Art

Sisyphus Sings Nabucco

Sisyphus Sings Nabucco

Long gone, those dead days, skeletons now,
their centers collapsed in on themselves
unable to hold fast to time’s hands
circling the clock of ages, that timeless rock.

Long days will come when light will fail
to enlighten, eyes will be dimmed, the burden
will grow heavier with life lying in wait,
to weigh us down with all those lies, each
falsehood a rock added to the daily pile.

Carrying them is one thing. Rolling them up
this hill each day, only to have them roll down,
overnight, forcing us to stoop once more,
not to conquer, but merely to live our lives,
to journey onwards, relentlessly, to endure
from the beginning of the end until the last,
and we must, we will endure to the last.

“Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.”
Albert Camus

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Sisyphus Sings Nabucco



Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

This new day rises
gift-glorious before me.

I untie sleep’s wrappings,
all paper and string.

Birds throng branches,
light up the yard with
rainbows of sound,
arcing and arching.

Fall colors streak trees
with overnight paint.

A woodpecker breakfasts
on the back porch.

Chipmunk and chickadee
thrive on the lawn.

Red robins, tipsy,
giving thanks for the feast.

Teeter-totter branches
alive with berries and song.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Thanksgiving.



The Path Taken

The Path Taken

I followed a path and found my way,
but evening shadows led me astray
far from the uplands and the sun
to a land where darker waters run.

Where now, I ask, the summer beach,
salt water, cool, within easy reach?
I no longer hear the sea-gull’s cry,
white-wings lofting him to the sky.

I tread winter’s path of ice and snow
bent branches forcing me to stoop low,
a horse-shoe hare running out ahead,
behind, a white wolf fills me with dread.

My feet are cold, my steps are slow,
my muscles ache, my blood won’t flow.
Head spins, lungs throb and clutch at air,
my  heart fills up with dark despair.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Path Taken

A Grouse

A Grouse

It hurts. She is so far away.
I can barely hear her voice on the phone.
It hurts. I can only comfort her with words,
useless words, clichés that will never
take her cares away, how could they?

Ghosts of a nearby past drift silently by.
I wonder what can say to each other,
whether we should chat about the weather,
or whether to let silence hold sway.
I don’t want her to put down the phone
even though we’ll talk again today.

My body hurts with her hurt. I know my pain
will soon go away, but hers – I hope it doesn’t stay.
Outside the window, two red squirrels play.
Words break the silence: I’ll call
you later. Make the most of your day.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Grouse.




é

To be a writer (Revised)

To be a writer
revised version

To be a writer ….

Those who would true valor see,
let them come hither.
One here will constant be,
through foul or fair weather.
There’s no discouragement
will make her once relent
her first avowed intent,
to be a writer.

Those who beset her round
with dismal stories,
do but themselves confound:
her strength the more is.
No blank page can her fright,
she’ll with a sentence fight,
and she will have a right,
to be a writer.

Rejections nor false friends
can daunt her spirit.
She knows she at the end
will a book inherit.
So critics fly away,
she’ll fear not what they say,
she’ll labor night and day
to be a writer.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
To be a writer
revised version

Comment: I first wrote this poem in January 2021. It is, of course, a rewriting of John Bunyan’s hymn / poem, To be a pilgrim from Pilgrim’s Progress. In the original version, I kept the male pronouns. However, after collaborating as the only male participant in [Quick Brown Fox] Brian Henry’s Advanced Writing Group of 13 fantastic women writers, I realized that the female pronoun was, in so many cases, the most appropriate one. I therefore made the necessary adjustments. You can find the old poem at this link – personally, I prefer the new version! https://rogermoorepoet.com/2021/01/11/to-be-a-writer/

The Cry

The Cry

I had forgotten the who,
what, when, where, and why.
A t first, I didn’t hear the cry,
despondent, squeaky, like a mouse,
timid until it climbed up higher,
inspired by the grief within.

My own heart, paper thin,
could not confine the sobbing
that assaulted my own stronghold,
the oubliette, where everything
lay hidden, but never forgotten.

A pebble on the pond, the cry
rippled onwards and out,
became a whimper, grew into a shout.
What’s it all about, I asked
and took the cry to task
for rippling my pond’s tranquility.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
The Cry






Reunion


Reunion

So sad, the reunion.
Each year, fewer participants,
faces older, hair whiter
(if there’s any left)
grizzled beards,
hands shaking, not just shaken,
memories lost or at odds
with reality, multiple dreams
turning into nightmares.

So much lost, youth,
energy, confidence, contact,
microscopic minds
turned in on themselves,
cognitive cogs
barely functioning.

What really happened
all those years ago?
Nobody remembers.
Nobody cares.
Nobody really wants to know.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Reunion

Suit of Lights


Suit of Lights

I am a man of straw
shivered by raw winds,
frosted by the cold
enveloping this enigmatic body,
dry bones set rattling.

I walk with two sticks,
a stick man then,
not just a sick man,
as broken as this broken body,
old sack of out-muscled blood.

When the magic hour
descends, earth glows
with a different light,
and my world is transformed,
translucent, bright.

A touch of the almighty,
this beauty suddenly
surrounding me,
blessing me,
and all my doubts,
with this suit of lights.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Suit of Lights

Clichés

Clichés

I buried myself in an ice-cube.
I dug in so deep that nobody
could find nor touch me.

“Hurt yourself,” I told myself,
“hurt yourself
so badly that nobody
will ever be able to hurt you
again.”

Clichés:
cutting off your nose
to spite your face,
shooting yourself
in the foot, arm, or leg,
self-destructing
in so many ways,
and all clichés.

And me, alone,
everything cut off,
torn down, worn away,
visible, some days,
yet untouchable,
locked away
in this frozen land
where warmth
never flows
and winter
holds sway.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Clichés

Do Not Keep Count

Do Not Keep Count
On reading Keeping Count
poems by M. Travis Lane

Poems to be picked at
like a bunch of verbal grapes,
muscatel, perhaps, purpling,
seedless, their only off-spring
flowing through your mind.

Pluck one at random.
Hold its silken surface to the light.
Admire sunlight caressing
the unwrinkled skin.
Now taste it.
Savour it slowly,
tongue-held in your mouth.

Watch the world around you
changing as you see things
in so many different ways.
Everything moves into a new orbit.
Your world – born anew.

Just one?
No.
You cannot stop at one.
Taste another. Then another.
Do not keep count.

Click here for Roger’s reading on Anchor.
Do Not Keep Count

Comment: Sitting at my kitchen table, picking at Travis’s poems as I would pick at grapes, or flowers, I wrote this poem. Yesterday, Travis gifted me with her poetry book Keeping Count (Guelph, Gordon Hill Press, 2020). I hope my admiration for the poetry of M. Travis Lane – who has received less attention than she deserves (according to Maisonneuve) – shines though the words and images in this poem of mine.