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Gerald Buss Poem
Bricabrac. Old and sick in Krakow, Czeslaw complained of his to a fellow (Irish) Nobelista. My fate too (though I am not a poet, I think, and so do I deserve it?)? Like alphabet soup. Lots of letters. Enough to make a small book. Swimming, refusing to join others in the sparest, most economic, incarnation - a monosyllabic word. Let alone a sentence that might be read front to back. Bricabrac.
2016 June 29
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
The mourning dove visits daily, comes for her noontime meal. This sweet-faced bird also has the sweetest song, a haunting melody. But what is most endearing is her politesse, her courtesy, her hanging back, while others eat ahead. She doesn't "push or shove," nor does she intimidate, as the blue jay does, or seems to at any rate; she waits and, for that, and for what it is worth, the mourning dove has drawn from this bird-loving bird-feeder an abiding love.
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
Saturday Downtown
A sister and brother walking downtown, shops and shows and trolleys; smells of dimestore popcorn, caramel apples, warm nuts, candies, lunch counters, blue plate specials.
Sheltered beneath the overhangs and awnings, they, sister and brother cling, walking cautiously, as if to touch a stranger might bruise and hurt; he, weak, sickly, leans on her, she supports him, with body, both arms, both hands.
He's in a cheap pair of dark gabardines, a white starched cotton shirt stained here and there with rust; she's in a stiff dark dirty skirt, white blouse, funny little hat; both down at the heel.
Handsome though, but for the fear apparent on their face, the fear of touching, being touched, of being seen so pained, so poor; of not being seen at all.
2006 July 14
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
You, Czeslaw,
like a brook of the earth,
welling up to the skies and more,
swelling up even to the sun and the stars
and all unknown, uncounted galaxies
and more, more than we can yet know
or ever will, till in timeless space
we dwell in a place where
our tears mingle with your own,
making of themselves and all
their visions and their dreams,
one endless, downpouring stream,
breaking through both time and space,
cleansing, clearing perhaps one small part
of one small heart of the human tendency
to be a living witness of evil, and not care.
2006 July 11
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
Autumn, squirrels around,
aground hunting,
storing, I presume.
Chill clouds, and just there,
a green magnolia leaf,
fallen before its time.
2004 Fall
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
Now at this hour
on this day and
time of year
cracks of light
leaves of green
buds and birds
possibly everyone
and everything
augur spring
I look out upon it
open my mouth
move my tongue
nothing comes out
no lyric no music
no song can be sung
save a lament
the eye all I
my imprisonment
2014 February 24
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
Sea, where are you, and
when will you appear,
ready to overwhelm
this loneliness?
2005 January 22
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
When I first heard of “poetry howls,” I said to myself, “how sad”; is poetry meant to wake the dead or liven the living (though I’ve read of the living dead)? haven’t we enough noise around to confound and confuse a universe of smaller sounds, en train thoughts, low sung birds? haven’t we sufficient “icy pandemonium” (in S. Weil’s words)?
I would propose “poetry whispers” instead; of poets living, of poets dead, sharing a find, perhaps one supposed all spent, a jewel borrowed, or one discovered in a rent of the Self. And if unable to express epics lying buried within, begin by sharing a briefer line that – who knows? – may become the wine that loosens another’s tongue.
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
I’m learning how to recognize
the disfigured, defaced, disguised,
multiplied, masked, dehumanized –
my companions, scantily clad
in the social fabric –
do you recognize me?
2004 Fall
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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Gerald Buss Poem
How much affect is second-hand,
used to mime a mood,
impersonate a man?
2004 Fall
Copyright © Gerald Buss | Year Posted 2016
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