Three Poems by Gerald Solomon: Message, Going There, Above The Desert

Three Poems

by Gerald Solomon

Message

Sometimes hawks come overhead.
You see them appear,
two, three, five at a time,
looking down for mice to eat.
Near the hayfield, where the garden ends,
my wife, tying up the bean-sticks.
Working steadily there,
too far to hear me call.
Up here in the shade, trying to read,
intending to understand,
I think of my books indoors,
my rows and rows of books.
There, the names working to believe,
writing down what they need,
words that make words behave,
trying to join far with near.
They may not have some words
I need most of all for myself....
When you come you'll see our house,
the last one in the road.

Going There

I set out in time but stopped to look
where the road bends
and you see small mountains far off.
So far off they hint another path.
Looking, something new filled my mind,
the way sunlight goes into water,
touching nothing, changing everything.
Tell me then I’m wrong in this:
a kind of happening,
besides chemical truth,
has no good formula for need, or trust?

Above The Desert

Empty air six miles falling down.
We all look below at planet dust —
Mohave the brown, turning on a local rim.
Soft rock, a desert rubs away.
We pass like some ordinary asteroid.
I’m on my way home.
Yes, but looking down out of the sky!
Pale metals: heavy wing, smooth fairings
above a wandering unplanned cloud.
Up here this blazing light can stupefy.
Amazed tourist, how tally what you think,
ideas too high from worn ground?

Gerald Solomon was born in London and studied English Literature at Cambridge University. After a short spell as sales assistant at a bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road he worked as a producer at the BBC. Subsequently becoming engaged in education, he helped found General Studies courses at Hornsey College of Art, and this led eventually to an enjoyable period teaching poetry courses at Middlesex University. He retired early in order to paint and write. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines in the USA and UK as he prepares his first collection. He is married, with four children, and lives in Manhattan.

Copyright 2012 Gerald Solomon. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.