Free Verse
Waiting
For
more than 3 billion years Earth was inhabited
solely by single celled organisms
Who can imagine
the long solitude of bacteria
on our watery globe
3 billion years of loneliness
waiting for evolution
to stop by
and stir things up
It’s a long wait,
even for bacteria
who might not know
any better
Anger not the Gods
This is
a land
of ancient gods
They have not left this landscape
they reside in the anguish of stones
in the gray bark of carob trees
in the dimness of karst caves,
and rubble remains
of forgotten dwellings
They sigh in dry thorn stalks
on summer hillsides,
their breath hovers
in whorls of dust
This is an old, hard land
with a surfeit of memory
It does not take much
to stir passions
or memories
when the wind rustles
leaves in the olive groves
Tread lightly on the land
of ancient gods
To an
unnamed colleague
Herewith
a phrase or two
exploding you
o bladder of pomposity,
filled with fatuity
swollen, smirking sack
balloon of bloated bombast,
caricature of self-esteem
May my words be
as sharp shears
clipping off
the witless wool
you’ve spun
over the eyes
of your bemused beholders.
Storks
at dusk
a stork speckled sky
storks are flying
to the northlands
as their generations
have taught them
they are flying
to the northlands
where hope
and old nests await
light fades
as silk
to evening
smooth sleek gliders
homing to the darkling woods
where secrets sleep
with the storks.
About
Tom Berman, IL
I have been a member of Kibbutz Amiad in the Upper Galilee,
Israel for over 50 years. I am a scientist (aquatic
microbiology) and most of my research has been focused on
the Sea of Galilee (known here as Lake Kinneret). I grew up
and attended school in Glasgow, Scotland having arrived
there aged 5 from Czechoslovakia with the Kindertransport in
1939. Further education was in the U.S. at Rutgers
University and at M.I.T. I am married with one wife, three
daughters, seven granddaughters, a grandson and a mongrel
dog.
Most of my publications have been scientific but now I have
two collections of my poetry to my name; Shards, a
Handful of Verse and Rambles, Outings with a Wayward Muse
(both available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc).
Now and again I have had poems appear in press (Ariel,
Voices Anthologies, Full Circle, Voices from Israel,
Travelling, Across the Long Bridge, Sailing in the Mists of
Time, The World Poets Quarterly, Aquirelle, Magnapoets)
or on the Web (Poetry Webring Review, Poetry Life &
Times, Ariga, Poeticdiversity, PoetrySuperHighway, SubtleTea,
The Coffee Press Journal, Lily, Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry,
Illiterate Hooligan, The Poetry Victims, Cyclamens & Swords
and elsewhere). From 2003 to 2006 I served as Editor in
Chief of the annual Voices Israel Anthology.
This is Tom
Berman's first appearance in Sketchbook.
