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Parque España, Mexico City
I walked until I couldn’t walk without
at least alighting on a city bench,
the first that had a shaded seat, about
ten yards from workers digging out a trench
to place a pipe to mend a water break.
But this was causing traffic to congest
so that a cop, guiding a car to take
a too-sharp turn, had the car’s bumper pressed
against a parked forklift. The driver leapt
from his Mercedes Benz; and straight away
car horns began to blow a sound that swept
the paddock in the park with dogs at play.
What next I heard I still hear to this day—
a calming breath. I stood and walked away.
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A Midsummer Day’s
Six O’clock Dream
What takes me off unto these reveries
to where the real globe is made to cease,
a theater of shadows in the day
with players saying what I choose they say?
I do not know. But if I could I’d live
within this little world I could contrive,
and hear exactly what I want to hear,
without the critic’s gripe and sans the jeer.
“Six-ten Peekskill.” I guess they never last.
Within this play an offstage voice is cast
as one who brings the curtain to a close
as once again the world should interpose,
back to the painted stars, back to the ruck
of Grand Central’s insanity. Oh, Puck.
.
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Who Am I?
Held together by what I’d like to know?
Let’s put the flesh and blood analogy
aside right now. Too obvious to show.
Yes, yes, it’s true—that stuff makes me be me.
Then there’s my unique private history,
the newspaper announcement of my birth,
The parents, brothers in the house where we
Had lived, a tiny pinpoint on the earth.
No, that’s not it either. Is it the thread
of all recorded time that ranges through
the Greeks and Romans, Jews et al. which lead
through Christ to a distinctive worldview?
I do not know. I’ll let this moment pass
and put away the magnifying glass.
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The Waves Won’t Stop
The waves won’t stop until the world stops.
Or could it use a more poetic word
like cease for stop or maybe if it swaps
for stops, ceases, or maybe there’s a third
like quit or halt—perhaps to terminate;
but that implies the waves possess a will
instead of being acted on by—wait—
by fate or weight or trait or overspill?
There really aren’t enough right words to fit:
hypnotic or eternal or incessant,
thought provoking—or this I could admit—
creation’s first flawless antidepressant.
What is the force that moves the waves to break
and break and break and then a poem to make?
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An Insect Hits a Windshield
An insect hits a windshield as if thrown.
So too the earth will end with silent splat.
You could have ascertained that on your own.
You really need a poem to tell you that?
Perhaps a science tract’s gobbledy cant,
a teleprompt and graph will shed some light.
Who’s not persuaded by an egghead’s rant,
the nomenclature of the erudite?
Maybe the advertising will convince;
age-spot-reducing hemorrhoidal creams,
tucks ‘round the eyes, skin peals, a deep blue rinse,
or wigs and other age-defying schemes.
Eschatologic musings of a monk,
too old to toll the bell, and slightly drunk.
.
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Geoffrey Smagacz writes from Mexico (mostly) and South Carolina. His poetry has been published in various literary magazines and e-zines, including 14 by 14, Dappled Things and the Society of Classical Poets. His latest murder mystery, Reportedly Murdered (Wipf and Stock, 2022), is now available through online venues. A collection of his fiction, published under the title of A Waste of Shame and Other Sad Tales of the Appalachian Foothills (Wiseblood Books, 2013), won the 2014 Independent Publisher gold medal for Best Mid-Atlantic Regional Fiction. www.geoffreysmagacz.com, @Ge0ffreyW on Twitter.
Interesting poems with a personal perspective disclosing observations and thoughts about our own existence. As I recall T. S. Eliot saying in “The Hollow Men,” “The world will end not with a bang, but a whimper.” That relates to the “silent splat.”
Thanks!
The echoes of Wordsworth’s “ I wandered lonely as a cloud” seem transposed to “Parque España” and the imminence of places, sounds and images heighten the deep mystery that is visible in an instant of awareness beyond knowing. Thoroughly enjoyed them.
Thak you, Josue.
In the insect poem, I like your phrasing of “silent splat”, “gobbledy cant”, and “egghead’s rant”. However, you’ve misused “peals”, which should be “peels”. To peal is to ring out, as in peals of laughter or peals of thunder. The only other bugaboo is that in lines 7 & 8 of “Who Am I?” “The” and “Had” should be lower case to agree with the upper and lower case that you use throughout the rest of the poem. I hope you don’t take offense at my nitpicking. If you only knew how hard I am on myself!
Thanks for catching those and mentioning them, Cheryl.
Geoffrey, what a treat to have five well-done cerebral sonnets in a single post! You reproduce the effect of Mexico City traffic so well that I recognize it from my only experience of it, which is watching livestreamed Latin Mass from a Mexico City church. The clamor is always there, just more clearly audible when the door to the sacristy is briefly opened. The ending to “Midsummer’s Day” is clever indeed, offering an amusing laugh in place of an obscenity. I have sat in Grand Central waiting for Hudson Line trains. And with “The Waves,” you manage a unique approach to a subject that has appealed to an overspill of poets.
Thanks for the careful read, Margaret. As exotic as Mexico City is, it’s also a big noisy modern urban center that’s modernizing rapidly. However, Parque España, located in an historic area, is well worth a visit. I lived in NYC for decades. I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company do A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream on Broadway. Magical. Like Grand Central Station sometimes.