Bask in the soft light of whim and
Fancy picking the day’s adventure
As we eat our breakfast rather than
Having to consult the day planner
For work scheduled beforehand 
No calls to clients or bosses
No having to report daily activities
But as we get older the freedom
Sometimes seems a chimera
As friends become ill or break bones
And we realize that the end game
Can be harsh if we don’t accept
It’s own drama and realities
Knowing full well that we rarely
Are aware of when the curtain closes
And there are the days with nothing
To do and nowhere to go, filled with
Moments of wonder at our age along
With memories that draw us to the past
So it seems that retirement is a mixed bag
That ought to be filled with new experiences
Movement and spreading the knowledge
Earned over a lifetime of color and
Texture lived vibrantly and well...

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Big Marty Milano

Big Marty Milano

Blue-veined sausage nose
slightly off center
toward the right side of
a florid cop face
white-gloved hands
directing traffic
to the piercing rhythm
of staccato blasts from
the black wooden whistle
clenched between his teeth

everyone called him
Big Marty Milano and
he conducted a busy
three street confluence
of automobiles pedestrians and 
kids going to and
from school like it was
his personal symphony orchestra

he was a beat cop
walking the streets
a kind word for every
old person living on his turf
a stern look for teens
with mischief on their minds
and an aura of invincibility
as he twirled his nightstick
on a black leather thong 
woven between meaty fingers

Big Marty Milano
died one Friday night
in late March 1950
bleeding out beneath
The lamppost on the corner
in front of Doc Felcher’s drug store
after taking two bullets
in his neck trying to stop
a robbery in progress

the shots woke me up and
I watched from my 
fourth-floor bedroom window
sobbing into my pillow
as the ambulance and patrol cars
flooded the streets with
sirens and flashing lights
they covered his body
with a raincoat but
his huge crepe soled cop shoes
stuck out of one end

the next Monday morning
when I left for school
there was a new officer
directing traffic 
he wore a strip of
sticky black  electricians tape
across his silver NYPD badge
but I just couldn’t 
look at his face…

Details | Art Fasbender Poem

In the Moment

In the Moment

There was a happening
in the sky last evening
just before sunset
pregnant Cumulous clouds
streaky Cirrus clouds
and even the ones that
look like flying saucers
all there in a thousand
shades of gray with bright
sun beginning to fall
beneath the continental divide
the space between the clouds and
the Rocky Mountains shone
brilliant blue tinged with 
golden light at the point 
where the sky and peaks 
touched in a magical kiss
facing toward the foothills
it was a critical mass moment
set up for a rainbow to
appear on the  great plains
behind me and paint the 
heavens with color and awe
eyes looked to the eastern
sky with hopeful anticipation
there it was… a double rainbow
each end touching the earth
in perfect arcs
so bright and beautiful that
tears formed in the eyes of
those standing around with 
heads tilted upward
smiles opened on each face
as vibrantly alive colors
shone against the gray palette
of clouds and the full spectrum
electric Crayola brilliance made
for a sacred moment of silence
as the earth stood still…

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Me and My Shadow

Me and My Shadow

My shadow walks
Behind me now
The sun long ago
Passing over my head
Allowing me an examined
Life of seeking the truth
Loving without strings
Learning to be patient
taking refuge in a smile
Cherishing hippie ethos
And trying to leave
A footprint of awareness
For me and my loved ones
To use as a soul guided map
A path through the labyrinth
We experience as the everyday
I loved the times of learning
The sun’s light warming me
With understanding and casting
My shadow before me to follow
And at some point in time
It seems the lessons were learned
And my shadow walks 
behind me now...

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Well Played

Well Played

I’m older now
Older than I thought
I would ever be
My life began in
Black and white, then
Exploded into electric
Crayola vivid colors that
Ripped away the veils
Turned me on to the
Sublime infection called music
And all the sensory goodies
Flew at my waiting young face
With Cat four hurricane force
Bosche’s Garden of  Earthly Delights
Was more a lifestyle than an
Incredible oil on canvas and
Sometime during that amazing
full tilt boogie I learned to
Deep dive inside and began
To tell myself the unadorned truth
Watching as layer after layer of
Cumbersome story sloughed off
And my choices took on a softer
Texture more temperate, less wild
Yes I’m older now
Older than I thought 
I would ever be but
I’ve never been more at home
living in my skin...