Poems
Original Poetry by Warren GastonAsking Directions
Paris, Montmartre, 10/7/16 On the Rue Saint Eleuthere I entered a gallery to ask the owner the way to Picasso’s le Bateau Lavoir*, the ‘laundry boat’ where Pablo scrubbed artifice from art in 1907. The man let fly directions with his hands, gesticulating - go...
Teen Joie de Vivre
Lyon, France 10/4/16 4:00 p.m. Four black teenage girls, hair sculpted in intricate artful braids, shoulder hip bump bounced along the cobbled Rue Sainte-Helene, their giggled voices ricocheting mouth to ear, exuberant for some reserved excitement I could not know and...
The Garden
Each day a man carries cut roses to the garden, a bouquet of roses to the garden, long stem roses to the garden, the garden of sticks and stones, the garden of stiff stalks, withered leaves, and black petals. What can we learn from the man who each day carries roses...
Six Admonitions
Do not go far from the sea and from the earth. Do not go far from the moon and stars. Do not run, walk, through cloud rain. Do not build thick windowed walls against wind. Do not turn your back on the sun. Do not hide in Edison’s light from night’s shadow....
The Consistent Inconsistency of Time
Harold Sawkill wondered of the time. Not what time is, time’s very nature, not what causes time and why, but what time it is now, here, the hour, the minute, the seconds between meridians in this place. Harold looked at his watch. The time was noon exactly, sun high...
*Ainadamar, the Spring of Tears
To Federico Garcia Lorca Federico, socialist playwright, lyrical poet, you pushed your lines beyond the limit, words scrawled outside the page thin edge. Men with leather boot heads loathed your voluptuous world, feared your fist punch plays, were cut by your...
Songs from the Mouth of Life
A cry is the first song. A laugh the second. A groan the third. A yawn the fourth song. A sigh the last. Each sound, a song from the mouth of life.
My Eternity
It is blue. It is green, not pearl white, not golden, and infinitely brief. 2000
The Snake
The snake, black beauty, four feet dead, broken, still in death, curves of serpentine grace. My wife, oblivious, stepped over the enemy of Eve, a root among rocks, a silenced fang. I saw the snake, froze in fear, or was it fascination, could not step over it, stuck...