Lawrence Stevens
(Untitled 1)
To contemplate my father's death
while, yet, within him lies the breath
of life,
the softly spoken word,
the nodded head, the common bond,
the oft said dreams, no barely heard,
that still persist through troubled mind
a lifetime-long, short moment shared,
of present tense and future blind,
of all the chance and hope we dared
to stare the odds down till we find
the answers
every parents' child sought,
to stave off destiny we fought
and have a few more moments caught
between the kiss and the caress,
the peace of mind and the duress,
of laughter's tear and heart's embrace,
eternal dance and finite race,
until we catch the star
and ride the wind
and then,
with dreams fulfilled,
relent,
to finally leave,
without a trace.
Copyright c. 5/23/95 by Lawrence Stevens. N.Y.C. All rights reserved.
(Untitled 2)
Suddenly, in the dead of night,
I hear these words and start to write
them down, in darkness, without light,
upon the clipboard by my bed,
as thoughts and phrases fill my head
of feelings wanting to be said,
that issue from affected hand,
like cleanest water, purest sand
through child's fingers. No demand
could make me feel much lighter.
Though grappling with an adjective
the act is one in which I give
permission to myself to live
to shine on even brighter.
Emotions' meter, poet's rhyme,
attempts to capture the sublime
and record on paper for all time
the heartbeat of this writer.
Copyright c. 8/1/86 by Larry Stevens, All rights reserved.
BETWEEN TRAGEDY AND TITILLATION
Kitty litter,
Nancy scandal,
Kennedy rape,
videotapes,
while a million Kurds are dying,
and U.N. planes are flying in relief
to quell the suffering and grief,
the headlines scream of bedroom antics,
news reporters play semantics
with people's lives.
And the readers beg for more dirt
while cutesie anchor prope flirt
and a starving mother holds he child
through freezing mud and mountain wilds.
In crowded camps disease, despair
and the stench of death are everywhere,
and crystal streams are turned to sewers.
But this is too much for the viewers
who are trying to sit and eat a relaxing meal.
The last thing they want to do is feel.
So they turn to sordid stories of the elite
about which they can bray and bleat
and smirk and think that they're above,
while the media plays them like Pavlov.
And the entire thing's designed to add some spice
to their, otherwise, routine, mundane lives,
to pretend to knock down those in power
and allow the masses a chance to glower.
Meanwhile, the mass evacuation goes on,
families, villages all gone.
A people shorn of expectation
flee, attempting preservation.
While a hundred more have, just now, died,
in a backpage byline, a brief aside
Copyright c. 4/14/91 by Larry Stevens. All Right Reserved
FOREVER
Forever,
in the timeless time
of emptiness,
of neverending change
and universal truth
together,
as the unknowns
of hypothesis
and fixed beliefs, and strange
so few demand the proof
of whether:
what they see is real,
of how that their minds know
or if their hearts can feel
what's really going on
outside and inside them,
as instinct or intuition,
wild guesses, premonition,
open minds or preconditioned
habit thinking,
lucid feeling,
glimpses fleeting
of true insights,
that leave us awed
by cosmic scope
and human scale
in pharoah's dreams
and profet's tales
to grab the reins of destiny
and ride the solar winds, indeed,
direct them towards OUR journey's end
forge our own eternity
to chart our planets,
choose our parents,
break the limits
of free will or determinism,
evolutions or creationism,
science or mysticism,
belief in self
or faith in god,
trust the state
your race or age -
information, nuclear,
renaissance or stone age
of our genes
and our enviornment,
our longings
and contentments,
when the pathway comes full circle
and we haven't missed a cutoff
but the landmarks are familar
for our feet have made the footprints
that we step in
as we pause to catch our breath
and look and question,
check our compass,
then continue down the road...
forever.Copyright c. 9/2/95 by Lawrence Stevens. N.Y.C. All rights reserved.
(Untitled 3)
Transfiguring of death,
the changing dream,
the aging flesh.
Rooting in frustration
captured by distraction
crushed beneath the wheels
of oncoming obsession
to live,
to try and find a way
to release what's held in sway
beneath the scars
beyond the walls
that lives inside
the desperate calls
to free
that which we are
and might yet be,
the poet, the prophet,
father, son,
the missing part
of everyone,
the mirror image
soul reflection
human face
we wear
with each emotion,
interaction,
every nuance
that the universe
will throw our way
to leave us looking
for the meaning
of the smallest circumstance
the ebb and flow
vicissitudes
that pull and tease
that tear and snap
the fabric
of the life we thought we knew
another question to live through
to weigh the balance paid and due
with every passing grain of sand
that slips away from me and you.
Copyright c. 12/5/95 by Lawrence Stevens. All rights reserved.