Thoughts, sounds and poems during wartime

I rise at five, prepare coffee and write.  It’s my only refuge in these trying times.  The occasional morning bird rescues me from doldrums of sleep.  I write what I hear, not much different than writing music.  Each sound means something.  Even the tinnitus in my ears and the buildup of tension whirling around my head, roar.

It’s not relaxation that I seek but clarity of what “is”–of what I am experiencing from quadruple doses of news.  It blares constantly, listing the wounded and dead, pictures of war, grotesque scenes of destruction, promises. I witness endless empty faces of my neighbors who walk in a daze.

As a people we are at an impasse, stuck in months of uncertainty, witnessing assorted petty leaders bucking for position when our best are dying.  The Hebrew word “Hosen” (resilience) is almost a worn commodity, for who of us has not been touched by loss in these tragic times?  And so, as a chronicle of sorts, I offer these poems (and pictures) to express my perceived collective angst and my own struggle to remain calm.  My image is that of the eye of a storm; total calmness while the rest rages. I struggle to do this.  Most often I don’t succeed.

5 AM is for me a ritual to grasp my gravity’s center.  Like a gyroscope I try to stay up and running, still filled with hope that the war will run its course.

Street Man

I saw a man rolled up in bags,
his limbs all puffed in plastic’d feet
he dragged along in pain.
He looked at me with deep regret,
with stares from beggar’s fears.
I heard they’re angels teaching what
is wrong in this our paradise.

Mourning

A young sweet woman takes her life.
My tongue is tied in shreds
while ears are graveled high by workers near
their gratings scraping numbs my brain in two.

A sage has turned his back on me. I know
not language that explains the pit of say
all sunk and crushed in motion’s way.
My ears and eyes then turn away.

Insomnia Strikes at It’s Raw Doorstep

Awakened more than sleep do I regret
as night is day has opened jaws for me,
slowing the time of weeks on end for years.
This weary state is weighing all that’s bright
’til closing shops while dragging feet at night.
The doors to hell come barreling through
without a care or two, its teeth all drawn
and quartered too, so finally sinking through,
my limbs all quench for dreamful rest in mind
my eyes half-closed have barely strength to climb
with back’s dull pain like writing noon or two
but morning’s four so sadly doesn’t move.
I fear the worse that this is knocking death,
so bored with days needing flesh to contain.

Withdrawing

The age of peace is waiting
for some great science guy to figure out
why war’s so wanted, needed or started.
Peace will come when veggies unite
and lemmings finish trudging all their night,
blinded by victories, illusions
like raw meat savoured by cats and crows.
It all implodes to one equation,
one forgotten, that earth and its glory
will fade when anger prevails over circus
of life and its closest relative, death.

What it Takes to Be a Musician

I play sweet notes to a crowd of none
using Promethean strength
combined with invisible cords
with no less than seven
bodily systems, in tip-top condition,
an endless web and flow in sync
that dictate time when all is lost
when only passion’s cries can rescue
a world that doesn’t listen or sing
with help of elbows’ stretch to etch
the painful birth of melodies, like gems
all multi-edged, that sing their way to you.

My lips and tongue both quiver and curve,
the breath drawn deep by stomach’s cave,
my legs bend slightly at the knee
while fingers curve so elegantly
with posture straight, relaxed,
so mind is empty, listening,
filling with flow, ripe with thought
like a pause-less stream
flows bank to bank
then rock to rock
while I drink the cups of praise.

Journey Through Fractured Time (excerpt) by Stephen Horenstein

from “Sounds of Siday: Side B”, JICM Recordings