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    AC Benus
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

You Were There, and other poems - 8. And, lo –

.

Poem No. 21

 

For a moment she was so lovely,

A form, a shape without time,

As she held her glass; a finger supporting

The tip-prone base, the other hand

Around the rim, and together, in grace,

Together, timelessly they brought

The rim to her lips.

 

I smiled to see her,

A form, not of my time,

A grace, not limited to my sight,

For others I feel have seen;

Others than I have watched,

That moment of beauty as

She drank her coffee.

 

 

 

Poem No. 22

 

Uneasy thought it is, ugliness in mankind,

Is what needs embracing by our understanding,

And the process – in the transformation of us –

To the courage needed to the task,

We slowly eke our way closer

To the time of taking

The ugliness as one of us –

To the courage of the love needed

To embrace the ugly to transform,

 

And, lo –

We are already transformed;

Metamorphosed

By the unlovely.


 

 

Poem No. 23

 

Something’s real in him –

say the imprint of his framer’s

liberating fingers –

Say the impression’s

like a master poet’s thought,

that Eros there lingered,

and lingers there still.

 

Sal

 

 

 

 

_

Copyright © 2024 AC Benus; All Rights Reserved.
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Poetry posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Poem 22 left me stunned. It belongs in anthologies to be read by every student. It could be one of the greatest classics you have brought to our attention. I could barely spare I thought for Numbers 21 and 23, both excellent in their own right. I was particularly struck by the depth and detail in 21 and by the untold story of 23. 

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Poems 22 and 23 are excellent with great messages.  But Poem 21 struck me as an example of something we might see often, yet not always appreciate the form and beauty inherent in it when certain persons are involved.

Poem 22 has a wonderful message of how something might change for the better.

Poem 23 -- I fully agree with @Parker Owens.

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AC Benus

Posted (edited)

I've returned to editing this book today, and wrote the following note to accompany the "Sal" poem, which is dated August the 23rd, 1995. It's making my eyes tearful to think of him . . . .

------------------------------------------------------

[4] “Sal” A beloved, special friend of mine, Sal Messina, was a person I met in Japan and continued to know after he and his husband moved to the Bay Area. He passed in the year of Pandemic 2020.

 

I wrote the following poem several hours after his memorial service:

 

It’s the evening of Sal’s funeral

[October 1st, 2020 – 10:14 pm]

 

The sideshows burn circles in the pavement;

the ash hangs relentlessly in the air we breathe;

a nation holds its breath, waiting to see if

democracy dies on our watch;

and today was funeral day for

a dear, dear friend who will never –

not in a million lifetimes – be replaced.

 

 

 

 

Edited by AC Benus
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On 7/18/2024 at 10:20 AM, Parker Owens said:

Poem 22 left me stunned. It belongs in anthologies to be read by every student. It could be one of the greatest classics you have brought to our attention. I could barely spare I thought for Numbers 21 and 23, both excellent in their own right. I was particularly struck by the depth and detail in 21 and by the untold story of 23. 

Thanks, Parker. By classic, you mean something written a while ago, I guess. It's hard to know what things a person writes will resonate with people; and that this was written in the 1990s maybe makes it a classic.

Thanks for reading these 

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On 7/18/2024 at 10:21 AM, chris191070 said:

I love all of these.

Thanks, Chris. I'm glad you're reading these old works of mine

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On 7/18/2024 at 10:27 AM, ReaderPaul said:

Poems 22 and 23 are excellent with great messages.  But Poem 21 struck me as an example of something we might see often, yet not always appreciate the form and beauty inherent in it when certain persons are involved.

Poem 22 has a wonderful message of how something might change for the better.

Poem 23 -- I fully agree with @Parker Owens.

Thank you, ReaderPaul. With the young woman drinking coffee in a cafe in No. 21, I was consciously struck by how many beautiful moments like these we glimpse during the day. It takes only openness to see them, but effort to shape them into things like poems. But not that moment is captured and replayable.

Thanks again

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