[net.poems] new poem

mwm@dartvax.UUCP (M. W. Modrall) (11/03/86)

Pretty Playthings Past

I held a love in my hand,
Clasped it tightly, and it died.
I held a love at arm's length,
And it drifted away.
I held a love as lightly as I could,
And with a breath it shattered.
Too far, too near, in fragile fear,
The love was all that mattered.

                           -10/31/86
                           M. Modrall

ctong@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Chris Tong) (11/06/86)

			BRANCHES


	For a moment
	they reminded me of my mother's hands,
	hung wide in despair
	at some misdeed that I cannot recall;
	in that moment
	looking at the empty hands in the air
	I had been moved to wonder
	  if it would end.

	Or would she remain,
	a single root for two
	branches, bare,
	  flung in frozen disarray
	appealing to the winter skies
	as if to say
	  "What now, should the least leaf fall?"

ctong@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Chris Tong) (11/13/86)

			Holes


Not actions,	 for we are, without them;
  Not thoughts,		for we are, between them;
    Not even feelings,	  for we are, before them;
	No, you and I are states of being.

And words are poor bridges-
  the truth that can be written is not the Truth.
Bodies meet, minds meet, feelings meet,
only in silence can WE meet. All else is, in the end-
	diversion. wasted energy.

But we so fear Silence. Openness. Insecurity. Death. 
Holes.
The hole between words, careers, relationships, lives.
The whole that opens in the moments when our desire ceases to exist-
  in music, in a lover, in the darkness of an early morning.

All anger, all pain, all fear
is merely a refusal to enter this whole.

Every spontaneous moment
arises out of this whole, this		letting go.

Not to shock, 
I say we are afraid of holes.

But we ARE the whole.

See yourself! Look at a blue blue sky.
Then let your mind reflect	just it.
Then let your heart reflect	just it.
Then.