Marilyn Rea Beyer, Radio/Poems/Stories/VO
Words have power.
Hard times come again no more...
Hard times come again no more...
Difficult times provide a chance to reflect and rethink. We've got a long way to go. On the way, I've been digging around inside my head to try to figure out and express what's there. Here are a couple of musings that formed themselves into poems:
Every morning
The same man sleeps
on the same bench at the edge
of the park.
Everything about him is black:
Black shoes
Black socks
Black chinos
Long-sleeved black shirt
Black hands
Black face
A black plastic bag filled with what?
I can’t tell.
He looks so put together,
sleeping there, self-possessed and calm.
I think, “Maybe he works all night.”
Everything flows around him:
Skateboarders
Cyclists
Strollers
Nannies with strollers
Second-graders trying out two-wheelers
Old couples hand in hand.
Does anybody else even see him?
I can’t tell.
If he woke to see me
intently looking at him
would he think, “What’s up with you?”
Everything about me would give him doubts:
Blue bike
Blue shirt
Blue helmet
White socks
White hands
White face.
Would he know I am his friend?
I can’t tell.
Not like a beer at a baseball game
kind of friend,
just the fellow human kind.
Would he know that my skin
is this thinnest part of me?
That my blood weighs more than my skin?
That the meat and bone and other stuff underneath
is the heaviest part of me?
That I know that the same goes for him?
I wonder if he knows that,
or if my nerves would let me tell him.
I can’t tell.
So, this is what I think about when I see
the same man asleep
on the same bench at the edge
of the park
every morning.
6.5.2020
© Marilyn Rea Beyer
The Disappearing Man
He did not select his fate. It was no vanishing act intended to impress.
He wished to remain intact
to arise and bathe and dress,
to chalk in another square,
mark off just one more date.
Sudden-stilled Earth would like to continue to turn.
What a clumsy sleight of hand,
beyond the angels’ touch,
bent under the gods’ demand for pestilence and such,
that bade humanity embrace the ashen urn.
You, be fierce. Defy the sanitary dying.
Stand upon on your balcony
Shout.
Cheer.
Sing.
Rise up in cacophony. Make the invisible ring.
Be seen.
Have courage.
Be heard.
Be living.
© Marilyn Rea Beyer
5.17.2020
In support of The Midnight Special, Folkstage, Studs Terkel Archives and Classical music at WFMT. Donate at www.wfmt.org
In support of The Midnight Special, Folkstage, Studs Terkel Archives and Classical music at WFMT. Donate at www.wfmt.org
This poem originated at the Salem Athenaeum...Nathaniel Hawthorne's old hangout. Today it's a haven for new writers. Show your support: http://salemathenaeum.net/support/donations/
This poem originated at the Salem Athenaeum...Nathaniel Hawthorne's old hangout. Today it's a haven for new writers. Show your support: http://salemathenaeum.net/support/donations/
We Will Not be SilencedIndieBlu(e) Poetry Anthology... contains three of my poems and hundreds of others by writers I admire. Now in print and Kindle on amazon.com.
Subtitled "The Lived Experience of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Told Powerfully through Poetry, Prose, Essay and Art," this book is neither screed nor pity party. Rather, it’s a positive, powerful platform to give voice to people who have been sexually exploited, abused, treated as invisible.Listen and believe them.
Click for a short video:
This one hit me observing my city hit by COVID-19
This one hit me observing my city hit by COVID-19
The Disappearing Man or Resist the Inevitable
The disappearing man did not select his fate.
It was no vanishing act
intended to impress.
He wished to remain intact
to arise and bathe and dress,
to chalk in another square, mark off just one more date.
Sudden stilled Earth would like to continue to turn.
What a clumsy sleight of hand,
beyond the angels’ touch,
bent under the gods’ demand
for pestilences and such,
that bade humanity embrace the ashen urn.
You, be fierce. Defy the sanitary dying.
Stand upon on your balcony
and shout and cheer and sing.
Rise up in cacophony.
Make the invisible ring.
Be seen to have courage. Be heard to be living.
©Marilyn Rea Beyer
Also: Follow the strong words of strong women in Whisper and the Roar. Two of my poems were published during June '18. Click on the poem titles to read To Live Like Shakespeare and I Never Feared Death.