Poetry

CF photo

By

Gary Beck

Pageant

I have never been a refugee

fleeing flood, famine, plague, war,

carrying what they could salvage

from a lost way of life.

Few countries welcomed them

for they looked too different

further stagnated

by the hardships of the road,

dirty, smelly, unshaven, in rags,

objects of scorn rather then pity.

I do not know how many

have a chance to rebuild their lives,

but I guess there are few

from the multitude of sufferers,

and I cannot help them,

overwhelming in their numbers,

insufficient resources

to alleviate endless needs,

the painful history of humanity

as the few prosper,

the many struggle

for basic existence.

Schoolyard

The schoolyard is deserted.

The last voices of children

no longer echo in the empty space.

The bullied, estranged, outcasts

have gone on to other suffering.

The sports groups, social cliques

have forgotten the persecutions

inflicted on their classmates,

as the teacher turned a blind eye.

The system allows punishment

of the smart, the weak, misfits.

Only those once tormented

by insensitive brutes

might painfully remember

the innocent schoolyard

was a place of no joy.

Urban Nightmare II

City of gaping sores

partially concealed

by luxury stores,

whose frailty is revealed

by empty shops next door,

that blissfully ignore

rental signs denying

the middle class is dying.

Unnomadic

Evolved city dwellers

far removed from nature

prisoners of glass and concrete,

have forgotten the laws of life,

eat or be eaten,

kill or be killed,

except when brutally reminded

by natural disasters,

relegated to memory

as soon as suffering diminishes.

Many of us have become inured

to the cruel inventiveness

that contrives more and more methods

of delivering violent death,

a creative activity

not taught in university,

but by government, corporations,

home schooling, preparing

graduates in murder,

while urban residents

huddle with their tame pets

immune to the fragility

of vulnerable lives.

Idle Hands

I look at an old man’s hands

wrinkled, veined, atremble

and know they will not touch

the graspings of youth,

only serve to open

gates of death.

Gary Beck

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director, and as an art dealer when he couldn’t make a living in theater. He has 11 published chapbooks and 3 more accepted for publication. His poetry collections include: Days of Destruction (Skive Press), Expectations (Rogue Scholars Press). Dawn in Cities, Assault on Nature, Songs of a Clerk, Civilized Ways, Displays,Perceptions (Winter Goose Publishing). Fault Lines, Tremors, Perturbations, Rude Awakenings and The Remission of Order will be published by Winter Goose Publishing. Conditioned Response (Nazar Look). Resonance (Dreaming Big Publications). His novels include: Extreme Change (Cogwheel Press) and Flawed Connections (Black Rose Writing). Call to Valor will be published by Gnome on Pigs Productions and Acts of Defiance will be published by Dreaming Big Publications. His short story collection, A Glimpse of Youth (Sweatshoppe Publications). Now I Accuse and other storieswill be published by Winter Goose Publishing. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.