Apple trees along the dark road at night

Apple trees along the dark road at night
Drop their fruit into the ditches
And deer come to eat the fruit – it is not yet
The frozen winter, it is a cold autumn for the deer,
For apples that will freeze through and still be eaten in the ditches.
This changing of the seasons is brutal and no one cares.
These natural forces seem not to compete with money and technology.


by Anatol Cordua © 2017

Others in the forests in Poland, running naked

Others
In the forests in Poland, running naked
On the edges of civilization, dying walking.
Dying, only when they walked, a sharp-edged
Physical ladder down, but reams, reams
At certain times, mass reams.
We? Free. Free.


by Anatol Cordua © 2017

Did you know, Bob

Did you know, Bob, that we were Jews
In Hamburg, then quick to Amsterdam,
Escaping Germany’s hyperinflation,
And then, by good fortune:
We were Sephardi, Hebrew in Spanish,
Of Catalonia, blue eyes, blonde hair,
Wealthy, with an Island off Peru, we
Lost everything but gained our lives:
Ellis Island, Elfrieda, Charlotte,
Theodore, Anatole my great grandfather,
Naturalizations, before FDR cur
The line. The bastard, winged right
And Patrician, the cow. Others
In the forests in Poland, running naked
On the edges of civilization, dying walking.
Dying, only when they walked, a sharp-edged
Physical ladder down, but reams, reams
At certain times, mass reams.
We? Free. Free.


by Anatol Cordua © 2017

It is raining. I am inside

It is raining. I am inside,
In the external room,
That projects over the villa.
It is the sun room, it has mechanical
Fiber shades all around each self-opening
Window, forming a rectangular
Space. Four super-colored: blue,
Orange, yellow, yellow-down-toned,
Paper lanterns, they hang from the
Ceiling. The shades, I closed them all
With the touch of my fingers
On the control pad, and slept
Waking, thinking it must be 4, afternoon.
I touched the pad at seven this morning,
And it was only nine thirty.
Now I sit on a little swivel chair,
It glows with the paper lanterns,
And, I add, the floor lights just inside
From the sun room. I feel four o’clock.

I know about the atrocities in Mosul.
And, the Yazidi genocide. Nothing
Happens, that I don’t let be known
To me. I miss nothing. I am
Obsessively thorough, to the point
Of pain. It gets harder
Each year.


by Anatol Cordua © 2017

I still said tod ay...

I still said today, welcome world.
Still, the lies are propagating the earth's
People. The lie is becoming the man;
Pity him. Without him
There is no truth. Pity him that becomes a lie.
Answer him, I’ll hear you.
Combine out of me.
I’ll stand very still.


Anatol Cordua © 2017