Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonEmpty Sky
Sunday morning, while picking up the New York Times in its wet wrapper from the fresh rain on the driveway, I looked up. Steel gray clouds stretched from horizon to horizon muffling the light song of the sun. By noon the clouds, disturbed by wind, thinned, broke up,...
How to Read a Surrealistic Poem
Just like real life, some poems don’t make sense, at least not immediately. Like the problems in my high school algebra class, there is an unknown factor represented by the letter ‘x’. If you carefully work through the equation you can discover the value of ‘x’....
Where I Am From
Where I am from there is no river. There is a river, but that’s not where I’m from. Where I am from there is no mountain. There is a mountain, but that’s not where I’m from. Where I am from there is no ocean. There is an ocean, but that’s not where I’m from. Where I...
Nice People
Nice people like me ruin the world. You wouldn’t think so, but it's true. People who can start wars often do and nice people say they shouldn’t. But when called to come, nice people go. Nice people don’t get rich by robbing banks. But people who own banks get rich by...
An Explication of the Poem: ‘Reading a Poem’
The poem Reading a Poem was posted on PBT April 21, 2020. In RED below are some of the thought I put into the poem. Maybe this will help readers get your thoughts out.. If you read a poem and like it, don’t worry. Read it again. 'Like' is a lightweight word, even...
Reading a Poem
If you read a poem and like it, don’t worry. Read it again. If you read it again and still like it, give it a rest, then read it again. If, on the third try, the word ‘like’ does not does not strike you as poorly chosen and wrong, throw the poem away. Don't read it...
Zoom Coast to Coast
Last evening [4/19/20] a friend of mine gathered a group of her socially distancing friends together through Zoom for 70 minutes of following the poet Mary Oliver's Instructions for Living a Life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. After a beautiful...
The Drain
I watch a slow drain reluctantly swallow water in my bathroom sink. The water seems to sit, appears to wait. Then, a swirl dips center down into a whirlpool of descent, In the pit of my being, a sinking feeling rises, time’s gravity swallows everything...
The Press Conference
Is it an echo? Is it a broken record? An ever repeating gif? Or a man distracting us from his track record?