Orange Crates and Other Treasurers

Orange Crates and Other Treasures
Christopher Bogart

A true treasure trove consisted of a broad spectrum of collections,
including things abandoned, things discovered,
and things rescued.

The discriminating collector, the true artiste, as it were,
found intrinsic worth in form as well as function.
Was it shiny, for example? Was it sturdy?
What was its potential as a conserver of treasure?

Shoe boxes were great for stamp collections,
coin collections, vacation photos, postal cards or
a backyard burial for a budgie or a hamster.

Soda bottle caps, filled with melted wax, made for
fast-moving games of street skully.

Tobacco cans, the maroon Prince Albert, were the best,
and kept dyed rabbit’s foots, bottle caps, baby teeth
the fairy forgot to take, and cat’s eyes and aggies safe.

Empty coffee tins with holes punched in their lids
kept grasshoppers, crickets and toads,
while marmalade jars kept butterflies, and ladybugs
and fireflies.

Our project apartments came with appliances,
but when we moved into new development houses,
empty appliance cartons were great for tumbling down hills,
four or five to the carton, for as long as the carton would last.

But the piece de resistance of all empties was the orange crate.
Its thick wooden sides and its long thin wooden slats
provided butt and barrel for a perfect Tommy gun.
And, just for fun, the crate as a whole could be
molded into a go-cart, with a little art, and just the right
pair of metal roller skates, mounted on a four-by-four.

In the years of my youth, I discovered treasures by the score,
but the more I collected, the more I stored; until
in the ripeness of age and acquisition, I found that
there was just no room left to stash them all, besides
they had been joined by more mature collections:
the errant letter from a friend, the college photo,
gold cuff links to a shirt I no longer wore, or had.

It seemed sad. But then again, maybe not so. For I have stashed,
stored them in a place that takes little space,
this treasure trove of memories.

L'Apres Midi d'un Faun

I have very eclectic tastes in poetry. I love Shakespeare's sonnets, Milton's Paradise Lost, the poetry of Matthew Arnold and Dylan Thomas, to name a few. One poet, however, I discovered more for his interesting life, and only came to appreciate his poetry later. That was the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud. He had his first poem published when he was sixteen. He was a wild child, a sexual and alcoholic libertine, and a devout Catholic, who loved many and various woman, yet was the teenage lover of the French poet, Paul Verlaine. But he was a magnificent poet, as well, writing verse that was raw and, at the same time, beautiful. His poetry, however, is more beautiful in its original French. Before he reached 21, he had given up writing altogether, and traveled all over Europe, Asia and Africa before returning to France with cancer which killed him at the age of 37.

He wrote a poem, called "The Faun's Head," in which the reader discovers a young faun munching on flowers. In tribute to his genius, and as a thank you for the enriching hours spent reading his poetry, I am posting that poem tonight. I am also posting a poem I wrote. It has a similar topic and form, but is very different in approach and intent.

The Faun’s Head
Arthur Rimbaud

Among the foliage, green casket flecked with gold,
In the uncertain foliage that blossoms
With gorgeous flowers where sleeps the kiss,
Vivid and bursting through the sumptuous tapestry,

A startled faun shows his two eyes
And bites the crimson flowers with his white teeth.
Stained and ensanguined like mellow wine
His mouth bursts out in laughter beneath the branches.

And when he has fled - like a squirrel -
His laughter still vibrates on every leaf
And you can see, startled by a bullfinch
The Golden Kiss of the Wood, gathering itself together again.


L’Apres Midi d’un Faun
Christopher Bogart

Brittle branches crackle crisply.
Thump upon darkened thump
echoes softly through the thicket,
as cloven hooves hit forest floor.

Its tangled fur of brown
with threads of red, its slender form,
dappled in shadows, rustling limbs,
reclines upon the bed of dead leaves.

And from its reedy pipes,
nasal notes float high
above the leafy canopy, to
permeate the wood with haunting song.

Brotherhood

Brotherhood
Christopher Bogart

Brotherhood
Is at the central core
of Christianity.
The very word
defines relationship,
the language of a single word
of camaraderie.

Brothers in arms,
Brothers in crime,
Brothers- in-law,
Step-brothers,
Foster brothers,
The Brotherhood of Man,
An ancient brotherhood
“Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers …”
A brother’s love.

But what’s so great about brothers anyway,
Particularly if you have one?

If they’re older,
they’re bullies.
If younger,
they’re the brother
you’re bound by blood
to protect.

And what about sibling rivalry?

Sometimes it seems
“He ain’t heavy …” really.
He’s just a pain in the ass.

Across the Fields of Yesterday

Across the Fields of Yesterday
Christopher Bogart

Across the fields of yesterday
Lie dreams that hang like summer smoke,
that, once afloat,
hover over slender blades of grass.

Each gentle puff of wind escapes
and separates diaphanous dreams
to single, slender strands of hope.

Some dissipate into the air.
Some curl and form
like clouds, and
shapes like figures,
Waiting to be read
by desperate eyes.

Some spread
and fly around like
pollen in an August wind,
to populate to newer hopes,
newer visions,
newer dreams,
form faces chasing
traces into alien worlds.

They twirl as airy ballerinas,
pirouette above the fields,
only to yield
to breezes cooler,
crisper, sharper,
curling into faerie forms,
and catching them
before they are borne.

New York Rhapsody

This post was a poetic exercise in sound that I wrote many years ago. I was always fascinated by the sound of words and how that sound affects the meaning of the words together. Like the ancient Greek King Cadmus, who sowed dragon’s teeth into the ground to grow soldiers, fully armed and ready for battle, I too wished to sow words that would do the same thing.

When I was in college, a friend introduced me to the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas. It seemed that Thomas too was as fascinated with words as I was; but it wasn’t until later in my life, that I really grew to appreciate his poetry. In his “Notes on the Art of Poetry,” he said the following about his childhood fascination with nursery rhymes:

…before I could read them for myself I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone. What the words stood for, symbolized, or meant, was of very secondary importance; what mattered was the sound of them as I heard them for the first time on the lips of the remote and incomprehensible grown-ups who seemed, for some reason, to be living in my world. And these words were, to me, as the notes of bells, the sounds of musical instruments, the noises of wind, sea and rain, the rattle of milk-carts, the clopping of hooves on cobbles, the fingering of branches on a window pane, might be to someone, deaf from birth, who has miraculously found his hearing.

I wrote this poem, more like an exercise in sound, on my fascination with New York City many years ago. I don’t know what I want to do with it. Maybe expand on it someday, or maybe just leave it alone, and let it speak for itself.

New York Rhapsody
Christopher Bogart

Along the empty sidewalks and the streets,
Glimmering in the neon-tinted glow,
A city has its never ending birth,
Baptized by the moisture-laden steam
That rises in white wisps from tiny holes
Of large metal sewer caps in the street.

But then, amid the silence, comes the life …

Feet, feet that beat familiar rhythms
Rhythms of the city’s melody.
Wheels, wheels cause the metal caps to clatter
As if to keep in time with soft, clear strains
Of music seeping from beneath marquees.

A symphony, a symphony of sounds,
A symphony of city-scented sounds
The clamor, and the clatter, and the bang
Of city movement, city harmony.


One way or the other, I think that the fascination with sound and meaning that I have had all of my life, and, more recently, with the poetry of Dylan Thomas, has deeply affected my poetry and has set a direction for it in the future.

Brain Drain

Brain Drain
Christopher Bogart

It pains me to think
of a thought worth developing
when trying to write a poem.

Demons leap out, and
scout 'round the mind,
in an effort to find
words borrowed,
words new,
or bought at a price of
who knows what,
and the price that
I’ll have to pay.

Words whirl around ether
bang against cranial walls,
dull words,
weird words,
wonderful words
or so it seems at the time -
then rhymes
in the millions,
a bombastic blight,
a whirlwind of trite
and, finally, some just right
to express just one thought
that was bought
at the cost of this
brain drain.

A Trace of Track

A Trace of Track
Christopher Bogart

There always seems to be
a trace of track that runs
deep in the back of my mind.

On past strolls,
I have trod dry grass,
nudged the soil,
to uncover their linear toil.

Their dull steel rails,
their worn wooden crossbars
leave tracks through my thoughts
traces through my dreams.

It seems I always find
myself in the return
to mine the dry ground,
to found in shadow,
the possibility of pattern,
of thought,
of purpose,
in those same linear dreams,
or so it seems.

Dr. Sabine Gova

Dr. Sabine Gova
Christopher Bogart

Dr. Sabine Gova was an Assistant Professor at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, New Jersey and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Fordham University in New York. She was Vice-Chairman of the Speakers Research Committee for the United Nations and its representative to the United States Mission to the United Nations. And our Art History professor at St. Peter’s College.

Yet, we didn’t even know her real name. We had heard that she had been in the French Resistance during World War II. She was from Alsace-Lorraine, and was a quarter Jewish. She had twice been captured and interred in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. She had one time told us that when she had entered a New York hospital for minor surgery, she was plagued by nightmares, night after night. She had been unable to identify the trigger for these nightmares, until one day she noticed the design of the curtains in her hospital room. The design was linear with short breaks, very similar to the pattern of barbed wire.

We had heard she had chosen the name we knew her by for her work in the Resistance. Her favorite painting was “The Rape of the Sabine Women” by Nicholas Poussin. Her last name was a combination of the English word “go” and its French equivalent.

There was a certain fascination we young men of the Sixties had with this petite mature woman with an unfamiliar French accent. She wore an air of bookish gentility with the same grace that she wore her chalk-dusted black academic gown.

It was the Sixties, and many professors scrambled to “relate” to their students. Dr. Gova carried a European air of distance without disdain. She taught art history, a subject that seemed to have little relevance in a period of time that was boiling the college campuses with loud music, free love, drugs, and protest against a war that was taking our fellow students out of the classrooms and transporting them to the jungles of Viet-Nam. Yet her courses, “Survey of Western Art” and “The Great Masters”, became more popular with each passing year.

She demanded of us what she would have demanded of any of the students in a comparable course at the Sorbonne. And if we failed to produce that which we could barely recognize, we were told with an iron fist in a velvet glove. Entering class one particular day, she began the lesson as she always had, thoroughly researched and on time. When she began by asking us questions about the readings she had indicated we must complete by this time, she quickly realized that none of us were able to enter into this discussion. We were not prepared. She stated, gently but firmly, that that she was prepared, and that when we were, to notify her. And she left the room. At first, we were elated. Wow. A free hour. But, on the following day, when we returned to the classroom and found that the day’s assignments were there, we also found out that she was not. And it appeared that she had no intention of returning soon. We discussed this dilemma and finally decided to send a delegation to speak to her and find out what it would take to get our teacher back. I was the delegation. I found her in her office that afternoon, and timidly I asked her if she considered returning to class in the near future. She asked me to sit, and with a kindness I will never forget, explained to me that my fellow students and I had not kept the unwritten contract between ourselves and our mentor. We were not prepared to learn. I apologized for that, and said that I thought that we had learned our lesson. We had been keeping up with the assignments she had been sending into class daily. Now we wanted her back. With a gentle smile she told me that she would return tomorrow. And when tomorrow came, there she was. She began the class, and nothing more was ever said about the first walk out we had ever seen a professor pull.

On one particularly memorable class, while studying Pablo Picasso’s famous work Guernica, we were treated to what to her was an ordinary lesson, but to us was one of the most memorable in our lives. The first slide showed an unfinished painting, with Picasso sitting in front of it, painting away. The next slide had more finished. Wow. She had acquired slides of one of the world’s most famous artists in the process of finishing a great work. However the third slide was something we were not prepared for. It was a picture of Picasso still painting Guernica, but with Dr. Gova talking to him about the composition. We walked out of that class with a renewed respect for our petite French mentor.

Saturdays were optional classes, and took place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Every Saturday, she would meet with anyone who wanted just “a little more” to tour the museum and talk about works of art we had only seen in books and on slides. Once, on one of these Saturday outings, she spied a new Metropolitan acquisition. It was a marble satyr with the pertinent historical information on a plaque underneath. “Oh no.” she said, “This is not right.” When we asked why, she informed us quite definitely that it was a fake. We smiled. Maybe she was good, but was she that good? Before we could think of an answer, she asked to be excused. She had to talk to the curator. In disbelief, we followed her up to Thomas Hoving’s office, and waited to see whether she would gain admission. After a few minutes, his door opened, and she entered. A few minutes later, she came out, as Mr. Hoving thanked her for her concern. The following Saturday, the satyr had been removed.

Dr. Gova was an educator in the truest and most complete sense of the word. In fact, she would go to great lengths to educate, and never missed an opportunity to teach, to instill and to broaden our knowledge and love of art. Whether it was in her Great Masters course, where she took her students once each year to the house or apartment of a great artist to discuss his art, or in much more modest yet intense ways, she created “the teachable moment.” One day I had found a fragment of old blue and white china in my backyard when digging out a garden for my parents. I washed the fragment and brought it in to show her. She looked it over very carefully, then told me to hold on to it. I thought her response to be polite if not distant. At the end of the next class, she called me to her desk. She told me to meet her in New York the following Saturday and gave me the address and time. She had made an appointment with a renowned china specialist. To tell me more about the little piece of china I had found in the backyard. She was amazing.

She was a master teacher in the best sense of that title. She prepared thoroughly for each class. She expected her students to do the same. She developed an interest in great art in each of the students she taught, and fed that interest in every class. Among her former students are art curators, art historians and art teachers. And dedicated teachers of every subject. Because of her influence on me all those years ago, I have tried for all my career to be one of those teachers. Just as she was.

The Sword in the Stone

On Friday, January 22, 2010, I wrote a post about my love of detective murder mysteries entitled “The Giant Rat of Sumatra” after an “alluded to” mystery that the biographer of the master detective, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson never told.

Today I want to speak of another reading passion of mine, fantasy. I think that this passion began with the tales of knights and damsels in the court of King Arthur. As a child, I dreamed of being one of those knights who had squires, a court life and great quests. While based on a legendary British king, almost everything about Camelot was pure fantasy, drawn from the chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth, the songs of French troubadours, “Le Mort d’Arthur” by Sir Thomas Mallory, “The Idylls of the King” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Once and Future King by T.H. White and the musical, Camelot by Allen Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe. In 1299, King Edward I of England had a wooden round table made and painted in the city of Winchester, so fascinated was he by the Arthurian legend. I had a set of plastic knights, spear men and bowmen in silver and gold that I played with all of the time when a child; and, as an adult, was disappointed not to find them when cleaning out my mother’s house after her death last year. Like every other child then, as well as today, I reveled in fantasy, in dreaming, and that dreaming probably formed the foundation of my present imagination.

Children today still have King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table to dream about. But they also have other fantasy stories as well. Like my childhood dreams, all children like to dream of being more powerful than they feel, and that one aspect of fantasy to me is the most powerful element of these stories. Whether it is physical strength, royal glory, mythic power or magic, this element of dream empowerment is the strong aphrodisiac of the genre. The young Arthur had it. The Pevensie children had it. Harry Potter has it. Percy Jackson has it. And, because of it, Arthur becomes a king, Peter and Edmund Pevensie become kings and Susan and Lucy Pevensie become queens, Harry Potter becomes a powerful wizard, and Percy Jackson, a demi-god and hero.

There seems to be another element in childhood fantasy that necessitates such powers. That element is “abandonment.” Arthur never knew his father or mother as they die while he is still an infant. The Pevensie children are sent away from their parents and into the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War II. Harry Potter’s mother and father are killed protecting him from the wrath of Lord Voldemort. And Percy Jackson doesn’t know that his absent father is the Greek god, Poseidon, until he is a teen; and, even then, rarely hears from him.

And then there is the quest. Arthur must first pull the sword, Excalibur, from the stone before he can create his society of honor and, quite honestly, Christian virtue. The Pevensie children must defeat the White Witch in order to earn Narnia, Harry Potter must defeat Voldemort before he and his world can be safe. And Percy Jackson must find and return Zeus’ lightning bolt before he is recognized as a hero.

I do not mean for this post to be a treatise on fantasy. Actually I am writing this post, as I wrote the one in January on the detective murder mystery, simply to say that I really love fantasy. I guess it is the child in me. I guess that it is the child in all of us. I know many adults that have read all of the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis, all of the Harry Potter books of J.K. Rowling, and all of the Percy Jackson books of Rick Riordan. These books, the products of fertile imaginations, await each reader like the sword in the stone awaited Arthur, who had to do nothing more than pull it out of its prison to enjoy its power. This summer, as I did when I was a child reading about King Arthur, I am reading the Percy Jackson novels. And I am loving every minute of it.

What My Parents Wanted

What My Parents Wanted
Christopher Bogart

On January seventh, nineteen forty-six, I was not really aware of my mother’s expectations
of who I would be. The Gerber Baby, I suppose. That was the image of infancy,

in those days when depression and war had finally abated, and overseas fathers were
anxious to get home. New mothers were so very dependent on their elderly neighbors,

those wise women in small floral print cotton dresses from whom much was expected.
I am sure she didn’t expect eighteen hours of labor and the inevitable Cesarean

before she could see for herself what she and my father had wrought:
a tiny round head, perhaps, with wispy red hair, teacup ears, china blue eyes,

a pink bow mouth, in a little powder blue gown to remind them of the security of
their legacy, of the bearer of their last name, their “sweetest little fella that everybody

would know was mighty lak’ a rose.” I can picture my father, in his bright navy whites, holding
his sailor cap in one hand, and a baseball glove in the other. As he stared through the

nursery window and the nurse held me up, I’ll bet he expected to see me one day as his
personal champion on a Little League team, the shortstop, I’d wager. I’ll bet, as my mother

lie in her hospital bed, she had visions of me as a lawyer, the post-war Perry Mason,
deciding the fate of the innocent in moving summation, spun to the jury’s rapt attention.

Was that what my mother expected? Were those my father’s dreams? What were they thinking,
hoping, dreaming as they wrapped me in their world of whitest white and held me so very tight?

They never said. For, in a life in real time, I became a teacher of tall tales, a listener of sad
stories, a volunteer in the commonweal of black and brown, of yellow and red, as well as white.

And, let’s not forget, a worker of words. Is that what they wanted? They never said.
In the end, I guess, it just didn’t matter. Like it or not, I’m what they got.

The Poetry of World War IV - 13

The Poetry of World War IV - 13
Christopher Bogart

“The mirror of the sun.”

1.
As he stared up to the sun
He saw that he was one
With all on the earth.
He was one with the land,
The soil, the rocks and pebbles
As well as the mountains.

He was one with the tall grasses
That waved to the wind’s will
And with the wild winds as well.

He was one with the trees,
Whose leafy limbs stretch upwards
To touch the heavens.

He was one with the lakes,
The streams, the rivers, the oceans,
And all that inhabit them.

He was one with the fish in the sea
And the reptiles that guard the land.

He was one with the sparrows in the trees
And with the eagles that soar to the sky.

He was one with the two-legged
And the four-legged
Who roam the land.

He was one with the blue sky,
The white clouds,
The thunder and the lightning,
And with the rain.

He was one with the moon,
The nation of stars.

And he was one with the sun.

He stood in the center of the
Sacred Hoop of Life,
The circle of existence,
Reflected in the rising and
The setting of the sun.

He was the day and night,
The changing of the seasons,
Of birth and of death.


He was one with all eternity,
For at the rising of the sun
At each new day
Until it’s setting each night
For now and for all eternity,
He was one
With the
One.

The Poetry of World War IV - 12

The Poetry of World War IV - 12
Christopher Bogart

“One eternal flame –“

1.
He fled the field for
The safety of the shore,
The birthplace,
The beginning.

And as he ran
Through the tall grasses
Of his life,
Of many lives,
He felt the pain
Of life
Of loss
Of hate
Of fate that seemed
To be ever-present,
Overpowering,
Inevitable.

And when, at last,
He felt the sand
Beneath his feet,
He stopped stock still
And looked to the sky
For his salvation.

The Poetry of World War IV - 11

The Poetry of World War IV - 11
Christopher Bogart

4.
Behold, a pale horse.
His rider advances him forth,
And halts.
From the open visor of the mask
Emanates the thick black smoke
Of carbon, of oil, crude waste,
As forests, once full green,
Now blaze,
Creating an unending haze
Of pollution, destruction, of waste
As black crude gushes from underneath
The ground,
Underneath the oceans to slick and coat
The last flailing struggles of stricken Nature.
As the black smoke clears,
Desolation abounds,
And as the eyes look round,
Nothing remains that moves,
That grows,
Above or below,
For man has finally carved his mark,
His scar in carbon and tar
For life and his unlucky progeny.

The Poetry of World War IV - 10

The Poetry of World War IV - 10
Christopher Bogart

3.
Behold, a black horse.
His rider advances him forth,
And halts.
On his breast,
A mirror catches light
Reflecting back
For those who dare to see:
The mirrored images,
Fixed by distortion of time,
Pass on and on
In an endless history –
Backwards.
The mirror frosts
With the chill of numbing pity:
Gone – an adolescence,
Tanned and strong,
Gone to intellect
And tame pursuits.
The Boy looks back
With yearning and remorse
As time,
Through crumbling passages,
Still shoots.

The Poetry of World War IV - 9

The Poetry of World War IV - 9
Christopher Bogart

2.
Behold, a red horse.
His rider advances him forth,
And halts.
In a cavity
From which emits
The sounds of martial music,
And the stench of decay,
There march:
Legions upon legions
Of beings at war
With themselves, and with humanity.
Sharpened steel, clubs, pickaxes,
Cannon burst and mushroom cloud,
A hail of fire and frantic confusion,
Twisted minds and contorted bodies,
Writhe in brown fields of slow agony.
A crimson red reign
Rains down from the colorless cavity
And splatters the rider’s horse.
The cries of men, the sobbing of women,
The screaming of mangled and singed infants –
And the harsh, shrill sound of alarm
Encircle the glassy-eyed mask.

The Poetry of World War IV - 8

The Poetry of World War IV - 8
Christopher Bogart

“One flame to curse the darkness…”

1.
Behold, a white horse.
His rider advances him forth,
And halts.
Peering below the heavy metallic visor,
The Boy beholds the faceless visage of power.
Through the rider’s eyes, he sees:
Men who, chosen to command,
Twist the tender fate of Man –
Telling what was never true
To cover inconsistencies.
He views men who command by force,
Who spike the bridle of the horse;
Whose boot, equipped with golden spur,
Cuts deep into the tender flank –
Unwitting mortality.
Then, before his tender eyes,
A vision rift with human cries:
People walking in straight lines,
Over hills, through deeper valleys…
A winding caravan of winding figures,
Following the one before him,
Eyes fixed still on slender rods,
Tied in bundles, raising up high –
Senselessly, in seemed eternities.

The Poetry of World War IV - 7

The Poetry of World War IV - 7
Christopher Bogart

“It began with the light of one flame …”

1.
Rising – he begins to walk,
Ascending from his hill retreat
Up and onward
To the plain above.
There – where tall, green waving grass
Simulates the ocean’s flow;
There, the Boy – a savior stands,
Legs and arms wait for command,
Eyes soft stare intent across the plain.
Ready he to face the foe,
Ready for the foe below –
He watches
As the high grass licks his legs.
There before him, on the plain,
Stands the horsemen, hand and mane,
Spectre-like, and yet in form,
Earthbound.
The Boy quivers in their gaze.
He, who chosen to defy,
Stands firm on soil of his birth;
Yet, no roots.
He sees into the future of his fate.
He yearns, he hopes, he holds to purify.

The Poetry of World War IV - 6

The Poetry of World War IV - 6
Christopher Bogart

3.
Quietly he sits
On the side of the hill
Like a wolf upon the steppes.
He watches the world
As it ‘rounds and ‘rounds,
A circular life
From shore to plain,
From city to town,
Watching the horse on the carousel
Prancing down to the water’s edge,
And splashing, lemming-like
Into the sea.
A horrible thing for a child to see-
A hopeless dizzying carousel,
A whirlwind of humanist animal life
Swirling down an eternity.
He looks transfixed
Upon the scene
Self same upon the hill,
Self same within himself.
Confused from without
And within.

4.
One thought.
One thought begins to grow,
Projected on his tender mind.
One thought begins to build and grow
Like balanced, columned, pure white temples,
Like gothic spires vaulting high,
Like great cathedrals, domed and strong.
Like towering palaces, gilded gold-
One thought.
Soon followed by another.
This one built both great and grand.
This one built of awesome power.
This one built of frightening might.
This one moved all life to see.
This too carved in majesty –
Then nothing.
Nothing but the strength of stone,
Nothing but the height of clouds,
Nothing but the light of millions –
Stars upon his tender mind,
Gleaming brightly, turning ‘round.
He lifts his soft and feeling hand,
And stretches his palm to face the sky.

The Poetry of World War IV - 5

The Poetry of World War IV - 5
Christopher Bogart

“The Light invaded the darkened plain.”

1.
See the silence of the Child.
See the silent solitude
Of the thoughts
On the mind
Of the Child.
Armies of strangers,
Travelers from afar
Cannot move
What will move
The thoughts of the Child.
One thousand hands,
Five hundred hearts
Cannot move
What will move
The Child to smile.
Be aware
Of the air
Of a thousand hands.
Keep your eyes
To the eyes
As the scene is told
On the mind
Of the Child.

2.
Shadows are dancing – shading the green,
Hands reaching out
Around the Child
Forming a ring with hands.
They dance a fast but meaningless dance,
Around and around
With a meaningless chant
To a mad cacophony.
“Actions speak louder than words.”
Thought the Child,
“Actions speak louder than words.”
He stretched out his hand
Toward the shadowy face,
The face of the Fisher King.
The flash of a silver web-
It was gone.
Alone – he fell on blades of grass,
His eyes toward the sky.
Bright stars reveal a night
Like any night in his life,
Or any day.
No dew today will coat the blades of grass.
Now dew tonight will rain upon the stars.

The Poetry of World War IV - 4

The Poetry of World War IV - 4
Christopher Bogart

“And, as the waters receded…”1

On the plains above the shore,
Green grass grows,
Flowering forth in waves,
In chase of a fleeting sun.
The gleam of swords and plowshares
Sticking firmly in the porous soil
Are the metal remains,
Obsolete weapons of now warriors
Preparing for the war.
Only the air contains the clash.
The sundial of the dawn and dusk
Become irrelevants.
The barricades of war are not defined.
They lie within the softness of humanity,
Their movement’s silent,
But not serene.
The Child
Listens to their silent sounds.
His eyes – they salt the sea
As they watch the play:
The drama of unnumbered acts.
The message lies a million miles away –
By light, by sound, and by night.

The Poetry of World War IV - 3

The Poetry of World War IV - 3
Christopher Bogart

“There was light…”

1.
A Child plays upon the sand;
Pushing the sand in mounds,
And mounding the sand toward
The sea.
His long, slender foot pushes the sand,
With the sole and curved digits.
Glass and sand,
Stroked by the sea,
Diminishes in size.
The Child bows low his head
To see the shadows on the sand
Of travelers from the ships of sea.
He hears the beat of feet,
Thundering on the sand.
His eyes catch the gleam
Of bleak indifference.
His tender gaze turns toward the Fisher King,
Throwing his silver net out to the sea.
The sea rolls in, and then recedes.
The Child looks at the peopled shore and laughs.
Then he cries.

2.
The tears dry upon his face.
Their salt seeded the sea.
His eyes view fantastic shapes.
Colors pinwheeling ‘round and ‘round.
The spectrum explodes over the sky.
Blues, greens, oranges, reds,
Yellows and violets drip over the sphere
Of his mind.
Spurts of color shoot out,
Like rays of some fantastic sun,
Merging hues,
New colors to describe.
Shapes appear,
First simple,
Then complex, sided and rounded
In coils and curves
Springing from columns and domes,
Spiraling upward, then shattering
Into new shapes at odds.
Then explosion, and now
Darkness overcomes all.
Shining stars appear in scenes
Enacted upon the mind of one child.

The Poetry of World War IV - 2

The Poetry of World War IV - 2
Christopher Bogart

2.
The Fisher King rests quietly on the rocks,
Arm outstretched with smile serene.
He casts his golden line
Upon the cold, blue waters.
He casts his silver net
To dredge seaweed and sand,
Metallic glimmering crystal clear,
Passing up the sands of time,
Slithering through the mud of doom.
His eyes can clearly see
Through cataracts of choice,
The dusting of clouds,
The atmospheric air,
The mists of brighter days,
The colors of a rainbowed sky.
And softly does the music lilt,
Drifting through the air,
Twisting and turning,
Coiling onward
From within and without,
Notes both sonorous and low,
Set in a minor key:
A lilting screech.
He does not hear.

3.
The water is silent and still.
The waves reached out to grasp the shore,
Falling out,
Receding back again.
The air is in abeyance of its pow’r.
It sprays a scent of salt,
The mark of its timelessness,
And its existence, in the air.
Two eyes peer out over the roll,
Their vision clear and salty,
Traveling on the cool night air.
Two eyes peer out to see a face,
Illuminate the mind with visions
Of the sun and one love shadow,
Shade of an ever-present memory.
Watch its long and slender form,
As it dances
Betwixt the sun and sand.
Watch the vision as it gives and takes.
It rises from the sea
And then recedes.
Watch, wonder, and be still.

The Poetry of World War IV

A number of years ago, when the Cold War was a reality, I started to write an extended piece on the assumption that World War III would be a nuclear conflict, and that it would "wipe the board" of life and war as we now know it. Pretentious, I know, that I would be able to figure that. But what intrigued me was the nature of the "new" type of conflict. If nuclear weapons would be the a war "without," then a new war might be a war "within."

As I said, The Poetry of World War IV is an extended piece, and a metaphoric one. I wanted explore our battles within ourselves, and how we would have to resolve them. In looking over this piece again, I believe that some of the assumptions I made are still valid. Whether this is good poetry, I will leave up to the reader, myself included. For this is also an exercise for me on revision. As always, please feel free to comment, as the feedback will help me as a writer.

The Poetry of World War IV
Christopher Bogart

“If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst at once into the sky,
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.
I am become Death,
The Shatterer of Worlds.”

(from sacred Hindu writings)


“In the beginning …”

1.
In from the sea they came
Travelers of indifference
With an apathetic mind,
Blending confusion and chaos,
Unordering order
And sounding out the waves.
They row with blades of steel,
Shining in the sun,
Sparks flashing,
Then sizzling,
As they dip into the calm, cold sea.
Their strokes are long and hard,
Pushing them onward toward land,
Governed by the silent sound,
One stroke for another,
In cadence undefined,
Moving onto the straight edge of the sword.
They are coming for the land,
Unknown travelers on an unknown cause,
In the style of their mission
Blending confusion with chaos,
Mixing symmetry with sound,
Holding paradox in time.
They have come to claim their due.

The Audacity of Hope

The Audacity of Hope
Christopher Bogart

For the young sailor whose chin rests on the rough wood rail
Below the full sails of the Mayflower, the setting sun at his back,
Looking toward the future for the dawn of a new day, a new world.

For the patriot whose faith trumps fear, clutching his rifle near,
As he gazes across the morning mists of Lexington and Concord,
And dares to believe that he will one day call himself American.

For the black slave who sits on the splintered steps of a wooden shack,
Smoke rising from hearth fires and the remains of the meager meal,
And clasps his calloused hands together, daring to pray for his deliverance.

For the immigrant whose hands clasp the cold metal rail of the transport ship,
His family gathered around him, their eyes staring at the Lady of the Harbor
As she holds her torch aloft, promising them entrance into the golden door.

For the soldier on the fields of Europe, of Africa, of the Middle East and the Far East,
Who gazes out over the fields of conflict, and holds within his heart, the well-won
Ideal that his actions this day will keep the aggressor at bay, and guarantee our freedom.

For the welder, the bricklayer, the fireman, the teacher, the politician and the poet,
Who work, day by day, to fulfill the Declaration made so long ago, for all who hoped
That our new land would be a beacon of hope for all who chose to dream their dream,
For black as well as white,
For yellow, red and brown,
For the old and the young,
That this world will be better than the last,
That this cause will be worth the sacrifice,
That this life will be lived in liberty,
And that the pursuit of happiness be guaranteed
For all who have
The audacity to hope.

Sonnet 18

Sonnet 18
Christopher Bogart

When lighted street lamps gild the green leaves gold
And Autumn’s earliest whisper leaves its lair
To unlock the mind for images that it holds,
Releasing them to haunt the still night air –
One faint figure, hidden half in shadows’ stealth,
Leaks into lamplight, warm with welcoming glow,
To test the memory’s long forgotten wealth
And tease the eyes with things they long to know.
What of this young man filled with frivolous dreams
Emerging from the light in arrogant stride,
Hands holding firm his textbooks by the seams,
The rudders he will use against the tide?
Will he be true to promises made before,
Or will his dreams be lost on distant shores?

The Arts Babblative and Scribblative

The Arts Babblative and Scribblative
Christopher Bogart

“The arts babblative and scribblative.”
Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, No. 1, pt. 2
Robert Southey (1829)

Have I been a professor of old Bob Southey’s arts
Of the babblative and scribblative?
Or was my clime more the nursery rhyme of
Wynken, Blynken and Nod?

Like the fourth, not-so famous, Dutch sailor,
I, too, set sail early one childhood night
from a river of bright crystal light,
with high hopes of reaching the famed sea of dew.

My own journey began,
not in old wooden shoes,
or even in a pea green boat,
but in the deep blue waters of words.

I launched life afloat
on a sea of these words,
words I babbled, words I scribbled,
but always words used,
to instruct, to convince
my all listeners
of knowledge,
of thought,
and of what I believed.

However, I taught,
not with Bob Southey’s reason,
but in the passionate fantasy
of nursery rhyme,
while my students, often times,
to my sailor’s dismay,
seemed only able
to manage
a wink,
a blink,
and a nod.

stream

stream
christopher bogart

waters wind
down
gurgling sound
bound over rocks
lap against banks
transport
yellow leaves
slender twigs
pedal boats
float
each moment
held
our life
like flow
suspended
in time
spent watching
its mellifluous slow.