I Strive Against The Silence Of The Night
I STRIVE AGAINST THE SILENCE OF THE NIGHT
I strive against the silence of the night
Against my own inner emptiness
I wait to hear some song from inside myself -
Nothing is written.
I go back to where I am
And begin again.
There is always a poem if one is patient enough.
But what poem?
And for what special meaning of this night?
I write again and again
A poem which is about writing a poem
And when I come to end it
I question again and again
Whether it is real.
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Fear In The Middle Of The Night
FEAR IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Fear in the middle of the night-
Fear and horrible imaginings-
Fear of my life,
Fear for those I love and our world,
Fear in the early morning
Fear and more fear-
Fear broken a bit by the light,
Fear broken a bit by morning prayer,
Fear broken a bit by ‘learning’,
Fear broken a bit by writing,
Fear broken a bit by morning coffee,
Fear less-
Fear in the neck and in the mind-
Fear down the spine-
Fear less in the light,
Fear of the night
Fear of the morning,
Fear of my life,
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Will Be Here/ When I No Longer Am
As I walk I suddenly think that the trees and houses of Mishmar Ha- Am street
Will be here
When I no longer am-
But then I wonder
When it will come for them?
Twenty years? Fifty? a million? ten million? A trillion? More?
Eventually inevitably it will come-
All things come to an end even non- living ones -
All will end
All will die-
One day the light will not shine on our earth
And one day too the sun itself will be a different darkness
And beyond that all we can know and dream-
Death is the master and will end all-
How I can contend then with the sorrow of this?
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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There Is A Poem For Me Somewhere This Morning
THERE IS A POEM FOR ME SOMEWHERE THIS MORNING
There is a poem for me somewhere this morning
I will find it somehow
Perhaps it is in the memory of my father
Whose Yahrtzeit is today
Twenty- two years.
Perhaps it is as it is often
In the morning light
When I first walk outside to Shul
Perhaps it is in the deep need for a poem
For my own justification
Perhaps it is in my daughter’s search
For poems of inspiration
Perhaps it is in many things mixed together
Most of which I have not yet
And may never bring to mind
There is a poem for me somewhere this morning
I am writing it now
It is not beautiful
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Despair Of The Early Morning
DESPAIR OF THE EARLY MORNING
Despair of the early morning
Despair of the darkness
Despair of the Despair
Despair of Old Age
Despair of the road closed
Despair of nothing to do
Despair of nowhere to go
Despair of endless errands
Despair of money running out
Despair of the message of Despair
One transmits to those one loves.
Despair that has to be resisted
Despair that the light of the day
Will help me overcome
Despair I will pray my way out of
Despair I will in the course of the day
Sometime overcome.
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Where Do The Poets End And The Would- Be Poets Begin?
Where do the poets end and the would- be- poets begin?
It is with one or two for a generation or even a nation?
Or is it the elite few? Or perhaps the in- circle academic privileged?
Is it only with the anthologized? And those of what are taken to be the ‘best magazines? ’
Or is it at the other end
With anyone who dares to write a line
And hide it for themselves?
Is it with the completely unknown and never to be known
Who finds the words for a depth of feeling that must be said?
Or somewhere in the middle along the way
Where amateur stops and professional pretends to begin?
No one knows for certain
And does it matter anyway?
Write your would – be- poetry
Whoever you are
You are your own poet
Star, or no star.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Shakespeare, Where Are You? (For Harold Bloom)
SHAKESPEARE, WHERE ARE YOU? (FOR HAROLD BLOOM)
Shakespeare, where are you?
You should be living at this hour.
Literature has need of you.
We have become a fen of stagnant voices
A parody of noble and great lines
All our efforts have become a deriding
Of our own spirit.
We need your Beauty and your Magnitude
The Metaphoric motions of your Incredible most awkward Lines
We need Your Richness and Your Song
Your Endless Entertainment of our own Emotions
Your deep play of Character and Feeling
We need you now Shakespeare
To remind us that to be Human
Is still to be the Glory Jest and Riddle
And that our voices somehow can still say
In Times beyond our own knowing
The wisdom and the way
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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Today I Do Not Know Where To Begin To Be What I Am
Today I do not know where to begin to be what I am
There are so many problems questions difficulties
‘One at a time’ is no answer for many belong together
I could say that I am reconciled
Having lived long enough and having done what I was able to do
I could say that it does not matter so much
Now that it is mostly over
I could try not to care
And stoically reduce desire to no disappointment ever again
But being who I am and where I come from
I will care to the day I can't
And all the problems of the family and the country and the people and the world
Will be my problems.
Where should I begin today to be where I am?
I don’t know. I falter and try.
The first problem today is myself
And from that I will find all the rest.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Where Is The Poem Of The Evening?
Where is the poem of the evening?
Has it been lost to my happiness?
A happiness that does not really know why it is
But just is
Here now -
As if I in my old age have learned to love
Whatever time I have
And so defy the thought of all the unending time
In which I will not be on earth-
Who knows how much is left?
Some years? Some days? the next moment?
Whatever it is
I am at ease with my life now
Though I did not become all I dreamed-
And do not know the future –
There may not be much time left
But whatever time is left
I must do the best I can
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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The Poems Became The Story Of My Inner Life
THE POEMS BECAME THE STORY OF MY INNER LIFE
The poems became the story of my inner life-
A series of confessions-
Often simple and direct
They seemed to lose their poetry-
I wrote them and I write them as I need to
I do not know if their rhythm is real
Or only prose-
I write them as poetry
Because this is what I am and have now-
Still the overwhelming anxiety I have now suggests
I always in them tell only a small part of the story
As if the feeling inside
Is always more than any poetry that pretends to express and represent it –
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poem by Shalom Freedman
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