We All Need To Live In Peace With Each Other
We all need to live in peace with each other
For outside us beyond us
Are vast vast worlds –
We are alone here on our own small planet
And we do not know how far we can get
And what there is outside our world –
We need to be alright with ourselves
So that when we confront the terrors of the distance
We will not destroy ourselves-
We must live in peace with each other
We must try to do the best we can
In a universe of ultimate uncertainty-
Perhaps somewhere along the way
We will vanish
Perhaps God will save us
We don’t know-
But we need to live in peace with each other
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Why Do My Thoughts All Turn to Despairing Possiblities Only?
Why do my thoughts all turn to despairing possibilities only?
Why do I feel so lost? So empty? So devoid of dream?
Why do I feel it has all ended for me?
And my life is about to turn to greater and greater difficulty
And smaller and smaller satisfaction?
Why does Lovelessness hurt more now?
Why do I fear my children’s greater distance,
And my inability to truly help them any longer?
Why do I feel so hopeless and so useless so old and so weary?
What is wrong with me this morning?
And will this now be my mood forever
Or will it be broken as it usually is
When I open the door and go into the morning light
And walk up the hill to Shul as fast as I can
With prayer to God in my mind?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Kinds Of Longing I Had Once And The Kinds Of Missing
THE KINDS OF LONGINGS I HAD ONCE AND THE KINDS OF MISSING
The kinds of longings I had once
And the kinds of missing
Are no longer mine-
Love and the pain of love
Desire for her which could drive me insane
Wondering how I could live
If she would not let me touch her
Wondering how I could be in this world
If she would not want to be with me-
All that pain and all that beauty
All that being so intensely alive
Is not where I can be anymore-
The kind of love a young man feels
I will never feel again-
And while there is sadness in the absence,
There is also the sense
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poem I Most Love
THE POEM I MOST LOVE
The poem I most love
Was written to me by my dreams
Long before I was born
It did not know its name
But came from somewhere else deep inside
The beyond of God-
I do not know its name
I can only feel and hear it again and again
When the music of some other time
Some other life I lived once and have lost
Returns to me.
The poem I most love
Is the life which has been
And will never come again
Seeing it and hearing it
I know we human beings are dreams and dreams again always dreams
And never ever to be finally at peace and true
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Home Alone Happy Without Working Computer
Home alone happy without working computer
I take my pen in hand
And slowly write these words –
Let the world click and paste and post
I am out of it for now-
I have before me an evening of any book I like
Of any page I want to write
-
Peace of Mind is one place of attention at a time-
Here weighing each word as I write
I am at home with my inner self-
I hear my own thoughts
I correct them at my own pace.
So many words and so many pages
Have been written in my life-
Now in this one
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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I Wrote My Last Romantic Love Poem A Long Time Ago
I wrote my last romantic love poem a long time ago-
Now I write quieter poems
Poems of the pleasure of the old-
A walk in the morning
A sudden turn of sunlight on a cold cold day
A small kindness I may do
Or someone may do for me
Poems of love for my family
And of sadness at the sickness of my friends
Quiet poems
That do not know the wildness of passion
The bitterness of love disappointed
The up and down motions
Of when she does and when she doesn’t
And all her yeses and nos-
I write quiet poems
And I live happily in them
And I sometimes think with sadness
Of the great passion there was once-
But I am old now
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Endless World Of Words Opens Again
THE ENDLESS RIVER OF WORDS OPENS AGAIN
The endless river of words opens again
And once more it becomes possible
To say on endlessly
The dreams we can see before our eyes
When we open them to the morning light
Or the darkest deepest sky of star- filled night.
All is open again to wonder
And there can be a hope
Which means
Survival alone is not what Life is all about
But instead also
The countless small beauties one sees everywhere
When one knows how to look.
There is a world after all
Outside oneself
And that world described
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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It Is An Indifferent Cruel and Stupid World
It is an indifferent cruel and stupid world-
The Ayatollahs preach genocide
And a hundred nations are hosted by them-
The U.N. Secretary General dignifies them by his presence
Though they have consistently deceived and lied to him and his predecessors-
They preach a medieval exclusive fanatic narrow-
minded doctrine of world domination
as they conceal their race for weapons of mass- destruction
and are traded with and toasted by the Chinese and Russians-
They promise to continue the Nazis work by other means
And the allegedly non- aligned do not contend with them
Shame on these racist haters
And shame on their collaborators
Shame on Humanity
For our having such contemptible creatures among us.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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In The Middle Of The Journey
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JOURNEY
In the middle of the journey
Though closer to the end
With still perhaps some years to go
Old and yet not the oldest of the old
I try to begin again.
I know
If I have not done it yet
I probably never will.
I know all the years
I did not make effort enough
Are not mine
To make effort in
In the future.
I know I probably will never get there.
I know it is not ‘beginning’
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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An Old Man Medicates His Pains Away
AN OLD MAN MEDICATES HIS PAINS AWAY
An old man medicates his pains away
He wants to live in his mind
As if his body can be temporarily forgotten-
He tries to be as he once was
Easy in the skin of himself -
But the pains the pains the pains
They come from different directions
They interrupt they remind they dismay
The pains the pains
They may go away for a time
But they don’t forget to sharpen again-
An old man does not want to think of his body as his enemy
He is no pure mind and does not dream to be
But the pains
When so many come at once
And when no medication can really put a stop to them-
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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