Poetry

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POETRY

Though Dick Eastman does not think of himself as primarily a poet, he admires poetry for its beauty of sound and intensity of meaning. Some threescore poems came from his pen. Here are samples.

(Untitled)

We spend too much time walking to the well,

Too many steps in climbing to the view.

Since our buckets leak, since our legs give way,

We ought to live by the water;

We ought to stay on the hill.

THE PIRANHA

Beware those tiny beauties

Which flash beneath

The flood with lightning teeth

To form

Upon your flesh a swarm

Of small duties.

EULOGY

Let us praise the tillers of barren soil

Teachers of inept students

Writers buried by rejection slips

Dancers with thick ankles

Reformers of apathetic communities

Peacemakers for deadly foes

Scientists butting the unknowable

Ministers of complacent congregations

Nurses of death-wracked patients

Mothers of breaking homes

Let us praise

Whoever pours the heart's blood

Into the thirsty cracks of human failure

Whether in radiant or dignified despair

Such toilers teach us to guess

What it is like these days to be

God.

PROMETHEUS, PH. D.

Chained to my bed by the small hours

I stare at the neat familiar vultures as they

Like connoisseurs of anxiety

Fastidiously nibble at my nerves.

What fire, in my discreet days, could I

possibly have given to whom?

What Zeus could I deserve to displease?

AN OLD MAN'S SERENADE

Not through roses do I come

Nor lilacs, lilies, peonies or poppies;

I come through frozen glades

And thickets laced with frost.

This air I breathe is neither soft nor balmy

But crisp and stinging.

Still I come with my ancient guitar

With its broken string

To sing with cracking tune

To you I love.You--no pristine beauty

But finer, much, whose loving life

Has lined your face with loveliness,

Whose happy humming at your daily tasks

I'll bravely try to match,

Knowing you will hear my truest voice

The joy of having lived beside you.