poem | David Fekete

GENERATIONS

14 May 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: agism, free verse, generations, indifferent, intellectual, old, poem, poetry, protesters, publishers, trends, young

Well known that the elderly don’t

Connect well with the young

But what is new is that it is me

Intellectual trends pass relatively rapidly

I’m out of touch, and

I doubt that what is timeless

Is current

I can’t appreciate contemporary art

Poetry publishers eschew rhyme

Educators put lessons on students’ cell phones

I write poems with pen on paper

When we were young, we were hostile

To the older generation

Deliberately sought to overthrow

Society, social dropouts, protesters

We were, when we were

Young

Today’s young are indifferent to us

Neither in opposition, nor respect

To them, we are not

I am

Though I am displaced

Generation gap

Agism

But now it’s me

A MOTHER’S LIFE

09 May 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: blood, creator, free verse, giving, home, mother, poem, poetry

My mother’s life is and was

All giving

My creator, an image of my Creator.

Her very blood infused into my veins

She has made a home and a life for me

In my weakness, she was strength

In my want, she was plenty

In my soul, my mind, my aspirations

My mother’s heart is poured into mine

In our differing visions, or visions shared

My mother was there

Supporting, condoling, celebrating

Much of me is not her

Much of me is her

It matters not

She gave, gives

A mother’s life is and was

All giving.

WILDFLOWERS

07 May 2020 1 Comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: bluebell, Buddhists, delight, dukkha, flower, friends, joy, love, pansy, poem, poetry, rhyme, time

We love to see a meadow of wild flowers

And take delight in sweet pea, bluebell, pansy

But if we try to pick and hold their beauty

We find they fade and wilt in only hours

Still after we have placed them in a vase

We love their delicate pedals and scent

Like flowers, time with friends is only lent

Though beauty in friendships gives life grace

And we love it when our friends are nearby

But time with friends tends to be uncertain

If long or short, impermanence is certain

People change; in time we’ll say goodbye

Buddhists say that joy in friend or lover

Still is dukkha, suffering or grief

I see the transient nature of all life

Yet still take joy, delight, and pleasure

As it is in friendship, love, or flower

IN THE PEAK OF COVID-19

07 May 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: activity, ambition, COVID-19, edit, free verse, incentive, job, money, poem, poetry, publishers, reading, sloth, time

What was that I needed to get done today?

Well, nothing really—I can barely remember

When they shut us down, shut down my ambition

–“I have to what?!”—”Do what?!”–

That mandated sloth that tells me stall, stop

So I slouch upon my couch, and pass time

At times, I take the time to touch base

With a treasured book—which I never would have

Chasing time filled with needless activity

Chasing a job, a dollar, more money

No money and nothing to spend it on—

I would go to the mall, the bookstore, the casino

And with a home library filled with good books

I never did read, read now—sometimes

When I can find the incentive

And my poems that I organize to send out

Re-read, fix, edit,–search out publishers

When I can’t find the incentive

And just slouch upon the couch

And watch TV that I don’t like

Don’t like not doing what I want to get done

This mandated sloth, this slovenly lost ambition

Not even waiting for it all to be over

Just waiting on time, making time, taking time, time to get something done

Plenty to get done today, and nothing, really

MANIFESTO

05 May 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: creativity, fancy, manifest, poem, poetry, style, tradition, verse, wings

Blessings rarely fall upon creativity,

The blessed gift that gives blessings to the world

Would that all God’s people were prophets

Business demands compliance to management

Academia demands conformity to pedagogy

The workers and scholars who meet success

Want creativity, don’t want creativity, wanton creativity

Constrained in a cage, the wings of creativity chafe

But soaring flights of fancy ill bear containment

Even at peril, wings flex their wits

Affront establishment, norms, aesthetic strictures

Flout trends, tradition, transmission of style

Interested only in release of the muse, manifestation

Fractious under pressure to demur to stricture, structure

Nature knows no other course

And must be itself, be it bless or curse

Knowing blesses only at happy realizations of muse

The which only creative natures nurture

Must manifest, make, make known, appear, make apparent

A LITANY

04 May 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: art, Blake, Eliot, F. Scott, fame, free verse, Hemingway, litany, obscurity, poem, Sheyyey, wealth

The Keepers of intellectual trends hold apparent power

And to make it, some are slaves to the Keepers’ fashion

I am a free man to my own muse

I am a priest who intones the litany:

Blake was a free genius, self-published,

And died in literary obscurity

Until T. S. Eliot gave him a name

Shelley knew, “Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure”

Whom all English students now study

Though F. Scott knew fame and wealth,

Gatsby didn’t even sell out its first printing

And F. Scott never knew the book as all high school students do

They suppressed Hemingway’s Pulitzer

They fiercely debated whether Frost were a poet, Wyeth a painter

The Impressionists showed in the Exhibition of Rejects

And Moreau, in the National Paris Salon

Pollock had his 10 years, before his suicide

Mozart died unknown, unsung

We can’t give our contentment to the Keepers

It rests in the beauty of our art manifesting,

In the pen of the writer alone with paper or laptop screen,

And a happy finished project

In the living-room, study, or dorm room

With, or without, the blessing of the Keepers

KNOWLEDGE, APPRECIATION, AND ENJOYMENT

24 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: criticism, culture, education, joy, Nietzsche, poem, poetry, reflection, Shakespeare, Shelley, verse

I enjoy reading Shakespeare when I’m moved to

Richard III is thrilling

When I don’t have to study it for a course:

Memorize plot, character, Act and scene

Nietzsche on Greek Tragedy is enthralling

When I don’t have to place it in relation to

Zarathustra, Christian criticism, Ubermensch, herd

Education is a mixed blessing

A blessing, if it serves to enhance

Joy in culture’s works

Mixed if it serves merely to teach

Appreciation only, or worse, criticism

Still, without education, I wouldn’t read Shelley

And Shelley teach me to enjoy Shakespeare

A REFLECTION ON THE ’80’S

21 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by davidfekete123 in Uncategorized Tags: '80's, community, competition, conflict, love, peace, poem, poetry, reflection, success, Sun Tzu, tough, wealth, wisdom

I remember back in the ‘80’s

How often I heard how hard life is

How tough you have to get, to be, to get ahead

How many were reading Sun Tzu, The Art of War

How many longed to be back in college

Protected, with their friends, the camaraderie, safe

Fighting your way to the top is hard, tough

Clawing your way into obscene wealth is hard, tough

Competing with your fellows, maybe screwing them over

You have to get tough, and it is hard if you choose these paths

I haven’t studied war, and haven’t become tough

I know disappointment, grief, crushed dreams

The consequences of too much love

Creativity is hard, but not conflict with my fellows

The satisfaction I know in word or tone shames wealth

I claw my way into creations I love to live with

I compete with my piano, with pen or keyboard

I do not know where the top is, what it is, but I will likely not be there

I know the struggle of satisfying art, soul satisfactions

The path I have chosen tends toward calm

The friends I continue to make make community, trust

I continue to learn, learn peace, wisdom, love

I find that is a struggle with mortal stakes

That life is hard, yet it doesn’t make me tough, and I wish no retreat

Into adolescent protection, sophomoric camaraderie

The realization of such a longing would be retreat indeed

From all of my struggle to grow in peace, wisdom, love

And I wish nothing more

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

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