It is mind - separating,
playing games with sticky notes,
pink and blue blankets,
labeling all, calling one this,
and the other not-this.

We discuss, measure, define,
divide, delude, elude life into
nonsense walls and towering stacks
built of assayed words and phrases
parsed and trimmed for easy view
through one-eyed cleft windows.

See Venus. See Mars.
recitations claiming wisdom in
neat self-help rows at Borders,
Barnes and Noble, Walden Books
spurred by myths on wings of
DISK and Cable and Podcastic
downloads metering clarity and
belief in half-truths summed as whole.

I am man. ESPN 1 and 2,
ropes and dopes, 45’s, NASCAR
You are woman. Guiding Light,
Oxygen, Lifetime, Oprah
telling all of separation
directing to differences,
calling all as Masculine what
is not Feminine and what is
Feminine, not Masculine.

Then we play intelligent games
called Either/OR or Both/And continuing illusions holding us apart
for though different we are but
one in infinite variety
Masculine-Feminine - Androgyny
Our reality. Our gift. Our Savior.

Loss marked by time ahead
defines the interlude
where the finite and infinity
flow in hearts and minds
of the players.

Whether tears at curtain
water apple orchards or
fall on hardened plains
is the test of spirit;
to live in moments dear,
caressing time with favor
or fear and fight the end,
spading time with bitterness.

Loss marked by time ahead
defines the interlude—
nothing more, all else,
save random walks,
is of life’s moments
met by love and pain
or left undisturbed in
bereft mountain passes,
barren caves,
and chilled volcanoes.

i
Morning, eyes open and
I wish I knew but it is
another day filled with
grays and passing rainbows.

I look for the surety of
black and white and
they are found on tooth
brush bristles, a passing car.

That is what I know for sure.
The car was red – I think.

I watch those with right
knowledge, unquestioned
loyalty to fact and faith–
envy my mark on hard days.

Six day’s a day of rest.
Heaven. Hell. Bottom line.
Chocolate Chip. Fig Newton
Arabs, Jews, Pimps, and Poets.

Good and Evil. Facts are facts.
Context a meaningless river
where trenchant boulders stir
right order into prodigal chaos.

ii
Oh for surety, a simpler life
where I could point and point,
filtering right from wrong
with McCarthy’esk sanctity.

I gave my all, yet space where
gifts fell a Saharan wasteland,
seeds blessed with thousand
year knowing held to inspection,
swept aside with suspicion’s broom.

All pomes ©Roger Marshall 1998-2008

Poet William Carlos Williams* said, “It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” In the healing necessary to mend the worlds individual and communal fragmentation we are most apt to advance the struggle using our “old dependable” fragmented concepts, processes and tools, they are what we have for the most part. It is strange, and certainly unexpected in our society, to advance the case for power-in-poetry. Yet, it is through the integrating power of poetry that critical needs in our battle to heal our fragmented world are found. This is not to set aside the need for information, facts, statistics, and means of measurement; language and especially poetry bring wisdom to these essentials.

Thinking Poems by Roger Marshall

*From Asphodel, that Greeny Flower by William Carlos Williams

fetid
dreary
waiting for the close.

Knowledge
caring
wisdom

boxed in black steel mesh and
bound with the silver duct tape of
final separation, then the swift kick,
the mindless solution calling forth
subsidence, in-grave-ing gems of
learning leaving little changed and
opportunity channeled in concrete
rivers,

Poetry is finer and more philosophical that history; for poetry expresses the universal and history only the particular.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Greek philosopher

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.