Once upon a time, I wrote poetry!

Oh, and happy National Poetry Month!

Somewhere deep inside my #LetsDiscuss2020 #DiscussionSunday post about my regimen vs. impulse posting, I posed the question if anyone thought it might be fun for me to post some of my poetry here on my blog. Well, a couple of people showed interest, and I appreciate that. As for the rest of you, you are welcome to just click or scroll on by if you aren’t poetry people (I promise, I won’t be the least bit offended)! These two were written in 1976 and 1977!

Again, forgive me – I was very young!

Just as an explanation, in Hebrew numerology, the number 18 spells out the word Chai (חי) which means life. So, life (18) plus two, equals 20, and I wrote this one after my 20th birthday (yeah, I was young)!

Life Plus Two:  Twenty

Strong fire
and the end of an era.

Scores before me
burn and smolder
sputtering into the end
of an evening.

While I watch
the air tells me
of the years
that brought me here,
as the return is
dying along with smoke
drifting into
another part of my universe.

Fire strong
and the era ends,
long before the next score
brings its smolder
into the evening’s end.

© 1977
Image by goranmx from Pixabay

The Lion

Part I

Flashing his too young smile at us all
he waves his child-bride in our faces,
and we say “great man,” and he smiles even wider.

Roaring his lion voice at us all
he waves his no-challenge logic in our faces,
and we say “smart man,” and he roars even prouder.

But look at him –
lost in his false youth
buried in his self-worth
stranded in his crowd mask
he smiles and roars and waves his Dorian Grey in our faces
and we think to ourselves “sad man, stupid man.”

But he never sees it, never hears it
he just smiles and roars even more.

© Nov. 1976

Part II

His eyes grow gray, and the
beautiful images dissolve.
He’s lost his voice and
his lion’s mane shows his age.

He has been tamed,
the whip has stung his flesh
the chair jabbed his heart,
and he is left alone
to lick his self-inflected wounds.

And as alone he sits
he cries for the years
that brought him pride
but gave us shame.

Again, we look at him
stripped of his youth,
uncovering his reality,
stranded in painful revelation.

And we say to him –
“We’re sorry it had to be this way;
we won’t desert you as did your child-bride.”
And he smiles, not so wide, but with truth.

© 1977
Image by Ian Lindsay from Pixabay

Note: There is actually a third part to this poem, which I wrote in 1987, but it was never published anywhere, so I’m not including it here.

© Davida Chazan – all rights reserved. (These are the last two poems, which were both published in the 1978 “Dudes” Magazine at Oakton Community College, DesPlains, Illinois.)

Breaking News:

Two more of my poems were just published in Refresh Magazine here!