RHE poems
Poems by Richard Epstein. Not much commentary, only one picture (sorry, Alice), and little disruption: just a place to find poems by Richard Epstein
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
That’s Rory For You
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Nothing of the Kine: An Idyll
Horrors, the lazy currents seem to spell
Pathetic in their fallacies, the frogs
Croak in distaste; the serried midges form
An arrow pointing at the horrid words,
The word made wet, a stranger in their mist.
If words could kill, we all would die, the cow
Observes beyond her fence. She has been told
All cows eat grass. I don't know if that's true,
She tells her stablemate, but why take chances?
I wager it is so, and so I eat.
Grass is its own reward. The shrieking pond
Is turtle-proud, but in a world of woe,
We keep to beaten ways, as best we can,
And distance ourselves from the shellfish sort,
The gravitas-less insects, and the fowl;
But, oh, how the amphibious betray
Lack of commitment. Low, she says. We're born,
And no one knows a single thing thereafter.
Tuesday, January 07, 2025
The Tempest
The air is full of music, but the isle
Scamper the grubs that were somebody else--
Will be again. The Ghost of Christmas Past
Or The Nobel Prizewinner for the Blues.
Thrones go unoccupied, but fires set
At twilight smell of camphor, and great moths
Sing little liebestods while sailing in.
The stars are green. True love never runs smooth,
But walks at a brisk pace. The wind blows warm
Across the bay, where seals on plaster rocks
Snore gently, dreaming dreams of fish. The eyes
Of magi close as well. The roads are waxed:
Young lovers slip away, concealed by mist
Imported just for them. It rains and rains.
It rains and rains, and ships capsize, the crews
Borne to the shore on water wings. They find
The aborigines, diaphanous
In raindrops, dancing pas de deux, de trois,
Wrapped round themselves and singing, Liberty.
Thursday, January 02, 2025
The House the Hoarder Had
It’s 90 in the shade. The hawthorn shares
Its leaves, its thorns, botanical debris,
And squirrels and does it all ungrudgingly,
All without affect. If it thinks, it thinks
Of roots and where they’re headed, of the nice
Vitreous clay pipe a little to the south,
Not of the hoarder and the house she had
Across the street. Tornadoes would have loved it.
The ambience was right, the floor a blitz
Of concrete, mud, and glass. It showed no shame
And more shade, even, than the hawthorn tree;
And shades await, if all the tales are true,
Across the tracks from piles of beauty books,
Tampon boxes, milk of magnesia sweet
As locust shells, and bags of dried-up pens.
The hawthorn leaves are planning for October.
Sunday, December 29, 2024
Do Not Touch: Display Only
The lintel of my door declares
Timor mortis conturbat me,
But only for display. Inside,
The folks are busy brewing tea
And snacking on what Christmas left
Behind—dry turkey sandwiches
And lebkuchen. Eggnog is not
A morning-after sort of thing.
Today's the day we roll our eyes
And smirk, superior, then betray,
And throw the calendar away.
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Remembering Eden
this appeared in Staple
It isn't that the oranges tasted better
or that the dust that fell across the shafts
of morning sun were something more than dirt.
We're made of motes here too, and here the sky
changes for eve, changes for morning. Though
the grass was growing when the sword was sheathed,
we are not missing all of Paradise.
I've told the story now so many times
I don't think I remember how it happened,
when I woke up with that stitch in my side
and she alongside. It still makes a good story.
What I do remember is how we made
the lamb eat avocados. Who would think
a sheep could pull a face? So here I am,
Father of Man, and dignified by years,
a tale in my possession no one else
could match but she, who is herself the tale,
and all I have to tell are anecdotes.
What stays when the emotion drains away
is this moment and that, the lamb, a bath,
Abel's first laugh, when he saw his first chicken.
Thursday, December 19, 2024
The New Roadmap
I lived here once. I know
which streets went where. I ran
where this lane starts to go
to the left, where it began
to carry another name.
So I am not impressed
by maps. It's not the same,
your sketch. I think you messed
up my reality.
Where's Archer? Appleton?
The dogleg at du Pres?
I know now what you've done,
you've gone to see what's there.
You stood on my home ground
as is. That wasn't fair;
taking a look around
alters the memory.
It warps the past. It preys
on what we say we see,
It relocates what stays
to houses, then to maps,
till we avert our eyes,
as though all routes collapse
below misfigured skies.