Here is the latest installment of Poet’s Corner, presented by the Edmonds Poetry Group.
Autumn Poem for The Homeless
Oh blanket upon my bed
like fallen leaves cover Autumn ground
we covet warmth
from the stabbing chill of winter nights
too much to dread
your time has come,
through prisms of variegated light
fret not unknown outcomes of restless slumber,
for the providence of selfish minds
puts no lofty dreams asunder.
Gerald Bigelow
~ ~ ~ ~
Bells a Constant Ringing
Throughout time the ringing of Bells
have sounded to herald and regulate
the comings and goings of humans events
from delicate scantily audible tinkles
to resounding seismic rumbles
a bell can ring to express
joy, danger or bereavement
for some, the sound of bells ringing
conger up visions of Quasimodo
who in spite of his shyness and appearance
gleefully rang the venerable
bells of Notre Dame Cathedral
for me, the number of times that I heard
Church bells ring
dedicated whether or not I should walk or run
avoiding not being late for Mass and
the wrath of Father Oliver!
Bells are omnipresent!
I have heard the bells sing as the voice of true celebration
I have heard the bells cry out to signal imminent danger
I have heard the bells subdued whispers when grieving a loss
I have heard the rhythmic clang of a buoy(bell) jostled by an angry sea
A bell is often a voice for the voiceless.
Lately, I struggle to imagine a place where a bell doesn’t belong.
However, my mindless wanderings leads me to an obvious conclusion,
The ”No Bell” Peace Prize
A cheap joke!
Yet, I still can not stop this constant ringing in my ear.
Gerald Bigelow
~ ~ ~ ~
Where do Words Go?
Where do words go? Do they covertly sneak off in the middle of
the night to seek refuge in a dust covered dictionary, high upon
a library shelf, forgotten in a place inaccessible to these old legs,out
of the grasp of these arthritic ridden hands, on the distant edges of
vision, yet still on the horizon of my memory
The words and sounds of words lost, now resting in coffins of
knowledge, latched with leather straps and engraved silver locks,
securing the once free range words that encircled our lives
As children, we were out of luck if we couldn’t spell a word, we
most surely couldn’t find it in the dictionary
Now in the grips of aging when we can’t remember words, not
even a dictionary can help
Our modern day culture no longer uses the words that I seek,
They have become weighty, archaic, unconnected to who we are,
what we want to say, what we mean!
There are times of perfect clarity, when the clear skies of mind,
void of clouds, shine upon the broad expanses of memory,
A time when those elusive words stampede across the plains of
recall like the healthy horde of Bison that roamed from horizon to
horizon in times of abundance
Words!
How can I argue with you?
How can I discuss with you?
How many times and how many ways can I say “you know what I
mean?”
Words!
You let me say what I mean and mean what I say
If you fall out of fashion, will we resort to grunts, short hand
texting,
Tweets ?
Words !
Keep hiding, perhaps someday a treasure hunter or bored
Archeologist will discover you and have true understanding of
your worth
Keep hiding!
Every time I hear a “Yo”, a” Waz-up” or an “OMG!”
I will beam with pride, knowing that you are hiding in an unknown
location
alive and well
just waiting for the right time to emerge
Until then, “stay cool my brother,”
“stay cool!”
Gerald Bigelow
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Previously published in the Arizona Centennial Anthology and in Between the Lines, Gerald chairs the Edmonds Poetry Group. He edited and contributed to Soundings from the Salish Sea (A Pacific Northwest Poetry Anthology).
In 2019, Gerald was selected to read his poetry with the Washington State Poet Laureate. He helped establish a bi-monthly Poet’s Corner featurette in My Edmonds News to showcase the work of local poets. He has a new book of poetry on Amazon entitled, Memories Looking Through a Screen Door.
Among his other credits, Gerald has read his poetry at the 2019, 2021 and 2022 Edmonds Arts Festivals, read and served on a discussion panel at the Edmonds Friends of the Library, participated in poetry readings and a discussion panel at the celebration for the winner of the 2021 Paz Prize for Poetry (Alejandro Perez-Cortez), and acted as manager and featured poetry reader for Epic Group Writers Poets at the 2022 Day of Remembrance for Japanese Americans held at Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds.
Thank you Mr. Bigelow for your contributions to Edmonds art scene. And for keeping us smiling with your wit…
“The ”No Bell” Peace Prize A cheap joke! Yet, I still can not stop this constant ringing in my ear.” 🙂
Thanks, Gerald, for these morsels of wisdom. Your work is always full of insights
I look forward to reading your next poems and I don’t think you will be missing any words.
As we age and technology creeps in to replace our brains it’s a constant struggle to recall words. I still use a paperback thesaurus rather than Googling a word. I want to use as much of my gray matter as possible.
Thank you for your poems.
It seems we were mostly “on the same page”, Jerry, when we wrote our “ringing bells” poems! “Therefore, never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee” John Donne (1624).
And “Autumn Poem for the Homeless” and “Where Do Words Go” certainly hit home and ring true to me. Like the late Ursula K. Le Guin, you inspire me never to be poemless for long.
I just finishing reading “Ursula K. Le Guin on Writing”.
“In America the imagination is generally looked upon something that might be usual when the TV is out of order. Poetry and plays have no relation to practical politics. Novels are for students, housewives and other people who don’t work. Fantasy is for children and primitive peoples. Literacy is so you can read the operating instructions. I think imagination is the single most useful tool mankind possesses. It beats the opposable thumb. I can imagine living without my thumbs, but not without my imagination.”
Ursula K. Le Guin. (2016). “The Operating Instructions,” Words Are My Matter. Easthampton, MA, USA: Small Beer Press.
https://www.ursulakleguin.com/words-are-my-matter
RE: “Words”
Hey Jerry,
As a fun exercise, I have re-written Hawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales” under the following title: “Twitter-Told Tales.” To this end, I reduced each paragraph of the original short story to no more than 140 characters per paragraph, and I think it totally works, and that Hawthorne would have done well in the age of the platform formerly known as “Twitter.” But how would the late musician formerly known as “Prince” have done?
Jack
Ah, words. Yes, they hide well, but you have a way of bringing them into the light.
The “problem” (mostly for us older folks) is that fewer and fewer people use words. E.g., when you celebrate MLK Day, you are celebrating no one, because the person’s name is missing. BLM? Black Lives Matter or the federal Bureau of Land Management? More and more people text snippets, acronyms and emojis, to replace words and actual conversation. Stream of consciousness is now Stream of meaninglessness. And then there how words are used. E.g., when every person is a “hero” for some reason, the word “hero” becomes meaningless. And even on “Jeopardy!”, the most frequent category is now “rappers and rap lyrics.” Thanks, Ken Jennings! You’re an Apple genius! Thank you EPIC poets for continuing to make words meaningful to some of us.