Dream Reader

Dream Reader
Christopher Bogart

A young man He would be
And a thoughtful man,
Willing to read,
And by reading to soar -
At once upon a Dream
To be borne,
A Dream
Once raped
In a tale of quiet violence,
Then restored
Through rough redemption.

For when he reads,
Ever so slowly,
Ever so languorously,
He’ll be born again
And again
To sing sad
Songs of sound,
Of flight,
That hum on wings of mad cacophony,
Words will twist and turn
Upon his tongue.
And through his brain
In a plaintive voice that will sing
One song once so simple,
In his youth,
So very simple,
So longing to be heard
In its flight
From the night black letters
Of a stark white page.

Published on Poetsonline.com

My Book

My Book
Christopher Bogart

I bought it at Borders a few days ago.
It sat on the shelf
Somewhat surreptitiously –
Wedged between thick volumes
Of better known authors -
Half-hidden,
Yet curiously coy.

Suddenly, I found myself
Hanging,
Precariously,
On the horns of a dilemma –
Should I purchase the Pope,
(Alexander, that is),
The Milton,
Or the Dylan Thomas?
The Ogden Nash appeared
Much more impressive
Than this little volume,
Which,
On close scrutiny,
Seems somewhat pedantic,
Overly alliterative -
And a little full of itself.

But,
As I held this slim tome
For closer scrutiny,
I heard a faint voice -
The plaintive melody
Of a song that was, at once,
So simple,
And yet so longing
To be heard.

I felt I must adopt it as my own.

Later,
As I walked to my car,
I could still hear it humming
That same plaintive song.

Irony

It Seemed a Quiet Funeral
Christopher Bogart

It seemed a quiet funeral,
a dignified affair.
Everything was by the book,
with very little fuss.

There were so few mourners,
And those that were there,
Were whimpering,
Their soft broken sobs muffled
In silken handkerchiefs.

“Did you know him?” Someone asked.
“Not very well.” Another replied, “And you?”
There was a pause.
“I thought I did.”
It was the measured response.

He had been ailing, it seemed,
For only a brief space in time,
A mere wink of history’s eye.

What a paucity of liberty.
What meager remains.

“Maybe he could be revived,”
I optimistically opined.

Too late,
I fear.

They had already dug the grave.

The Broken Contract, Part 2

The Broken Contract
Christopher Bogart

3.

The trees continued to dance in the fields day after day; and, as they did, their bright green foliage began to turn in color. Green was replaced by bright red, orange and yellow as the wind grew cooler and crisper. And as they danced, their multi-colored foliage drifted from their swaying limbs, and floated to the ground below as they shed their leaves in preparation for the winter frost.

Soon, the lakes froze over and the streams became empty as the fish sought deeper, more temperate climates deep underneath the icy surface. The four-legged creatures burrowed into the earth for the long winter, venturing out only occasionally to hunt for food. And man began to freeze and starve.

Driven by desperation, they held a meeting of their own to discuss the crisis. “What can we do?” one asked. “We have kept to the contract, but now there are no more fish for us to catch and we cannot hunt the animals for we have nothing to kill them with.” As if to illustrate their dilemma, a large deer appeared outside the cave in which they met, huddled around the fire to keep warm.

“Look!” said another. “Brother Deer is willing to keep the contract, yet we cannot kill him. His meat would give us food, and his hide clothing and shelter.”

“Maybe if we hit him with a rock, we could stun him.”

“No! The contract stated that we only kill quickly and mercifully. And we have no way to kill him mercifully.”

“I have a way!” said a determined young man who had not eaten in three days. And with that, he rushed out and past the curious deer until he found a tree sapling that was dozing near the mouth of the cave. He lifted the unsuspecting sapling up, and broke off his legs and the few small limbs it had. And grabbing it by its middle, he rubbed it against a nearby rock until it was sharpened. Then, pulling his bow from around his bare shoulder, he shot the sapling directly at the deer. The sharpened sapling entered the deer and bore straight to its heart, killing it instantly.

“You have broken the contract!” the first man said in alarm.

“We have food for our meal!” the young man replied bitterly, and he skinned the deer for cooking.

“Maybe no one will find out” said the second man, as he hurried over to help the young man dress the meat and start the fire.

Later, when the mother tree went looking for the sapling, she found instead its torn limbs and legs. And the remains of a cooking fire. It was not long before all the trees had heard about this violation, and the trees congregated in anger.

“The men have violated the contract!” the trees howled in rage. “They have violated the contract!”

One of the trees, the one that had spoken at the meeting that the Great Spirit had called, tried to calm the others. “Brother Trees,” he said, “it is true that man has broken the contract.” The trees waved their bare branches in furious assent. “But what can we do?”

“The contract is broken!” said one of the older saplings. “We are no longer bound by it!” All of the other trees nodded their agreement. “Therefore, let us leave this place and seek another. One that is free of men.”

“My young brother,” said the first tree, “if we do that, we will upset the balance of nature and man will surely die.”

“Then let him!” responded the older sapling. “For if we stay here, we will be subject to his continued treachery, and we will surely die!” Again the trees nodded their agreement.

So, as the men slept off their first real meal in a long time, covered in the warmth of the deer skin, the trees departed. And when the men awoke the next morning, they looked out from the mouth of the cave at a landscape devoid of much of the life that had once inhabited it. For, when the trees left, so did all of the creatures that had depended on them for life. The birds of the air, squirrels and chipmunks, all were gone. All that was left was a vast expanse of empty land.

As the winter months passed, the men stripped the land of berries and all other small edibles that were the food supply for the rest of the creatures. And soon, they too departed, leaving man alone to die. And many did die. Each day, fewer and fewer men found the strength to rise from the cold sleep the night before. Until one day, the Great Spirit looked down upon the land to see how the contract was working, only to find that the land had become a barren wasteland. The Great Spirit went to the mouth of the cave that the men had inhabited. There He found the few that had been strong enough to survive. When He asked them what had happened, there was shame in their voices as they explained the killing of the deer. They had tried to follow the contract, they told Him. They had tried. But they had failed.

He told them to sleep to conserve their energy. And, leaving the mouth of the cave, He went to find the trees. He did not have to travel far, for the trees and the animals had traveled slowly, knowing that man dare not follow for they were too weak from hunger. And the Great Spirit held a second meeting of his creations, save man.

“Why have you left man to die?” the Great Spirit asked them.

“They broke the contract!” the trees replied, heatedly.

“Yes.” The Great Spirit said, sadly. “They have broken the contract.” And then He paused. “But so have you.”

“How?” asked the astonished trees.

The Great Spirit looked around at each of them. “Have I not given you everything you have needed to survive?” He asked them.

“Yes.” They nodded warily.

“But,” the Great Spirit continued, “I did not provide well enough for man. That is why I asked you to help him.”

“We did!” said many of the other creatures, nodding at each other in approval.

“No!” said the Great Spirit. And he looked at the trees. “You did not.”

“We abided by the contract!” the trees said defensively and in unison.

And the Great Spirit continued to stare at them. “The contract was flawed.” He said, calmly.

“Flawed?” the eagle asked, as curiosity replaced surprise in his wizened eyes.

“Yes.” Said the Great Spirit, never taking his eyes from the trees. “Everyone gave in equal measure. Except you.” The Great Spirit’s eyes were calm and loving, but firm. “You were generous in giving man your dead limbs in order to burn for cooking. But your dead wood is not good enough for their other needs, as it crumbles when it is dry.” And the Great Spirit looked around at his creations that he had assembled. “Each of these,” He spread his arms around, “has given his life to the other for survival.” And then He looked back at the trees. “Of what measure is a gift of something already discarded?” And the Great Spirit looked at all of his assembled creations. “I have given you life.” He said. “Not to keep. But to share. For all life comes from me and I have shared it with you.” He again looked at the trees. “Give them life. Your life.”

“But what of our survival?” one of the trees asked.
“Brother Tree,” the eagle said, turning to him, “each of us takes the life of another only in the common necessity to survive. None of us takes that life for power or greed. That, I believe, is the essence of our contract.” And, as the eagle spoke these words, the Great Spirit nodded in agreement.

The following morning, all of the creatures returned to the land. And there was a great meeting near the mouth of the cave. The Great Spirit called the trees and man together to seal the contract, and for the other creatures to witness the agreement. But after the terms of the contract were explained to man, man looked deeply disturbed. “Brother Man”, inquired the deer, “what is the source of your anguish?” One of the men turned to the trees.

“When you left us, all of the animals left with you.” The trees rustled slightly with guilt. “Any many of us died. How can we believe that you will not do the same thing again?” And the man turned to the Great Spirit. “Father,” he said in the voice of a needy son, “The problem with the contract is that they do not need us to survive. But we need them.” And all of the animals murmured to each other in sympathy with man’s plight.

The trees turned to each other. There was a gentle rustle of branches in the cool night breeze as the trees entered into a deep discussion of the problem that man had presented. The tree that had acted as spokesman at the previous meetings, stood silently as he listened to each of his brother trees speak in turn. One suggestion after another was raised, only to be rejected by the others. Finally all of the trees turned toward the assembly of the Great Spirit’s creations. The tree spokesman called for attention.

“We cannot come to a common agreement on the dilemma that man has presented.” There was murmuring among the other creations. “However,” he said, “I believe that I have a solution.” His fellow trees turned their limbs to him in surprise. “Man is looking for a sign of trust from us that he can believe. Is that not right?” The assembled men nodded to themselves. “Well,” said the tree gravely, “I believe that I have found one.” All listened to the tree intently. “Great Father Spirit,” the tree spokesman began grandly, spreading his limbs out around him, “you have given many gifts to your creations. You have given flight to the winged creatures, the ability to swim to the underwater creatures, and swiftness of foot to the deer and the mountain lion, strength to the bear and the buffalo. You have given each of your creations a gift that has given it joy; but, most of all, has given it the ability to survive.” The tree paused to see that all were listening. But that was not necessary, for all were listening in suspense to hear his extraordinary offer. “However, the one gift that is most valued and enjoyed by the trees, is not really necessary for our survival. The ability to walk. The ability to dance.” The trees drew closer, for they could not believe what they were hearing. “If we surrender that ability, surrender it for all time, than man will have to trust us.”

The tree spokesman’s words were met with a tumultuous roar. “No!” cried all the trees in unison. “How could you even suggest that!” cried one.

“Hear me, brother trees!” cried the tree spokesman. And, as he raised his limbs, the other trees quieted down to listen to his words. “Great Father Spirit,” the tree spokesman said, “You have not told us of the one gift that you have given to man.” And, with this, all the creatures including man, looked around at the tree spokesman. “Why?” the tree spokesman asked, looking directly into the wisdom in the eyes of the Great Spirit.

“I did not tell you,” the Great Spirit replied calmly, “because man is still unaware that he has it.” What is it, all of the creatures asked in verbal cacophony?

“Our Great Father Spirit has given man intelligence.” The tree spokesman responded.

“How did you know?” Eagle asked the tree.

“Because I have been watching man,” the tree spokesman responded. “When he found himself unable to use our dead branches to kill prey, he quickly learned how to fashion a weapon that would.” Then the tree paused and looked at the Great Spirit.

“He is not sure how to use this gift yet,” said the Great Spirit.

“But he soon will,” responded the tree.

“Yes, he soon will,” admitted the Great Spirit. “And that is all the more reason why you all must enter into a contract with each other so that you will forever live in harmony, using each of your gifts to help the other. With this harmony, you will fashion a hoop of life that will encompass and protect you all. Each depending on the other. It is this hoop that is the essence of the contract.” Then the Great Spirit bowed his head with the weight of his thoughts. “Without it,” the Great Spirit said somberly, “there will be chaos.”

But how can we be sure that man will honor the contract?” the tree asked. “As he learns how to use his intelligence, man will become more and more clever. In time, all of the defenses that you have given all of us will be nothing compared to the intelligence that you gave to man. What if he uses this intelligence to do harm rather than good?”

I have created all of you to be interdependent. If he harms you, he will be harming himself,” the Great Spirit said gravely.

“We will honor this contract,” the man pleaded. “We have to. For without it, we will die.”

The tree turned to all assembled and, waving his limbs around to include all, he spoke directly to man. “We have behaved poorly. We have taken advantage of the gifts given to us for our enjoyment and survival and used them to hurt you. We will not do that again. And, as a sign of our pledge,” the tree continued, “we will sink our legs into the ground. For, being no longer able to roam as we please, we will find food and moisture form the earth.”

Saying this, the tree spokesman looked around at his fellow trees. There was a great silence as the trees looked at each other with resignation and understanding, for they knew that to agree to this would be the supreme sacrifice for them. And they understood the full impact of their decision. In their turn, each nodded silently to the tree spokesman. The breach had been healed and the contract made firm.



4.

Many years passed since the last council with the Great Spirit. The trees had done as they had promised. They had gathered into groups according to their common interests and sunk their legs into the moist soil of spring, forming small woodlands as well as thick mighty forests. The animals congregated around these groupings of trees for their needs as well as for the trees’ protection. It didn’t take long before no one could remember when they had last seen a tree dance. And, in time, trees became a predictable part of the landscape. With the exception of the rocks and stones that held all history within them, the dance of the trees was forgotten.

But not to the trees. For, although they could not move, they continued to wave their branches in the wind to melodies long forgotten. Melodies only they heard. And with each new sapling that grew from seed, the story passed down their narrow corridor of time as they repeated it again and again. And remembered.

The trees remembered. But man did not. As the small colony of men grew, they expanded across the land masses that made up the earth. They formed new colonies as they settled into new lands. Some of these colonies respected the contract made long ago. These colonies existed with the harmony of nature as the Great Spirit had ordained. There were others, however, that did not. And there developed among these men a new philosophy. One that sprung from the one gift that the Great Spirit had given man. The one gift the trees had feared most. The gift of intelligence.

For a new philosophy had developed among some of the colonies of man. And man began to use his intelligence not for survival as it had been meant to be used. But for dominance. Axes wielded by man cut down tree after tree as his colonies expanded across the vast reaches of the earth. Soon the sound of the axe was replaced by a deafening sound and an oily smell. And the trees, having long ago surrendered their ability to flee, surrendered again as whole forests fell before the sharp teeth of the buzz saw. Whole forests fell and the landscape became flat and barren as the animals that lived for centuries in the shade of these trees also departed. The contract that had been made for the benefit of man was again broken by man. But this time, the trees and the wildlife that resided among them could not call man to a meeting with the Great Spirit. For man had forgotten how to listen. So he did not hear their call.

The contract had been broken. And with it, the balance that the Great Spirit had intended, the hoop of life, had also been broken. It is this balance that must be returned to the earth. For if it is not, all life will die. If you do not believe it, listen to the trees as they moan in the wind for their lost freedom. Look at the trees, as they stretch their limbs to the sky, begging the Great Spirit to reestablish the hoop of life. Pleading with their Father Creator to force man to honor the contract.

The Broken Contract, Part 1

A number of years ago, I spent a considerable amount of time studying the culture of the Native Americans. I studied their religious beliefs, their cultures, even tried to learn the Lakota language through a series of tapes. The one key factor in all of their cultures was their love of nature and their belief that they had to live in balance with it. They believed that they should kill only for food. The Navajo used to inhale the last breath of the animal they killed so that they could carry its soul and honor its memory.

Today,we face the challenge of "global warming." We have plundered the earth for everything of value to us; and, in the process, have upset the balance of nature. And nature is now reacting to that abuse with unusual weather patterns, the melting of the polar ice caps and the deterioration of the ozone layer.

I wrote this story originally as a tribute to the Native peoples who have been the honest caretakers of the land for generations past. I looked at this story again, recently, with an eye to revision as writers do. It needs none.

So I am posting the first part of this story tonight, and will post the second half tomorrow night. I still consider it a tribute to the Native peoples, but now also as a cautionary tale. For if we do not heed its warning, we do so at our own peril.

Let us then be mindful of its message, and let us listen to the trees.


The Broken Contract
Christopher Bogart


“Well, son,” Horse said to the priest, “I think the Bible is full of mistakes. I thought I would correct them. For instance, where does it say that all living things are equal?”
The priest shook his head. “It doesn’t say that. It says that man has domination over the creatures of the earth.”
“Well, that’s what needs to be fixed. That’s part of the trouble, don’t you see?”
Mean Spirit, Linda Hogan




1.


As I walked further from the road and into the woods, the old leaves became deeper, crunched beneath my feet. Soon I was surrounded by trees. Their tall straight trunks extended up from the dry carpet of leaves and dry twigs to the bright sky far above me. Their bodies stood straight, still and silent as I walked past them. Yet I could hear the gentle rustle of their leaves above my head, as the wind seemed to play with them, changing the warm mottled design of sunlight that danced around my feet. As I walked onward through the trees, I became aware of a new sound – the moist trickle of water. Changing my direction, I walked to the right to seek the source of this sound. Within a few steps, I found myself at the edge of something. The ground in front of me sloped steeply downward. Smaller trees dotted the decline, spaced randomly. Grabbing hold of one of these trees for balance, I began to descend. By stepping crab-like while reaching out with my hands for one small tree after another, I was able to make my way down to the base of what appeared to be a small ravine.

Once I gained a foothold on flat solid ground, I looked around me. Just ahead of me was a stream. From its source somewhere to my left, this narrow eddy of water flowed past me until it disappeared between the trees to my right. As I walked a few steps to my left, I noticed that part of the wall of the ravine had eroded, revealing the massive roots of the large trees above. Like veins, these roots snaked their way through the wall of soil, holding it in place. I walked on now, looking for a place to sit. Up ahead a little and perched right at the water line, I found a rock large enough and flat enough to sit on.

The bottom of the clear flowing water was populated with dark stones, splotched with yellow and brown. Reaching down, I scooped a few up with my fingers. They lay rounded, shiny and wet in my open hand. I tossed the first one. It plopped into the cool, clear water in front of me, then sank to the bottom. I tossed the second one with the same result. The third, I held between my thumb and my fingers to examine it closer. The stone was smooth and black, with highlights of mahogany. In a quick decision to keep it, I wrapped my fingers around it tightly.




2.

A very long time ago, trees walked over the face of the earth. Because they needed neither shelter nor heavy coats to keep them warm, they became the most independent of all creatures. They traveled over the land on short legs that made them seem to float just a little above the ground. They were truly the most independent of all the creatures that the Great Spirit created, for they did not have to look for food, as the rains and the air provided them with the minerals and moisture they needed to survive. All that they had to do was to sink a few of their many legs into the water-soaked ground to absorb all of the nutrition that they needed. Once fed, they simply pulled their legs out of the shallows, and continued on their way.

They were gentle creatures, as they had no need to hunt and had no natural predators. So day after day, they could be seen gliding over the plains, their leafy limbs swaying in the breezes, dancing to melodies that floated on the winds, melodies only they heard.

As time passed, different types of trees developed different attributes, different styles. And that diversity, as it was with many others in the very diverse spectrum of creation, only increased their ability to survive and thrive. The birch, for instance, clumped together, tall and thin, dressed in white bark and small heart-shaped leaves. The oak grew a single thick trunk with massive branches that produced leaves each of which seemed to possess six stubby fingers. The willow's trunk grew with an odalisque shape, and from it, long drooping branches with slivered leaves that tossed to and fro with the slightest breeze. The stately tulip grew tall and thick, laden with pale yellow flowers among their broad leaves. The cherry, for three days in spring, bloomed the most delicate pink flowers that were blown like pink snow, carpeting the ground below it. The sturdy pines, and their scrubby relatives, did not have leaves at all but dark green needles that remained with them throughout the change of seasons.

Their variety of species was as endless as the places each chose to locate. The oaks seemed most content to dominate the open fields, while the willows favored lakes and streams, where they could stare at themselves in endless fascination. The pines were most at home in sandy soil and on rocky hillsides where the wind could moan through their boughs. No matter where these many varieties of trees traveled, they had developed specific provisions for their future. For whether it was pine cone, acorn, or seed ball, the trees reproduced each year, even though their own life cycle was long and enduring.

To the many other species that the Great Spirit had created, he offered them too both protection and procreation. To the fish in the seas, rivers and lakes, he gave fins and scales. They reproduced by eggs. To the mammals that walked on four legs, he gave thick fur, sharp teeth and the ability to conceal themselves from their enemies. They bore their young live and spent months raising them. To the winged creatures, he gave feathers and the gift of flight. They soared through the skies over the trees to protect and provide for their progeny. Even to the smallest of insects, he gave unique and creative ways of locomotion, concealment and procreation. In short, the Great Spirit guaranteed to each of his creations the ability to sustain, as well as reproduce, life. And the only thing he demanded in return was that they ate only what they needed, and respected the life and habitats of others.

The same however was not true of man. Man had no thick coat to protect him from the elements. As a matter of fact, his rather pathetic covering of hair only decreased with time, heaving him bare, his skin exposed to the winds and rain, the snows and the hot rays of the sun. He tried to eat the berries and the plants, but many of them were indigestible to his system. For a long time he kept a respectful distance from the Great Spirit’s other creations until one of them died. It was then that man would strip the carcass of its winter coat, drying it out so that he may be able to use it as his own. However, this was not enough. The Great Spirit saw man, alone among the other creatures, beginning to die from cold, from hunger and from fear. And he knew what he had to do.

As the sun began to set one evening, he called all of his creations, save man, to a meeting. “My children,” he said, “I have created you all from my love of life. I am your father, and you are brothers and sisters.” All the animals nodded to each other, and the trees waved their branches in assent. “You all have prospered on the earth where I have placed you. All except man. When I created him, I did not give him the protections that I gave all of you. And now I must do something, for if I don’t, he will surely die.” There was much murmuring among the creatures, and the Great Spirit waited patiently until it was finished, for these creatures were his children, and he wanted them to find a solution that they could all live with. Finally Brother Fish broke the silence.

“There are many of us that populate the lakes and streams. Enough to insure our continued existence for generations to come. Surely we could surrender the spirits of some among us to join you early so that man could use our bodies to eat and survive.”

“That’s very generous of you, Brother Fish.” Said Deer. “But your scales will not keep him warm in winter. However our coats would, so I think that we would be of more use to him.” Rabbit, not to be outdone, volunteered his kind as well. And so it went, until all of the creatures had spoken, offering their own flesh and blood to help to save their brother, man. All spoke, save the trees.

The Great Spirit waited patiently again as they each offered their help, satisfied that his creations were coming to the aid of their brother, man. But when the last of the animals had spoken, he again addressed them.

“All of this is good,” the Great Spirit said. “But it is not enough.” A look of complete surprise registered around the assembly. “Man can only eat food that has been freshly killed and cooked, for if he continually eats carrion, then he will die.” He paused to let these thoughts register. Then, slowly, he turned to the trees. “My sons and daughters,” he said, gazing directly at the assemblage of trees. “Could you not help us?” Somewhat distressed, the trees began to murmur to each other as the wind rustled their leaves. Finally, a great oak spoke.

“Great Father Creator,” the oak said, rather firmly, “We have considered your words, and agree that we must help. When we die, our bodies are not edible, and our bark no protection from the wind and rain. However, our bodies are burnable, if you but give man the fire from your lightning bolts. From our burning bodies, he can cook his food and keep warm. And our fallen limbs will provide him with arrows that he can swiftly kill our brother creatures, if Brother Eagle would bestow his guidance.”

“Guidance? How, Brother Tree?” Eagle said, curiously.

“Your fallen feathers, Brother, will provide our limbs with accuracy, so they may be able to find their target swiftly and mercifully.”

“Well spoken, Brother.” Eagle said, dipping his beak in respect. “Well spoken.” And with that, Eagle turned his head to the Great Spirit. “Great Father Creator,” Eagle said, “I think that all of us have agreed to help to keep your creation, man, alive.” “But.” and his wizened eyes narrowed as he spoke to the Great Spirit; “Man must only use what he needs. He must never kill for surplus, or to achieve dominance over us or his own kind. For if he does, he will endanger our own survival.” Eagle paused, looking around at the other creatures. “If he can agree to this simple contract, we will abide by what we promised here tonight. And he will be our brother.” All of the other creatures nodded in agreement with Eagle’s words.

“He will agree.” The Great Spirit responded. “He has to agree.”

So the Great Spirit visited man and explained the terms of the contract that his brother creatures proposed for his survival. And man agreed because he had to agree. For, without the contract, he would perish.

And, for a while, the contract worked. Man fished in the lakes and the streams, and cooked his catch over fire provided by his father, the Great Spirit, and fueled by the dead wood that the trees provided. Yet he left the four-legged animals alone; for, while he made his arrows with the dead branches of the trees, and feathered them with the eagle’s feathers, the branches crumbled harmlessly against the furry hides of the four-legged as they romped away. Satisfied with the fish he caught, and the berries he picked, man survived.

For a time.


To be continued tomorrow night ...

"Whoever Saves One Life, Saves the World Entire"

I have been home for the last few days, recuperating from a recent illness. Today, I watched Schindler's List for probably the twelfth time. It is a very powerful movie about a topic that most of us know a great deal about from the various TV specials and books that have been authored about the Holocaust over the last sixty years. The New Jersey State Core Curriculum has a Holocaust Study unit in the curriculum itself. However, that curriculum was not there when I was in high school. The first I learned about the Holocaust was when I was a sophomore in high school and found a book by Rudolph Vrba, a Holocaust survivor, titled I Cannot Forgive. I was amazed by what I read in that book. Amazed and horrified. After all, my father fought in World War II. He was on a minesweeper that took part in the Invasion at Normandy. I was born four months after Japan surrendered in August, 1945. Yet, I never heard anyone speak about the dozens of concentration camps that spotted the European landscape only a few years before.

Over the years, I viewed, read and learned about this abomination in human history, and tried to grapple with what could have motivated a people to put ten million people to death, people who had done nothing them. So when I first saw Schindler's List, it was not a new experience even though it was a very powerful one. The story of Oskar Schindler fascinated me in a way none of the previous information I learned had. Here was an ethnic German, and a member of the Nazi Party, who seemed to turn from what his country's policy had been to the Jews, and took a different path. Oskar Schindler was a womanizer, an alcoholic and a man that was addicted to the "good life." He was an industrialist who was more than willing to take advantage of the bad fortune of the Jews to absorb Jewish money to increase his own fortune. Jews, who once owned their own businesses, were now absorbed into Schindler's future, their money financing Shindler's industry, their bodies working in his factories.

As I learned about this story, I looked for something to explain what would make a crass materialist and opportunist change his whole focus in the middle of a war to transform himself from a materialist to a humanitarian. What would motivate a Nazi Party member to defy his country's policy of the racial extermination of a people to help that people to survive at the cost of his own fortune. His past did not indicate that he had the profile of a hero, yet a hero he was for he ended up saving, at the risk of his life and at the expense of everything he owned or had formally held dear, almost 1,300 people. What made him do that? Did he have what some call a "Damascus moment", a reference to Saul, a Roman citizen and persecutor of the Christians, to Paul, a Christian saint? If so, what was the motivation? When was the moment? History doesn't tell us. He just did it.

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the behest of some of the surviving Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews), wrote:
Oskar Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer. Wikapedia, the free encyclopedia

Whenever or however he made that decision, he made it none the less. And that decision was made at an immense expense in treasure, the real risk of his own life, and the peril of his future. That decision saved almost 1,300 people to live to be over 10,000 today. That decision made it possible for the state of Israel to declare a German, a member of the Nazi Party a "righteous gentile" and allow him to be buried in Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish state, where Jews from all over the world leave a stones on his grave, year after year, as a tribute to his courage in making it. And that is the decision that fascinates me. For in a world that seems to be getting more selfish and greedy every year, here was a man that, in perilous times, was able to make a decision against his own self interest, and at the peril of his own life, to "save the world entire" for over 10,000 people.

That decision that Oscar Schindler made over sixty years ago, makes me believe that making decisions like his are a part of our humanity. It is that belief that gives me hope that each one of us can get beyond our baser instincts to choose to be righteous ourselves.

Sonnet 13

Sonnet 13
Christopher Bogart

I saw him on the street not long ago,
Surrounded by cold stone and wrapped in rags.
I thought it’d been so long I’d barely know.
His form reminded me when memory flagged.
His boyish face bore marks of both extremes –
An innocence he was ashamed to bear,
With eyes that pleaded out in high pitched screams,
Betraying features drawn in stark despair.
I stood upon that city street and stared,
As half-abandoned buildings gathered ‘round.
He called to me as if he knew I cared.
I stood there mute – feet rooted to the ground.
I’ve often stood upon that street to see
Whether that boy with eyes that plead is me.

Oxford Unions

I have not been feeling well over the last few days. Today has been the toughest, so I am going to take the easy way out tonight and share a poem that I wrote five years ago, on last day I was at The Oxford Union at Oxford University. As I watched the workmen repair the path, I realized that an experience like the one I had just experienced over the last few days, are few and far between.

Oxford Union
Christopher Bogart

They’re paving the paving stones again today.

These workmen, who seemed to have appeared
From nowhere,
Have been chipping away -
Measuring,
Moving,
Replacing
These ancient stones
With new ancient stones
In a timeless race
To contain time.

My time is running out.

As I sit here
On well-worn wood,
Facing the overgrown gardens that hug close
To the stone that surrounds me,
I wonder what these workmen think
Of me.

“There’s another one.” One will say.
“I wonder how long he’ll be sitting there.”
The other will reply, “He’ll be gone soon.
Just like the rest.”

As they look up from the stones
To me and smile,
Ever so politely,
I want to think
I will be here
Forever…
Or at least until tomorrow,
To walk on the stones that they’re replacing.

How many have sat where I sit now,
Walked into this courtyard,
Wearing the well-worn stones,
Smooth?

Where are they now?

They have been replaced, I think,
As the stones on which they trod
Have been replaced,
With different stones.

The workmen know.
They will return to their job tomorrow.

By then…
I will be gone.

Astyanax

As I have stated, and sometimes alluded to, in my past posts, I have been a teacher for the better part of the last forty-two years. However, I have been working with kids for much longer than that. When I was a junior in college, I began working with the New York City Housing Authority's Anti-Poverty Program. In my post of January 27Th, I explained how I became interested in working with dysfunctional youth. I translated that one inspiring moment into working with these children through the poverty program. Not just hiring them for summer work, but working with them outside the job as well. Encouraging them to talk to me of their pain, their involvement with gangs, with abuse, both drugs and personal abuse, and I did what I could to help, whether it was to find them winter jobs, get them into rehab., pairing them up with mentors, even taking them around a city they lived in but never really saw. And encouraging them to keep up their education. Sometimes it worked and they prospered. Sometimes it did not. The heroin addict, Emanuel, from my poem, Triptych of the Lamb was partially based on a young man I worked with, and whose sixteen year old body I had to identify on a project rooftop on the Lower East Side.

I didn't just limit my college efforts to the Big Apple. In Jersey City, where I was attending St. Peter's College, I coordinated the Jersey City CANDO program, went down to lower Jersey City in the evening to tutor poor youngsters so that they could graduate from college, and in my senior year in my own parish in Spotswood, NJ took all of the boys that the church CCD program couldn't work with in their weekly classes, and ran my own class every Sunday after mass. In the 1970's, I worked as the playground supervisor at Southwood School in Madison Township running a recreation program in the morning; then, in the afternoon, when I was off the clock, I ran a softball league to take local gang leaders off the streets and out of trouble, and later worked at an evening recreation program and coached a basketball team. You might find it humorous that in a New Jersey suburb like Madison Township there would be gangs, and that they would have names like the Southwood Gang, the Burger King Gang and the Browntown Gang. What was not humorous, however, was that at least eight young men never made it to twenty years old, dying summer after summer in drunk driving accidents. Sadness, loneliness and loss are not restricted to the big cities. They are the providence of the human heart. And from the time that I was a teenager myself, I worked with as many of them as I could. I felt like a first aid volunteer, trying to staunch the blood from a cut to the carotid on the neck of youth. I tried to help as many as I could. I was successful with some, not so with others.

To make a long story short, I did pretty much the same thing when I was Director of Planning at the Shore Area YMCA in Asbury Park. And for the last twenty-five years in Long Branch, NJ. The M.O. was always the same. Gangs, abused children, and again the sad and the lonely.

Seeing the things that I have seen has given me a serious demeanor and a heavy heart. While working with one of these young men a few years ago, I wrote the following poem. I share it here tonight because of the poem I posted two nights ago. This poem is not one of my best. Some would call it maudlin and overly sentimental. Some would even say it was poorly written. I have not shown it to any one until tonight. As I look toward the future and retirement, I look back at what I have seen over a long career. This poem, for what it's worth, is how I feel as I look both back and forward.

“Mother, I am all alone.
To the dark ships now they drive me,
And I cannot see you, Mother.”
Euripides


Astyanax
Christopher Bogart

Where can our children find love,
When love has been dashed against the truth of a life
Numbed by the pain of abject abandonment?

Where can our children find hope,
When hope has been dashed against the cynicism of a life
Deafened by the howling winds of despair?

Where can our children find dreams,
When dreams have been dashed against the reality of a life
Blinded by the darkness of an eternal night?

How can our children cope with this pain,
When this pain has been their only mother, their only father,
In a life bereft of dreams, of hope,
Of love?

Maybe Hector’s infant son was truly the lucky one.
The soldiers of the burning night dashed his brains against the stones
And threw his body off the walls of Troy
When he was but a boy,
Bereft of Love,
Abandoned by Hope,
Denied his Dreams,
But not his pain,
Or so it seems.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

Tonight's blog is a promise I am keeping to my favorite nephew. (He reminds me, every once and a while, that he is also my only nephew.) Yet he is still my favorite. If you have followed this blog, you would notice that I have written in the last month about a beloved aunt, who really has no blood relationship to me, yet she has been my favorite aunt, and more. This is also true of my nephew, Michael. I believe that relatives who are chosen are more special than those that we are related to by blood, and by no choice of our own. They are special for that very reason, because they are chosen.

This week, my nephew celebrated a very special birthday. This Wednesday, Michael turned fourteen. Fourteen years must seem like a long time to him, but it seems to me that it has been but a mere twinkle in time. It seemed only yesterday that I held him in my arms as a six month old baby. It seems only yesterday morning that I would bend over his crib and stick my index finger in my mouth and pull it out quickly to make a somewhat wet popping noise that he laughed at, again and again. He never seemed to tire of it. It seemed that it was only yesterday noon that his father talked me into using my electric shaver to give him his first haircut. I was opposed to the idea, telling his father that children hate their first haircut, and that he would hate me for a long time. His father assured me that I was wrong. Within five minutes, he was crying and wouldn't look at me for almost a week. When I came to the house the following week, he rushed to his father's arms; and, once safely there, touched the left side of his head like he was shaving it, saying in a soft voice, "Buzz." So much for his father's opinion.

It seemed like only yesterday afternoon that his parents and I took him to a Japanese/Korean restaurant to have lunch. He was only four, and dressed in a little golf shirt and shorts. While we were eating, one of the waitresses came over to coo over how cute he was. He never picked his head up from his food to look at her. He just pointed to me and said, matter of factly, "Talk to my Uncle Chris." Once, when I stopped by the house, I was talking to his mother about a recent visit to the store, Bed, Bath and Beyond. "I went there once, Uncle Chris." He said. "I saw the bed. I saw the bath. But I couldn't find the beyond."

He has come over my house every Halloween in costume to take a picture with me. And every Christmas day, my sister and I have gone over to his house to exchange presents.

He is a very bright young man. Always has been. He has done very well in school, and many a time, I have helped him with book reports and projects. However, his first request for help sticks in my mind like no other. He was in kindergarten. One night, he called in tears. "Uncle Chris, you're a teacher." I told him I was, wondering what had happened in his first year at school to make him so upset. "What's wrong?" I asked him. "I can't tie my shoe laces and I am going to fail kindergarten." He sobbed. I told him that I would be right up. (He lives six houses up from mine.) When I got there, I realized the problem immediately. He was left-handed, and the method the teacher used was for right-handers. Problem solved.

Aside from the one Christmas when he was very young and ran to his mother when I called him Bud because he thought I had called him butt, we have had a great uncle-nephew relationship. We have played games of chess together as well as other games he has gotten. (He is a better chess player that I am.) I brought him into school a few years ago for "Bring your Child to School Day." We have taken walks, shared our shared love of sushi, and this summer, will go to Princeton together. He was a pall bearer at my mother's funeral. That has seemed but a few hours ago. When I spoke to him a few nights after the funeral, I asked him what he had thought of the poem I had read as her eulogy. "It was an interesting metaphor comparing your mother's life to a long stem rose." I swear, sometimes I think that he is just a short forty-five year old. In short, he has been a very special part of my life, and I look forward to his holding that position for a long time to come. I am very proud to be his uncle. I hope he knows that.

Most nights, I have included a poem in my post, as this is a blog about words and their importance. Tonight, however, I am including a poem, just not mine. This poem was written by Michael a number of years ago. It was one he was very proud of.

Friendship
Michael Burkard

Friendship is a bond
Between you and another.
When you have a friend,
You have sort of a brother.

Friendships come.
Friendships go.
But in your heart,
you’ll always know

That the gift of friendship
That God has bestowed
Is ours
To keep,
Love
And hold.

Happy Birthday, Michael!

On Homer's Side.

I have always believed that the story of the Trojan War was one of the seminal stories in the history of literature. It was told by Homer in The Illiad and The Odyssey, by Virgil in The Aeneid, and by Aeschylus in his play, Agamemnon. It tells of the glory of battle, the heartbreak of loss, of nobility as well as cowardice, of pig-headedness and of inspiration, and of just pure stupidity. It speaks of the most noble and ignoble in the human character.

It is said that Homer wrote about this war to warn his fellow Greeks that war was not the way to settle disputes, that there was an inherent tragedy in war that far outweighed its benefits.

In the following sonnet, I weigh in on this topic. On Homer's side.

Sonnet 20
Christopher Bogart

Just like the topless towers of ancient Troy
That, through Aegean mists, came into view
To satisfy a blood lust to destroy
And from its ancient rubble, build anew.
So history’s replete with tall tales told
Of warrior kings, whose armies rush to fight
In feckless feuds where moral ground is sold
To those who honor might far more than right.
And when the fog flees from these battlefields
And old men analyze the final cost,
Their faded pages still refuse to yield
What really has been won. What has been lost.
So rare is found within these tortured tomes
The honor that leeches still from Hector’s bones.

Trains

For some reason, trains have always played a key role in some of my dreams as well as in my view of life. I know that trains usually mean journeys, but somehow that seems just a little too obvious. One of the only dreams that I have remembered for over forty years involved a train and a train station. I remember that dream today like I dreamed it last night, as if it were a movie in my mind.

I like trains. I like traveling on them. I like them because, when you drive in a car, you see highway and its landscaped boundaries. When you are in a plane, you see nothing but clouds, sunrises and sunsets. There's nothing wrong with sunrises and sunsets, but eventually they lack variety. However when you travel on a train, you see countryside. Train tracks are usually laid out in sparsely populated areas. On the occasion of a train ride from Washington, DC to New Jersey at Christmas time in the 1980's, I looked out the windows of the train and saw the lighted outlines of homes decorated for the holidays. It was a beautiful sight.

Unlike planes and cars, you can get up and walk around, going to a dining car for meals or to bed in a sleeper. I have always believed that a train ride was the most elegant form of transportation.

So, in a few of my poems, trains play a significant role, not only as setting but as metaphor. Tonight, I offer a narrative poem and a sonnet. Maybe you can figure out my obsession with trains. I am open to suggestion.

The Train Ride
Christopher Bogart

He walked all the way
Down the length of the train,
Through one car, then another,
Past one seat after one seat,
Tapping each on the head rest
With the tips of his fingers
‘Til he came to the last car,
To the last seat in back,
And,
With his back on the white chipped,
Painted tile of the wall,
He relaxed
For the long distance ride.

His eyes gently closed, and
His face glowed with bright light,
In the strange incandescence
Of a white wonder world,
Filtered right through the smudges
Of the grime-frosted panes,
Never cleaned by the rains
That had pelted the windows
Of this oldest of cars.

His ears barred the beat
Of the trains’ slow percussion,
Metal wheels hitting scars
With increased syncopation,
On the smooth silver bars
Of the worn metal tracks.

The monotonous rhythm,
The clichéd sound that trains make,
That loud clickety-clack,
Brought him back,
Slowly back
On the warm wheels of wonder
Passed the sound of the thunder,
And the strife…
And a far distant life
Never lived,
Yet remembered
For the whole of the ride.

As the train of his thoughts
Glided over the rails
Of his past,
In the dark,
Shooting sparks,
One event,
Then another…

Pinned there under his thumb,
Was a virgin green ticket,
Paper dumb,
Never punched,
Once,
Or ever
All the life of his ride…

Yet,
Within its soft seams
Was the end of his dreams.



Sonnet 21
Christopher Bogart

As I plow through the fields of dying weeds,
Releasing milkweed angels to the air,
Each step rips at my arms until they bleed.
Each step, a murder to what could be there.
I look for metal rails I know should last
Long buried, deep beneath the fertile ground.
Their wooden ties once spied on visits past
Seem bent on their intent not to be found.
In mute frustration, I survey the field.
Past cowardice floods my throat with bitter bile.
Each train I’ve missed brings memories that yield
A line that stretches back for miles and miles.
But while I’ve missed past chances by the score,
This next train is a chance I can’t ignore.

Words, Words, Words

Well, it's been a while since I posted on this blog. My hard drive gave up the ghost over a week ago, and I had to buy a new computer. It got installed last night.

That being said, I want to post a poem tonight, a sonnet to be precise, that will get us back on track; and, at the same time, go back to "our roots." In short, as Mr. Wilkins Micawber said quite often in David Copperfield, I would like to get back to the beauty of words.


Sonnet 5
Christopher Bogart

From Salisbury Plain, where sandstone pillars stand,
These ancient muted sounds still swirl around
The silent sentries of an ancient land,
To fill new voices with their wondrous sounds.
Was it the Celtic Brythons gave them voice?
Did Saxon scops stir them from primal bowers
To challenge Norman lords’ linguistic choice?
Did troubadours distill their mystic pow’r?
Did Chaucer lay them on the wind’s sweete breeth?
Did Shakespeare fling them all around the Globe?
Did Johnson transport them to holts and heethes
From city salons and royal strongholds?
This tongue turns red into incarnadine,
To let me revel in this language mine.

In the Words of Charles Dickens

When I started this blog a little over a month ago, I selected a quote by Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet as its title. I did so because, like Dylan Thomas, I too had fallen in love with words. And it has been a life-long love affair. In past blogs, I have mentioned William Shakespeare, Matthew Arnold, Emily Dickinson and Thomas Gray, to name a few. I want to add another author to this list tonight. Not a poet, as the others have been, but a man who knew how to write prose as if he were writing poetry, relishing the cadence in the language he put into the mouths of his many memorable characters, and even in the names he gave those characters.

When I was in high school, I was told that Charles Dickens wrote long novels because he was paid by the word. And, to some extent, that was true. Many of his novels were first published in serial form in literary journals. It was this reality in the early publishing of his work that also forced him to end his chapters, or installments, with "cliff-hangers" to keep the reading public coming back for more. It also made his novels eminently readable. But technique was not what brought people back to reading Dickens again and again. It is not what made his reading public write thousands of letters to him, begging him to bring Little Nell back to life at the end of The Old Curiosity Shop. It was a combination of his acute social conscience, developed by a childhood of extremes of comfort and penury, and his amazing talent to use the language to weave tales full of description and colorful characters. It was that social conscience that forced him to see the abuses of the Industrial Revolution in England, replete with boarding schools (Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit, Hard Times), where children were abused and starved, with poverty (Oliver Twist), child labor (David Copperfield), and a bloated legal system that worked for some and not for others (Bleak House), yet, still allowed him, in novels like his first, The Pickwick Papers, to produce stories that poked playful fun at "the haves" in society.

It is not my intention to be an essayist on this blog, or a literary critic, just a "gushing" fan of great literature and the authors that wrote them. Dickens is certainly one of them. While his words themselves don't always sound like poetry, it is his unique ability to phrase an idea that leaves the reader saying to him or herself, "Boy! I wish I could have said that!"

In his autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, he has his main character, David, now an author himself, look back at his past life and ahead to his future at the same time. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

The first lines of his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is as memorable as the last lines, said by a character who sacrifices his own life for the happiness of another.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ..."

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

An example of his mastery of description from Hard Times is equaled many times over in his other works.

"The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, - nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, - all helped the emphasis."

One of my favorite works, a novel he wrote to be read aloud in one night and divided into "staves" rather than chapters, for each chapter would probably need another piece of wood (stave) put on the fire to keep the room warm while reading, is A Christmas Carol. It is a novel full of characters that are known by their name to people who never read the novel, characters like Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. While a short novel, Dickens puts in puns as well as profundity.

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"

"They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."

And sometimes, just pure descriptive opinion.

"...every idiot who goes about with a 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

Dickens uses names that sound like the personality they represent. His novels are filled with them. Names like Mr M’Choakumchild, the grinding schoolteacher in Hard Times,Sir Leicester Dedlock, the husband of Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Mr. Fezziwig, a jolly employer who hosts a Christmas party that Scrooge visits with the Ghost of Christmas past in A Christmas Carol, Thomas Gradgrind, the notorious headmaster in Hard Times, Sir Mulberry Hawk, a lecherous, parasitic nobleman in Nicholas Nickleby, Uriah Heep, a devious clerk who works for Mr. Wickfield in David Copperfield, Mr. Alfred Jingle, a garrulous strolling player and mountebank in The Pickwick Papers, Mr. Murdstone, the second and emotionally distant husband of David Copperfield's mother, Clara in David Copperfield, and Wackford Squeers, the sadistic master of the Yorkshire school, Doutheboys Hall, in Nicholas Nickleby.

But, by far, my favorite Dickens character is Sam Weller, the manservant to Mr. Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers. This cockney philosopher is responsible for some of the most interesting observations and most humorous advice in all of the Dickens novels.

". . . out vith it, as the father said to the child, wen he swallowed a farden."

"He wants you particklar; no one else'll do, as the Devil's private secretary said ven he fetched avay Doctor Faustus."

"There's nothin' so refreshin' as sleep, sir, as the servant-girl said afore she drank the egg-cupful o' laudanum."

"It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they alway say in Turkey, ven they cuts the wrong man's head off."

"Werry sorry to 'casion any personal inconvenience, ma'am, as the house-breaker said to the old lady when he put her on the fire...."

". . . now we look compact and comfortable, as the father said ven he cut his little boy's head off, to cure him o' squintin'."

Yes, I believe that Dickens has earned mention in this blog. His use of the English language to prick the conscience of a nation as well as to tell a good tale makes him amply deserving in my book. However, I will leave you to form your own opinion, for, as Sam Weller would say, ". . . vether it's worth while goin' through so much, to learn so little, as the charity-boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter o' taste."

Will Shakespeare, if you'll kindly bear this fool ...

When I went to college, an English major meant English Literature. While I took six credits in American Literature, the greatest concentration of courses was in the literature of England. Over the years after graduation from college, and through all the years I have taught, my love of English literature has broadened and deepened. When you first take these courses, your exposure to the area is like taking a "tour" of a European country, spending a day or two in each of the major cities; and, sometimes, covering two or three smaller ones in one day. You get a taste of the country as a whole, but the "whole" sometimes seems like a blur. However, as the years pass, and you have to teach this literature, you begin to look deeper, becoming acquainted with each of the authors in time, and your appreciation of their genius and the beauty of their writing deepens with this appreciation.

Shakespeare is one of the authors that I have come back to, again and again, as I taught one play, then another, one sonnet after another. And, particularly with Shakespeare's sonnets, I began not only to hear what he was saying more clearly, but the particular vehicle he used to present his observations of human behavior became a fascination of mine. His sonnet form appealed to me, not just for the logic of its construction, but also for the music in its flow. And I began to write sonnets in his format until the format became a vehicle of my own ideas and observations. I have written over twenty of them, so far.

So I dedicate this sonnet to the Bard of Avon as a thank you for helping me to give voice to my own thoughts.


Sonnet 6
Christopher Bogart

Will Shakespeare, if you’ll kindly bear this fool
His vain attempts at mimicking your art,
He’ll promise to respect your sacred rule
And speak the speech you gave him from his heart.
No pointless prating from this errant knave
Will find its way into your hallowed song.
No fitful follies or distempered staves
Will lead lean-witted louts to linger long.
Base motives will not tempt him in this game.
No honey-tongued verses will he write
To seek transparent gain or fickle fame.
He’ll use words to illuminate – not light.
For you, Great Bard, could not have marked me more
Had you left your repose on Avon’s shores.

Now That Those Roses Are Gone by the Door

When I come home every afternoon, I step up onto the porch and see the furniture that had been in my parent's house for over sixty years. The bookcase with the glass door, the secretary desk, the cedar closet and the Currier and Ives prints that adorn the wall all remind me of a home now gone. Reminders are all over my house. Reminders that awaken memories of a life with my father and mother. A life now gone.

My father passed away over ten years ago. My mother passed away a year ago today. It was when she first suffered a stroke and I went to the hospital to see her, that I first noticed the vase of roses that sat on the wheeled table between her bed and the door of her hospital room. A gift from a young woman who used to take her shopping each week. She loved roses. Over the next two and a half years, on regular visits to the nursing home in which she spent her final days, I replaced those roses, time and time again. And every time I brought them, she smiled, cooed and reached out with the one hand not paralyzed to touch them. She enjoyed them all the way up to the day she left us. I had to write a villanelle for the writing group of which I was a member on the summer of her stroke. After the second stroke, only a few weeks after the first one, and a catastrophic one, she wasn't expected to see the fall. But she beat the odds and lived for two and a half more years until the age of 93.

At her funeral, a few days later, I read this villanelle from the pulpit as her eulogy.

Now That Those Roses Are Gone by the Door
Christopher Bogart

Now that those roses are gone by the door,
And their faded dry petals have littered the floor,
It’s the scent, not the thorns, now that matters for more.

It seems that they had such a limited tour
In their lifetime’s display in a crystalline vase,
Now that those roses are gone by the door.

Once they were beautiful, red by the score,
In your life, their long thorns were your only protection.
It’s the scent, not the thorns, now that matters for more.

Their red once rouged your cheeks in a way most adored,
Your red lips that could grin, that could grimace, just a memory,
Now that those roses are gone by the door.

‘Twas the stems of your sadness, shades of memories before,
And your fears grew those thorns that stood guard by those roses.
It’s the scent, not the thorns, now that matters for more.

We stand now where you once stood upon this sad shore,
As we watch you find fields of more peaceful kingdoms, for
Now that those roses are gone by the door,
It’s the scent, not the thorns, now that matters for more.

Ethel E. Bogart
May 21, 1916 - February 4, 2009

There Seems to Be No Time

One of the opinions I have found some times in the poetic community is a dogmatic belief that narrative unrhymed verse is the only type of poetry that can be considered poetry today. It's almost as if these poets would like to obliterate our poetic past, or at least make like it never existed. I have been teaching for quite a while and I get it, poetry changes, as do a lot of things in life. However, when some act as if they were the poetry police, then I find myself feeling like I am a character in 1984. Like with any other art form, there are good examples of it and bad examples. When technique trumps inspiration, the result is always bad. As a poet, I believe that each poem, regardless of its form, should be viewed with an open mind, judged for its merit, not its conformity to current doctrine. Poetry is a beautiful art form. And, as the title of this blog affirms, words used well are a worthy object of love.

I therefore offer this verse of my own tonight, for criticism as well as for fun.

There Seems to Be No Time for Rhyme Anymore
Christopher Bogart

What is it about
A rhymed poem
That makes some poets crazy?

“Greeting cards!” they exclaim
When reading metered verse.
“Might as well write for Norcross!
Or Hallmark!”

“Well that displays a narrowness
Of mind,” I respond
In perfect iambic pentameter,
And not a little bit of wit.

“I like my verse ‘au natural’!
‘Al fresco’!”
They barely shout
Before stark images invade my mind
In places
That will be hard to clean out.

And who is this Al anyway?

Maybe if I hum or sing a song…

Don’t get me wrong.
I like to let it
All hang out
As much as the next guy,
But
I detect a hint
Of blatant Orthodoxy
In their poetic philosophy
…and maybe
The possibility
Of burning flesh.

After all,
What’s wrong with rhyme?
A little alliteration
Makes poetic juices flow.
Assonance.
Consonance.
It all makes sense
In the defense
Of a love
Of words.

Shakespeare used rhyme religiously.
So did Milton,
Tennyson,
Byron
And, after all is said and Donne,
So did Coleridge,
Keats and Shelley.
They weren’t treated
As if they were smelly.
Everyone read them,
Chapter and verse.
No one cursed their endeavors
No matter how clever
Their poetry happened to run.

Some of my poet friends would shout at me,
“Stop it!
There’s no market
For sonnets,
Or meter,
Or rhyme.”

To silence the banter,
Maybe I should just answer,
“Give it time.
Give it time.”

Wolves Roam the Dark

Wolves Roam the Dark
Christopher Bogart

Wolves roam the dark,
Through stark grasses,
Their paws claw soil,
Wet muzzles black
Nuzzle deep into dark loam,
Sniff for scents of human fear.

And when that fear is found,
They bound from the darkness
In which they were spawned,
Rear back their massive heads of black and gray,
And howl,
Fowling the stillness
Of the frozen air.

They circle,
Manic,
Paws pace slow,
Heads low,
Saliva flows,
Dripping over sharp white teeth
Down to the forest floor
Below.

Sparks
From their malevolent gaze
Pierce the cold and
Creeping haze,
Light the night
With thoughts of flight
And fear left so alone.

They roam through chasms of fight and flight,
Searing the mind with fears,
Remains of those unending years,
And the sharp acrid scent
That awakens
Abandonment.

Learning to Color inside the Lines

It was a crayon drawing of a son of a fellow teacher, framed on her desk, that reminded me of how I used to draw my world when I was a child. And what it said about that world.

Learning to Color inside the Lines
Christopher Bogart

Remember when a house was an orange thing,
A simple square of uneven crayon lines,
Toppled with a purple triangle roof?

There were windows on this happy orange house,
With pluses for panes, and drapes once drawn
In a waxy red swag,
Never to be drawn again.

The brown line ground,
Burnt sienna, I think,
Grew stick stalked flowers,
Scribbled yellow and red,
Crayon fed to bloom forever.

Stick people populated this happiest of worlds.
My mother had a flip and a triangular dress.
My sister had curls,
And I was the biggest stick figure of all.
I was bald.
I was wild with a big yellow smile.

My father, however never seemed to be there,
At work, I guess.
Or when he was there,
He held my mom’s hand
In an effort to fan the invisible flames
Of an all too invisible love.

The sun was a big yellow beach ball balloon,
Tossed carelessly into the blank air of the white paper sky.
Eyebrow seagulls flew by,
And everyone smiled,
If just for a while
As they hung on display
On the Frigidaire’s door,
‘Till they fell
To the yellow linoleum floor.