davidfekete123

ODE TO THE NIGHT

12 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: art, contemplative, creativity, night, peace, poetry, psyche, rhyme, Spirit, stillness

I feel more at home, and love the dark of night

Then, my creativity, my psyche’s spark,

Flows into art and I drink in others’ insight

I love the peacefulness when everything is dark

Daylight is a threat to this contemplative

I strain to shut it out and turn into my mind

In night, the dark, the stillness lets my spirit live

And music, verse, and thought flow freely as the wind

I walk the night and love the darkness, the quiet

Day is noisy; light is a distraction

When I try to grasp a poem or express my spirit

Only nighttime gives my spirit satisfaction

THE GIFT OF FLOWERS

10 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: Buddhist, delight, dukkha, flowers, friend, impermanence, love, poem, poetry, rhyme, rose

We love when someone gives us flowers

And we love the mum, petunia, rose, or lily

Though knowing as we gaze on their beauty

That they will stay for many hours,–but only hours

Still, while they are in the vase

We take delight in the delicate pedals, scent

Like the gift of flowers, people in our lives are lent

A gift people are, a certain grace

We take delight when people are nearby

Yet the time we have together is uncertain

Long or short, impermanence is certain

People change, come and go, we meet and say goodbye

So the Buddhists say that enjoyment of friend, lover

Is dukkha—grief—suffering

Knowing the impermanence of everything

Gives the gift of delight and pleasure

For what it is, in friend, lover, or flower

GETTING TO ME

07 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: COVID-19, cruel, free verse, incompetence, partisanship, poem, poetry, president, rage, self-serving, statesmanship, Wisconsin

I’ve never been so mad and spiteful in all my life

I watch the death toll rise daily without abatement

At home alone, practicing shelter-in-place to help the initiative

I get mad easily these days

I choke in my rage at what looks like incompetence and self-serving

By the president, what seems cruel partisanship of Wisconsin’s legislature

Putting lives at risk by disallowing an election’s delay during the pandemic

I crave statesmanship

I’m ashamed at the ill-will I feel, what I wish would happen . . .

While safe at home, COVID-19 is still getting to me

THAT PARTY I CRASHED

05 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: art, graduate school, party, poem, sunrise, wealth

I think back fondly of the time I crashed that party

Across the street, in that wealthy neighborhood

Where the graduate school I attended was located

I had a good time, enjoyed myself and they me

In the house that hosted the party I crashed

I noticed authentic early Christian art and statuary

Just before the sun broke, we were sitting on the floor

The daughter was holding a grey box in her hand

Which contained her father’s ashes

He was an organist and purchased the art

Before it became valuable, at a good price, she said

We partied all night, and when the sun rose

She had to drive away to her job as a waitress

I walked across the street to the quiet graduate school

Found my room down the dark hallway, and crashed

THE CITY IN COVID-19

03 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: books, COVID-19, grocery store, music, poetry, quiet, take-out, Traffic, TV

The city is quiet

There are hardly any sirens

Traffic is lighter

When we go for walks

In the deserted park

Drivers wave as they pass

On the nearby roads

I dodge sparse people

In the grocery store

We decided to order take-out

From our favorite restaurant

At home, I write music, play and learn, record,

Read, and there are other projects, chores

But mostly I watch TV

Where I learn the latest about COVID-19

COVID-19 IN THE MIDST OF IT

31 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: COVID-19, crisis, distance, indoors, motivation, telephone talks

Indoors we sit

And try to make sense of it

We go out for walks

And make do with telephone talks

We try not to see others as a foe

They could be a carrier, though

And so we keep safe distance

Whenever others are in our presence

We wait it all out in isolation

While this crisis saps our motivation

I try to read, write, and be productive

But make little progress in my efforts to be active

Day melts into day in mindless stupefaction

BREATHING THE SPIRIT OF ALCHEMY

31 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: Aristotle, childhood, church, crucible, Paul, poetry, upbringing, virtue

The philosopher for Aristotle is not in conflict

He does what he wants and consistently wants what is virtuous

I am more like Paul, who does not what he wants

And does what he does not want

I do not want the legacy of my childhood

Nor the tyrant my father was, nor the misery that was my home

Church was my refuge

A morning’s refuge once a week,

For me, the salve of love

Communion, human and Divine beloved community

A morning’s refuge once a week

Ferment in the crucible of what my life became

Diffusing as tendrils through my passions

Refining the dross that was my upbringing

Veins of gold shining through adamant,

Heavy adamant from my upbringing I carry

In the pilgrimage that is a life’s progress

Toward being whole, gold, unitary

In what I want and in the manifesting power

That spirit has to make, remake, make new

Make conflict cease, bring release, grant peace

IT NEVER USED TO BE

28 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: apathy, bipolar disorder, fear, free verse, music, onstage, perform, poem, poetry, psychotic episode

Mike noticed me shaking

Playing at an open stage

The way we had in clubs years ago

The legacy of my psychotic episode years ago,

The effects persisting in my involuntary shakes, fear, and incompetence

Brett noticed me shaking

Almost convulsing onstage at the keyboard

It never used to be like that

The ease, the drive I had to perform

Then the caving fear onstage

The lingering apathy that stole

My passion to play hour upon hour at home

Getting better hour upon hour enthralled

Or onstage before crowds

Eager, excited, up

Darryl tried to jam with me last spring

Remembering my former ability

Thinking me as capable as it used to be

It was sad, the attempt, his generosity

One player quenched by bipolar disorder

Likely doesn’t mean much

But it does to me

IN COVID-19

26 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: capacity, Confucius, COVID-19, exhausted, Harvard, hospitals, isolation, Mozart, poetics, poetry, trends

Subjects wrap themselves in poetry

Today, practically every consideration pales

In comparison with

Tens of thousands infected, thousands dead

Hospitals past capacity, protective gear spent, exhausted

Medical professionals sick, exposed

Failed containment

Considerations pale in comparison with COVID-19

You used to be IT if you had

A Cabbage Patch Doll

And liked Ben and Jerry’s ice cream

Or were hip in the bar

There was even a word for it—

“Trendy,” and yet people were

I wasn’t anybody until I went to Harvard

Yet, things in this world matter

Mean something even in COVID-19

It’s hard to play Mozart piano sonatas, now

But they matter, and my new book of Confucius’ Odes

(Ordered online, in social isolation)

The wind blows a lot of chaff away

In these days

As it carries the virus

Through the entire world

And wraps words around itself

GLAMOR AND BEAUTY

25 Mar 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: beauty, exfoliator, fashion, free verse, innocence, makeup, poem, poetry, spiritual

Skin and hair and fingernails and toenails

And eyebrows and eyelashes and eyeshadow

And lips and lipstick and Botox

Lashes and polish and foundation

Makeup and moisturizer and exfoliator

Glamor and allure and sophistication

Good nature and simplicity, even innocence

And sincerity and faithfulness and trust

And honesty and emotional honesty and spontaneity

And genuine and caring and kind

And real and unaffected and straightforward

And loving and spiritual and beautiful

David Fekete