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Best Poems Written by J P Marmaro

Below are the all-time best J P Marmaro poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Autumn Arrives

September’s almost coming to its end. 
The shining green that clothed the trees in June
Has darkened as the shorter days impend;
Their battered leaves will presently be strewn

Beneath the boughs, which tremble in the chill
That rushes in where winds till now waxed warm,
With Summer's swelter weakening until
We sense the Equinox's looming storm.

Because for all its beauties and its joys
No Summer can persist resisting change—
When held too long, what first creates, destroys;
And only then is born what’s rich and strange.  

For Autumn heralds Winter, which will bring
The frosts which in their turn give way to Spring.


 October 2, 2019
Previous title: "Summer's End"

Revised October 15, 2019: 
The second quatrain originally went--

Beneath the boughs, which tremble in the chill
That rushes in where winds till now blew hot.  
The days fly – they inevitably will—
Still, that is inescapably our lot.

But the second sentence seemed to me to be too weak and even bordering on the trite, so I rewrote it as above. Apologies to all who've read it to date!

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Poetry

You ask what poetry can mean to me?
No glib reply will leap forth from my tongue.
As well to ask if food and drink might be
Of any use!  I reckon it among

The minimum necessities of life. 
A poem can affect us many ways—
Caress like a lover, cut like a knife,
Cajole, instruct, enthuse, amuse, amaze,

Can take us places we have never been,
And show us sights our eyes will never see,
Or like some fairy godmother or jinn
Transform us into what we’ll never be.  

For poetry can soothe, enrage, extol,
Engage one’s mind, or plumb one’s very soul.


 Written February 23, 2019

This poem was selected as the winner, in the adult category, of the 22nd annual Anne Dittrick Sonnet-Writing Contest, sponsored by the Nebraska Shakespeare festival.  A link: http://www.nebraskashakespeare.com/a/nebraskashakespeare.com/nebraska-shakespeare-2017-redesign/education/sonnet-contest/2018-winning-sonnets

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When I Am Gone

When I am gone, and from this world have flown,
I would admonish you to not forget
That I have loved and cherished you, my own,
And even after death shall love you yet.

But I’ve no wish to burden you with pain—
Not for one month, one day, one second’s time—
Insisting you remember would be vain, 
And causing you such grief, a selfish crime.

While memory can help one to endure,
Distressing recollection can be worse;
Remembering, in some, effects a cure--
In others it’s essentially a curse. 

Thus knowing this, my love, I won’t resent
Forgetting me, so long as you’re content. 


 October 2, 2019

Please note: though the second line includes what appears to be that old grammatical bugbear, a split infinitive, I could argue that the word "not" is not a modifier, but part of a compound verb "to not forget", ie. to remember; also, its position makes it not only a stressed syllable but also much more emphatic.

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Which Door To Open

The corridors of life are rarely straight:
Not only do they bend and twist and veer,
We find the way ahead becomes unclear,
Soon blocked by doors -- each door, a different fate.
We’d like to take our time, to contemplate,
But time will press, and each will urge, “Come here,
I lead to bliss. Take me, and have no fear!”
How can we know which course to navigate?

Still in the end we’re forced to make a choice,
Interring almost-futures in the past,
And pick one door to open, if we dare.
We hope the door we choose makes us rejoice, 
But this is a decision which will last:
Whatever ends it leads to, we must bear. 

December 23, 2019
"Open Me First" Italian Sonnet Contest

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October Sun

We sit outside and bask in brilliant sun—
And though it’s warm, we know it cannot last,
For August’s days of glare and heat are done;
October’s sunny days are speeding past.

In youth, one summer seemed to last an age—
The days that lingered, sunsets without end. 
What seemed perennial was just a stage
As, growing up, we came to comprehend.

And though the warmth recedes as winter nears,
Resist the urge to panic or to mourn--   
At dawn upon the Solstice, Sol appears:
With sempiternal rhythm, light is born.

October 23, 2019

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Unbridled Change

These days of changing values can be hard:
What once was just, today's considered wrong.
Some things encouraged now at one time jarred,
Abandoned now are values once held long. 

Unquestioned rules and customs are eschewed,
And standards jettisoned yet not replaced.
What once was fixed has now become unglued,
While words which all revered are now erased.

But while injustices should be redressed,
Iconoclasm can exceed all sense—
When free expression finds itself suppressed,
Then tolerance becomes a sad pretense.

For though things change, some things stay valid still: 
Light is not dark, nor yet is good now ill.


This sonnet has received an Honorable Mention in the Society of Classical Poets 8th Annual Poetry Competition.

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A Winter's Tale

The time of growth and change is done and past.
From thaw to frost activity prevailed, 
And change came often, often coming fast, 
Till finalizing Fall all toil curtailed.
With wintertime’s quiescence, come at last,
The old year’s final breath has been exhaled. 
   And now all nature’s quiet, all now still, 
   All bedding down, preparing for the chill.

The other seasons garner all the praise: 
From sprouting Spring, through Summer’s fruiting fields,
To Autumn’s vibrant hues and bracing days,
Each one its own unique enchantment wields. 
But Winter’s coming oftentimes dismays,
So cryptic are the blessings that it yields-- 
   Yet unexpected beauty will abound
   In many forms both subtle and profound.

Then gales gust frore as frigid flakes bespeak
The wintry depths which grip both heath and grange:
The rime-bound land is frozen hard, and bleak—
Yet bleakness has its beauty, harsh and strange.
And what seems dead or dormant soon will wreak
What surely counts as nature’s deepest change: 
   The imminence of warmth’s returning breath…
   The immanence of life in seeming death.

For springtime’s semelparity is fate, 
As sure as tide or twilight, and as strict.
It burgeons and it blooms, but soon or late
It goes to seed and dies. The clock has ticked
And knelled the midnight hour — but don’t berate
The seed for its mortality -- predict
   Instead the miracle which will ensue:
   That out of silence, life is born anew.

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Slow Down and Hush Up

I miss the peace of silent thought--
This worldly pace has grown so fast—
And in its wake that speed has brought

Us woes unknown throughout the past,
And now we find we have to face
A sea of troubles, deep and vast.

If we could only slow that pace
And find a means for its decrease,
Perhaps this unrelenting race

Might finally be made to cease,
And in that silence we might find
Some vestige of elusive peace.

For there at last may be divined
Creativeness of every kind.


April 30, 2019

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Reassurances

You want to hear me say I’ll love you forever.
And yes, I well could say those very words to you: 
For after all, they simply state the current truth.
But at the risk of seeming callous or uncouth
They’re also words one could easily misconstrue.
And whether couched in language simple or clever,

In timeworn expressions or phrases fresh and new,
All such words would ultimately be misleading—
For how can anyone pledge a love undying?
The future’s hidden—to deny that is lying. 
And nothing lasts forever… still, since you’re needing
Reassurance, this much at least I’ll promise you:

You are the best-beloved of my heart today: 
I can’t foresee I’ll ever feel another way.


November 14, 2019

NB: This is an "almost sonnet"-- but differs in line length (12 syllables instead of ten) and, instead of having three quatrains before the couplet, I have used two sestets with an ABCCBA DEFFED rhyme scheme. Also, the lines, while each of 12 syllables, do not really have any consistent metrical structure. By the bye, the word beloved here is meant to be pronounced adjectivally, that is, with three syllables: be-'LOV-ed.

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An English Adaptation of Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea From Faust

There was a king once reigning
Who carried a great, big flea—
And far from him complaining,
The flea filled the king with glee!
For to him that flea was dearer
Than even his only son,
And to make his preference clearer,
Raised it higher than anyone!

In ermine, silk and satin
The flea was soon arrayed;
Of sable was is hat in,
His frock coat, fine brocade.
Since he was the King’s most favored,
And created a Baron too,
Soon all his relatives savored
Their importance as favorites do!

Then all the Lords and Ladies
Were plagued with bites and welts—
They thought they were in Hades,
So itchy were their pelts!
And they didn’t dare to scratch them
Or flick the fleas away—
We too don’t dare dispatch them
When the mighty bite us that way!

[We won’t dare to dispatch 'em
When the mighty bite that way—
No, we don’t dare to dispatch 'em
When the mighty bite that way,
Indeed we don’t dare to dispatch 'em
When the mighty bite that way,
Bite --us -- that -- way!]


December 7, 2019
 
From Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's great drama Faust, sung by the tempter-devil Mephistopheles.   

The verse was memorably set to music by Ludwig van Beethoven [Op.75 no. 3, 1809]:  there is a fine version on YouTube [just audio really] of this song combined and preceded by another Beethoven song ("Der Zufriedene"), sung by Nicolai Gedda with Jan Eyron on piano; the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz1V7psPzgE
(The Song of the Flea begins at 1:18).
Another YouTube is of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yut0tZftU10
 A third features Ryan Bailey Williams, a student at the University of Arkansas, in  recital, [and he's quite funny]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIknU4Xz2A

[Modest Mussorgsky wrote a version of the song, but freely translated into Russian, so it didn't follow the rhythm of the German original.] 

Later still, Dmitri Shostakovich orchestrated Beethoven's setting, using a Russian text adaptation conforming to the original line structure. THIS IS THE VERSION WHOSE YOUTUBE VIDEO IS LINKED ABOVE.  Shostakovich's instrumentation brings out the piquancy and burlesque of Beethoven's brilliant accompaniment.  

 The link to this orchestration is:
https://search.aol.com/aol/video;_ylt=AwrE19wgt.1dJCMAwVJpCWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N2Noc21lBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNwaXZz?q=mephistopheles+song+of+the+flea&s_it=searchtabs&v_t=nscp-isp#id=2&vid=a56c9158678b04eef890d10ded7b694d&action=view