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Jan. 30. 2010 -- Happy New Year. Today I'm posting a poem I finished this month, although I started writing it in 2004, according to my records. It's about the process of writing poetry, a process that never ends until the poet dies. Only then can you put the final end-stop on a poet's work.
Until then, every poem the poet has written, especially if the poem has not yet been published, is open to revision to make it better. Publication proves a convenient end to the process if the poet so chooses. He or she can leave the poem behind. But until death ends the author, any poem can be touched up.
I mourn the loss of J.D. Salinger today. His published books, all four, have been important to me. I, like millions of other readers, fell in love with the Glass family, and love never dies. Poor sensitive Seymour.
The second poem here I wrote back in 2007 after I sent a friend to the Badlands of South Dakota on his way back to Chicago. I told Bob O'Neil the sight of the Badlands was something no man in America should miss. I wrote the poem after he called me to say I was right.
I often continue to work on poems I find in my past journals, just as I worked on both of these before posting them here. That's why some of my old poems rightfully become "My Latest."
Thank you for visiting my web site!
The purpose of the site is to showcase and sell my collection of poetry from more than forty years of writing, as well as feature my most recent work. I also treat this introductory space as a blog, telling my readers something about the poems I'm featuring here as well as about my thoughts on poetry in general.
I also write about poetry and other literature at www.Examiner.com, as the Denver Literary Examiner.
To best use this site buy some poems! They're cheap! I will be changing out the featured poems frequently. E-mail me at rschwab@robertschwabpoet.com if you find one missing that you liked and would like to receive a copy of.
PayPal is a reliable system for making the purchase. If you like what you buy, come back to the site and buy some more. One day I might collect the poems in an e-book or even a printed volume.
On my formal blog, Schwab on Anything, I am writing about small business, politics, minority business, my own development as a writer and other topics. If you would like to check out the blog, click here. To learn more about me and the vision of RobertSchwabPoet.com, which is changing all the time, click here.
Thanks again for visiting.
Deadly joke
“All for art!”
Joyce joked
once,
before he died.
And yet,
my life,
as he foretold,
is locked upon
a four-line poem
– or five.
Poetry is
demon
and dictator,
it eats
you up
before you die.
Started in 2004, I finished this poem just this week, the fourth week in January, 2010. Poems are a process that doesn't end until you die.
Judgment Day
There is a moment
when we face the face
of God in nature,
when life and death hang
suspended in the dry air.
We realize: Were
it not for God, we
would – we could – all
perish in that moment.
A moment every
soul should touch in life.
The soul itself,
before its God, with
life assured for that
moment. A moment
to face the face of God,
with judgment day
yet to come.
I wrote this poem after a friend, Bob O'Neil, called to thank me for sending him to the Badlands of South Dakota on his way back to the Midwest after a Denver visit in 2007.
Other Poems by Robert Schwab |
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Tattered Man
1 Poem
An aged, tattered man,
stands in his mind
before the bookstore
in San Francisco, the old
anxiety hangs
on the threads and patches
of his frayed coat...
Price: $ 0.89
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Blades & Evolution
2 Poems
Oh! The sharp sparks
we strike: they glitter
as they flash
off each other
… or would we rather
lose our edge …
Price: $ 0.89
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Because she was lovely
& Love ‘ya
2 Poems
Because she was lovely,
Lovely and sweet, a soul
who cared about me
for a time...
Price: $ 0.89
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“Painted Veil,”
Poetrybiz &
Nugget
3 Poems
The tarp my daughter Catherine paints
to shroud a high-school-age worldly disaster,
that needs addressing. Her talent wasted
in blobs of bright light, illuminating shadows...
Price: $ 0.89
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The Gun & Your Art!
2 Poems
The gun lies wrapped
in a shoe-shine rag
in a box in a closet,
with a bunch of bullets...
Price: $ 0.89
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Church Ladies &
Love Poem: The Male
2 Poems
Don’t you just love
the guys
who use God
to jump...
Price: $ 0.89
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Two Women & Rebecca
2 Poems
Now you’re back again,
you who put me out
like wash on a clothes line
to slap and dry…
Price: $ 0.89
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Terrible Beauty, and
Roused
2 Poems
Roused at the memory of her kiss:
I feel her tongue
like fruit insider her mouth …
Price: $ 0.89
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Barbie Dream and
Sonnet to Byron & Keats
2 Poems
I’ll have no plastic doll for a lover,
My woman cooks with onions and garlic.
I want her wetness …
Price: $ 0.89
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No Time for Apocalypse
1 long poem
The final decade is about to begin
Jesus Christ is risen again.
Bury the decade in a common grave,
forget it all.
Dress for the dance
Save money for the ball …
Price: $ 1.95
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Three Poems:
Thief
Daffodils
Short Poems
Death claims our lovers
As a thief snatches
jewels in the night…
Price: $ 0.89
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Black Holes, I and II
2 Poems
"I am an explorer
sent to the center
of space…"
Price: $ 0.89
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My Love, I and II
2 Poems
Wyoming you are to me
white sand beauty
a land of hard edges…
Price: $ 0.89
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Colorado Millennium
1 Long Poem
A new round of time
spins the Mayan calendar:
the millennium is come,
another thousand years.
Colorado’s busy, bustling
engines warm.
The trucks outside
the Conoco, their drivers
huddled over coffee…
Price: $ 1.95
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Catherine &
“Not Marble, Nor …”
2 Poems
Even now,
at three,
parting seems
to tear
her heart
apart.
...
Price: $ 0.89
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After &
Mother’s Day
2 Poems
The world is flying apart,
gravity fails; my heart, too.
Birds fall with fever,
blue smoke rolls over
the harbor of our souls.
...
Price: $ 0.89
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