Peter Manda - Poetry

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Spring Morning Haiku ©2011

cold morning rain in PJ
wife running to train
son on sofa chair, pondering
shall i play a game?

Friday, January 7, 2011

いきる

the homeless man who lays out his sleeping bag

underneath the church columns

pizza steak from frankos

the sunsets over the new jersey state capitol building

the sunrise over new jersey network

midnight walks along the assunpink

chatting with our barber in the morning when no one else is on the street

habib’s protection

the smiles

the sense of belonging

the view of the delaware

watching trucks removing snow from state street roads

while city streets remained just plowed

laughing with maintenance about the heat

and joking with the landlord about the cold

and fighting with the owner about the tobacco smoke

and

Ohm - a homeless fragment

OHM

I wrote about

- "home

- less

- ness" -

and

realized

it is .....

Our Modern Holocaust.

Black Coat

"Black Coat" from 'homeless fragments'

battened coat

dust encrusted epaulets

solipsistically grayed and parched

"water" was here once

maybe have some

nomad trails enshroud me

brown hats with wings stand

tall in gray

sheep rushing bells

tar fields hold no grass

while up in the highlands

the waters melt

winter

"winter" from homeless fragments

What is that screeching

sound the bow makes

when it laments across the

violin, like vivaldi or stravinski

or is it beethoven in a pastoral

when the clouds are blue; gray

and the trees barren, reflecting those

skies their limbs covered in a

touch of white?

the empty houses in the Northeast

stand desolate while in the

suburbs the plain boroughs are

filled with the wealth of color...

is it, then, that we fear winter

because we fear to face its poverty?

A Room in Trenton

remnants of rice and shredded chicken

strewn outside the sheltered glass --

a bus-stop.

while mother lay,

her wool-mit hat against the plexi-wall

enwrapped and comfortably resting

for the night inside

A room in Trenton.

As the Kingfisher Stood

ich wahr at the Central grave

yard ein Oberst in der Reichsarmee

flicking his Merit,

younger than memories

of those whose graves lay still now

against bomb craters carpeted across the path

leaning toward the hangars

at the airport

sloping against the crest covered in

grass and turf now finely laid maintained

= in memory of “what they did” =

a bureaucrat lay, a higher member

administered – articulated staff

position just before

Flanders rose

in gestures, pointing toward

depth

he drosseld slurred words but stood

determined to teach

ideas the young man

already dismissed impossible

ignoring what he was seeing as his future

a future of lock and key – of chamber and chamfer

of periodic tables and calculi

grappling against the neighbors’ curves

lusting for the breath of dignity

that held – a moment’s distance

from death

... the gate yawned

as a jet glided to landing

in the distance

against Napoleonic fields that tore across

the crested hills against the Danube

and beckoned along a chestnut crested path

where third men also gathered clues

of pasts rendered

present and beckoning

to futures unanticipated yet

“There, do! the scientific research!,”

he murmured

I saw it while riding a Tiger

There! in El Alamein

they coursed The horizons of empty desert and

in a cheese sandwich

I realized

The true heart and feeling is

Not here

in your chest; its here …

Down by

the sole of the Liver,

where you feel the warmth

flowing as … I feared --

The beer he was holding.

-- the gusher; Would spill.

And thought. Froze in foam.

“Now that

“would be

"What a waste.”

And “What bad breath.”

And “What a loser.”

And “How can I extricate myself from this?”

And “Is this guy for real?”

And “What an utter joke?”

And …

I was sitting

at the river looking down

in the distant crest

The ancient ruins of palaces climbing out of the

vine-entangled Swamp-infested trees,

and wondering why

Stomach was

empty

As the Kingfisher stood.